The end of the road

Just spent my last day in Chicago, and my last full day of this trip.  I went for a run in the morning, something I havent done in quite a while, but a good start to the day nonetheless.  We went to downtown Chicago, and walked down Michigan Ave to Millennium Park to see the fountains and the bean.  I do wonder why of all the possible shapes, they chose a big silver bean.  The rains came just after we finished Millennium Park, and they came hard.  For the rest of the afternoon, we we walked around in ponchos, looking ridiculous, but staying dry.  A walk down to the Navy Pier, we bought some Garrett's caramel popcorn, and thought of riding the ferris wheel, but it was shut down due to the rain.  A stop by Niketown Nike store was three stories of overpriced athletic merchandise, and their running shoe selection was limited.  Having eaten nothing but 2 donuts and popcorn since breakfast, we drove home, and had a deep dish chicago style pizza ordered in, watched television, and enjoyed our last night on the road.  Tomorrow is the long 11 hour drive back to Mechanicsburg, Pa.  Plus, I lose an hour because I'm traveling into the eastern time zone.  Solid night of sleep necessary for tonight, which should come easily after an exciting last day.

A few midwest cities

So im watching true blood while typing this.  I havent watched television in two and a half weeks.  So despite the low quality television in front of me, I am distracted.  But I figured I needed to let you all know where I am and where I have been.  After leaving Texas, we spent the night with one of Justine's friends that she met in Ireland.  She lives in mid town Memphis, and we went out to a local BBQ pit that had all the sorts of pulled chicken, pork, and turkey that represents the local flavors.  It was very delicious eating, followed by a trip to a local ice cream parlor, that has also adopted an ingenious method of serving:  self serve.  You get your own soft serve ice cream, put on whatever toppings you want, then you pay by the weight.  I'm bringing this great idea back with me to the northeast.  If an environmental job doesnt pan out for me in the future, well I've got a great idea for a self-serve ice cream shop.  Memphis also has a great waterfront district, with bluffs overlooking the Mississippi.  We enjoyed our stay there for one night.
Next up was St. Louis, where Justine also had another friend from Ireland living there, working at Washington University.  The drive to St. Louis from Memphis was of course boring.  It's the midwest.  What do you expect.  I'm sorry if I'm hurting anyone's feelings by saying that the midwest is boring and empty, but it really is.  Besides the cities, there's just not much there to catch your eye.  But St. Louis is a great city in my opinion, with a nice downtown buisness district, and the Gateway arch of course, but also a delightful college feel around Washington U, with forest parks and a nice college bar area.  We were treated to a nice apartment to sleep at, and spent a night out at a local bar playing darts and having a few beers with some of the local students.  It was a grand time.
Now, we're in Chicago, staying with another of Justine's friends from Ireland (this has really been more of an Ireland reunion trip for her as of late, and now I'm the one along for the ride).  She lives in Palatine, a suburb about an hour from the downtown Chicago section.  Of course the drive from St. Louis to Chicago was one of the most boring 5 hour drives I've ever embarked on.  Only the drive back east from here to Pa will probably be worse.  We stopped twice, once for gas, and another time to switch drivers, at which point I jumped into the gas station bathroom and shaved my joe dirt facial hair so that I looked handsome.  But again, Chicago is nice, and I'm looking forward to going downtown tomorrow to see all the touristy things, like the bean, and, well, whatever else there is to see.  Tomorrow is my last day of the trip before my final drive home to Pennsylvania.  I will have a few more posts after this one, but I hope you have all been enjoying this blog, as I am now winding down.  I will have a recap of the whole trip after its all over with, so don't just stop reading the blog right away! stay tuned for stuff like:  the bird trip list, and the secrets to making a successful cross country trip! 

Finally leaving Texas

Spent the past 5 days in Texas enjoying their record hot temperatures.  Never did the temperature drop below 100 during the day, and once we hit the gulf coast, it was humid as well.  Two nights were spent traveling out of this enormous state.  The first night was spent still in far south Texas in an RV park just off of South Padre Island.  In desperate need of showers, we paid with quarters, and then decided not to camp and ditch the next morning.  We actually did try and pay, but the office wasnt open. Oh well, can't be slowed down on this trip.  Next we went to Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge, and saw some cool birds, plus an Armadillo and our first American Alligator of the trip. 
Unfortunately, after this it was time to make the big push north.  We drove 6 hours through brush country to Brazos Bend State Park just south of Houston, an area of cattle country, but the park we settled into was an oasis of large moss covered trees, kinda like the trees in the scene of forest gump when he's running down the driveway away from those bullies.  There were also a few lakes and swamps containing huge alligators.  We arrived into the park at sunset, and set up our tent in the campground loop.  We were stalked by a raccoon as we prepared some leftovers.  I had to scare it away multiple times before it finally decided that we werent worth the effort to receive handouts.  But a great park, and I wish we could have spent more than one night in the park.  There were plenty of hiking trails, great birds, a natural learning center, and most importantly, free showers!  I saw my first ever Roseate Spoonbill and Mississippi Kites here, and both Justine and I enjoyed watching the alligators swimming in the swamp right below the boardwalk.  After our time in the park, we made the long 9 hour drive out of the state.  On the map, it doesnt look like it's that far to go from Houston to Texarkana, at Arkansas border.  But texas really is a huge state.  Don't be fooled.  Granted the drive is much nicer than the brush country south of Houston, covered with oak and pine woods.  It finally starts to have a feel of the east, of lush greenery that I havent seen for over 2 months.  Things are slowly looking more familiar, and the birds are too...

Hot South Texas

Since we last chatted, every day has been over 100.  Yesterday, the drive from Del Rio down to very southern Texas, to a town called Mission, found the thermometer topping out at 106!  We enjoy seeing the temperature drop into double digits. 
I've also been pulled over once more since I last posted.  Actually only a few minutes after my last post, we were driving back to our campsite outside of Del Rio, and although I was going the speed limit when I passed the border patrol car parked in the dark along the roadside, he pulled out after me, and flicked on his lights.  I noticed his slow approach to the car, obviously being cautious of the possibility of me being a drug carrier.  I was asked to step out of the vehicle and go behind it with him.  Still unsure of what I had done wrong, he pointed to my tail light, which was NOT lit like it should have been at night.  Having no idea of the recent problem, I was lucky and got off with a warning.  But as part of his stops along the border, he had to check my entire car for drugs, weapons, bodies, etc.  He told me as long was I wasnt carrying any AK47's, we wouldnt have a problem.  He did find an empty bottle of beer that I was saving for my friends back at college to add to our collection.  Fortunately, this wasnt the type of thing he was searching for.  We laughed the whole thing off.  Quite a nice officer actually.  I'm sure he welcomes pulling over friendly people who arent trying to run from him.
Yesterday was mostly spent driving from Del Rio to Mission, a 6 hour drive that took place during the hottest part of the day.  The first three hours of the drive were again through desolate land of scrub and thornbrush, and very flat.  I passed out sleeping for an hour before taking the wheel for the second part of the trip from Laredo to Mission, Tx.  This drive was still flat, but with some more agricultural land, and near the end, driving down parkways with lots of youre typical shops and fast food restaurants along the way.  Lots of Sonics, Whataburgers, Denny's, places that have a bit of southern flavor I suppose.  We also passed a highway sign:  "Hitchhikers may be escaped inmates".  Good to know.  My car's too full to fit a hitchhiker anyway.  We made it to Mission, Tx by 7 or so, and drove to Bentsen-Rio Grande SP, a 500 acre park located along the border of Mexico, comprised of habitats that are now rare in the area due to agriculture and development.  We wanted to camp there, but the border patrol guy told us it probably wasnt a safe idea.  He said lots of illegals come through the area in the night.  South Texas is a bit scary, and we're not trying to mess with anyone.  We decided to camp at a nearby RV park.  Some brat kid yelled at us telling us we couldnt put up a tent at an RV park.  We told him to buzz off and went about our way, trying to sleep despite the heat.  We bought personal fans to keep cool this time, a very smart purchase.

Today, we started early and awoke just as the sun rose around 7.  Somehow an army of ants made it inside the tent, so we had to deal with removing them from our things before heading out to the State Park.  We paid the $10 for our site (originally advertised as $25) and headed out with all our stuff packed up.  Once inside the park, the birding was amazing!  Bentsen-Rio Grande SP is a place that I have wanted to visit and have heard about for years as an unparalleled birding locale, famous for it's southern specialty birds and Mexican rarities.  All in all, in a 4 hour stroll through park, I saw 11 birds that I've never seen before, most of which are birds that cannot be found anywhere else in the United States.  Needless to say, I was having a blast.  Justine was having a good time to, I think.  We both got to see most of the birds.  Sometimes birds arent very cooperative, but most of what we were seeing showed very well.  Painted Bunting....ever seen one....look it up, probably one of the most colorful birds in the states. 
A great morning for sure,  with views of Mexico just a stone's throw from where we were.  Pretty neat.  And pretty hot.  Temps just topped 100 again today while we drove to this McDonalds.  The plan from here is to drive to Port Isabel along the gulf coast, but still in extreme south texas and stay in a campground for the night before heading back north.  Our goal is to get to Chicago by the night of the 12th.  A day in Chicago will be followed by each of us going our separate ways and making the long-ass drive back to our respective destinations in the east.  The trip is coming to a close.  Still lots of good birds and a few interesting sights to see along the way.  It hasnt hit me even yet the magnitude of this trip that I've taken head on all summer.  I don't think it will settle in until I get home and look at a map of all the places I've been.  Until next time...

Whirlwind trip: Flagstaff to Albequerque to Carlsbad Caverns to West Texas!

Well, here we are, in the largerst McDonalds in the world.  Maybe thats an exaggeration, but this is by far the most enormous one i've been in yet.  Took a picture.  Maybe ill show you all later.  We're in Del Rio, Texas, not far from Mexico. Most every one around us is hispanic.  But don't worry all, its a very safe area, and we found a sweet campsite on the reservoir here which is part of a national recreational area.  We've finally entered an area where the birds are new, so I'm pretty excited to start getting up at 6 am and birding around the camp sites that we go to these next few days.  But enough about the future.  That time will come.  Let's reflect on the past.
3 days ago:  We drove to Flagstaff from the Grand Canyon, and met up with my friends Tim and Kate again, who had moved to a new apartment closer to downtown Flag.  We were very excited to be able to sleep on a blowup mattress in the guest room.  We were also happy to see their dog, Carl, who is some sort of mutt, but the nicest dog you've ever met.  We walked downtown with Kate to grab some burritos at the Black Bean Burrito house.  Two words:  a mazing.  After, Kate had to go in to work, but fortunately Tim had just gotten off work (He's a birder too, and does bird surveys for the Flagstaff area.  Sweet gig, I'd say).  He took up halfway up Mt. Humphrey's, the highest point in Arizona at over 12,000 ft.  We each had a beer (except Carl), checked out the wildflowers, searched for edible wild mushrooms, and watched the sunset on the land below us.  Best sunset I've seen on this trip I'd say.

Wildflower fields on Mt. Humphreys outside Flagstaff

Sunset from Mt. Humphreys

Tim Justine and Carl watching the sun go down

2 days ago:  After a fantastic night that was capped by smores in Tim and Kate's backyard, we awoke fairly early and headed off to New Mexico, specifically Albequeque, where an old time friend of the family, Aileen, now lives with her husband Billy and their dog Rudy (another very cute little dog that has a mysterious fetish for humping your feet.  Hey its a dog, I wasnt too alarmed).  Along the 5 hour drive from Flag to Alb, we stopped at Petrified Forest NP, checking out some pieces of petrified wood.  Nothing much in this park besides the wood itself.  The surrouding area was all desert.  But the 'wood' was really neat.  Over millions of years, it had all turned to stone!  Yup, solid rock.  It's not magic.  It just takes a long time.  Once in Alb by nighttime, we were treated by Aileen to a traditional New Mexican meal of burritos, enchiladas, and soppapitas, which is just bread you dip in honey.  We all thought we were going to explode after that meal.  Justine's platter was enough food for a whole family.  We couldnt even finish half of it.  Aileen and her husband live in a nice development, in a nice house (sorry for lack of description), and we got to sleep on a real bed! in the guest room.

Petrified wood turned to stone.  This was all there really was to see at this national park.

Albequerque

2 days ago:  An 8 am start to the day, we awoke to Billy coming home after a night out at a friend's bachelor party.  He had to go to work, but he sure didn't look like he wanted to.  Justine and I went for a run, then did a little hiking before meeting up with Aileen and Billy in downtown Alb for another treated meal.  Mmmm, I like New Mexican food.  We toured around old town Albequerque, checking out the local stores and boutiques, the hat store, the wine and cheese cafe.  A very quaint town.  We said our goodbyes to Aileen and Billy, and headed off for Lincoln NF to the south.  We made it there by dark, but had quite a lot of trouble finding our campground.  We stopped at a small RV place to ask for directions, but the guy there only creeped us out, telling us how "he loved the young people", and tried to convince us to stay in one of his RV's where we could watch DVD's and sleep in a bed for only $50.  We passed up that chance, and tried our luck at finding our campsite.  Well we failed here too, driving around in the dark on dirt roads for a half hour, only encountering some random folks just as lost as us.  It was getting late, and we decided to head back to the creepy RV park.  Fortunately, just before this park, we found a well marked, well serviced RV park, which, besides the giant wood sculpted alien out front, ended up being a very safe and satifying place to camp under the stars.  Justine was even lucky enough to see a shooting star, which I missed, of course.

The open road of central New Mexico

This was the inviting looking RV park we decided to stay in after a night of searching.  Fortunately, we didn't notice the creepy wood carved statues there to greet us when we came in at night.

1 day ago:  We awoke today with the goal of making it to Carlsbad Cavern NP, 3.5 hours away in SW New Mexico, a drive which takes you through Roswell, NM, the place where aliens are always seen, and Lincoln, NM, where Billy the Kid made his last stand.  Besides that, there's not much to see along this drive.  Unless you 're looking for birds like me, then its a little more exciting.  But we made it to our campsite 30 miles from Carlsbad at Brantley Lk SP, and put up our tent in the heat of the day:  104 degrees.  Well if that wasnt bad enough, the outhouse at this park had some friends to greet us upon arrival.  A lizard in the men's room, and a mouse in the lady's room.  Welcome to New Mexico.  Well that was enough of that, so we went to Carlsbad and spent the heat of the afternoon 800 feet below the surface in some of the most expansive caves in the world, staring up at stalagtites and stalagmites and all sorts of other cave formations.  I could go into a ton more details on the cave.  But here's a quick overview.  Dark, cool (58 degrees), bats, pristine, elevator back to the surface completely necessary.  The pictures will help you better understand this area when I post them.  AFter a dinner of pasta, we went back to the cave entrance to watch 250,000 bats leave in swarms for the night.  But this year, of course, is a bad year, and we only saw maybe 500 bats leave.  Still, a pretty neat experience on a beautiful night.    Drove back to the campsite and watched The Mask on my laptop before falling asleep in the hot desert again.

Entryway into Carlsbad Cavern

Stalagmite?

Stalagtites?  These are just little ones maybe a foot or two long.  Some of them reached 20 feet long.

This is the entry from which we watched all the bats leave at night.

Today:  West Texas doesnt have much.  If you want a drive where you wont see a house for like 200 miles, drive from Carlsbad, NM to Pecos, Tx.  Thats exactly what you'll find.  It's all desert.  Make sure you have a full tank of gas too.  We basically made the 6 hour drive straight to where we are right now, pulling off only for gas stops and random bird sightings when I would yell at Justine to turn the car around to look at a hawk on the telephone pole.  You know, just ordinary stuff like that.  But we're here now, in Texas!  and excited to continue east!  Were in the central time zone now too, so only an hour behind all you easterners.  We're getting closer!

Campsite outside Del Rio

The McDonald's down in texas are all super-sized

A hike to remember

Well, we just finished our hike down into the Grand Canyon.  We’re both beat, tired, but satisfied.  I can safely say we experienced the beauty and danger of the Grand Canyon today. 

We left our tent at 515am, trying to get the majority of the hike in before the heat of the day.  This was probably the smartest decision we made all day.  The difference in temperature between the rim and the bottom of the canyon usually differ by 25 degrees.  So if the high for the rim was 85, you can do the math for the bottom.  And I’m NOT exaggerating on that.  Starting out early, we quickly descended 3000ft. past beautiful vistas offering 360 degree views of the canyon.  It was a really neat perspective to be in the canyon looking out.  Also, don’t get the impression that there is just one canyon in this national park.  Sure, the Colorado cuts the main canyon, the deepest one.  But there are many side canyons that have formed that cut down to the main one which holds the Colorado.  And with so many cliffs and buttes, it makes it very difficult to get around in this area.  Most parts of the trail were switchbacks cut into the canyon walls.  Our quads and knees were both very sore after reaching skeleton point, nearly 3 miles hike from where we began. 

Now despite the warnings of the heat of the lower canyon, and how you should never hike further than what you are capable of doing, and how it was not recommended to hike past skeleton point in the summer months, we decided to hike past skeleton point.  It was a mutual decision.  The next 1.5 miles dropped 1500 feet down some pretty nasty switchbacks to.  It was only 9am when we got here.  Even though we were only another 2 miles hike from the canyon bottom, it would have required another 2000foot descent, and neither of us had really packed enough food for a return trip like that in the heat of the day.  So we turned around after eating lunch and chatting with some recent college grads who told us to expect a hot walk back.  They were right.  The 1.5 mile hike back to Skeleton point was pretty tough.  I can't quite pull off the jumps and flips of the gymnast that was accompanying me, but I think my cross country background made the hike a little easier for me.  Justine had a little more trouble.  I felt bad perhaps having persuaded her to come down so far into the canyon, and this section of the trail back out, with its steep switchbacks, was definitely harder on her than it was on me.  We had brought plenty of water, though, and we stopped many times, most often underneath overhanging cliff walls to avoid the sun that was beating down at around 90 degrees.  It was a bit scary, but after reaching skeleton point again, the trail gradient lessened, the air temps were cooler, and the hiking was easier and more enjoyable all around.  We took our time coming out, enjoying the many views that we got to see on the way down, still panting the entire way out.  It’s not a coincidence that everyone seems so happy walking downhill, but everyone you pass going uphill out of the canyon looks like they just want to die.  We took plenty of pictures, avoided pestering squirrels that tried to get free handouts, and even saw one of the few wild California Condors flying above the rim.  I have now seen condors at three different locations on this trip.  Pretty good for a species for which there are less than 300 birds flying around in the wilds of North America.  But in the end, we did it.  9 miles of out and back hiking, descending then ascending over 3500 feet, and all finished before 1:30.  I am just thankful we decided to leave so early.  Even near the upper reaches of the canyon, the 80 or so heat was taxing to take.  

Early morning on the south rim

Pondering the trip down? and back?

View from the tipoff, 3500 ft below the rim.  The deep gorge in the foreground is where the colorado flows

After a free shuttle ride back to our car at the visitor center, we both took showers ($2 for 8 minutes, still worth it), and now we’re at McDonalds, of course.  Looking back on the hike now, I think we’re both very satisfied with our experience in the Grand Canyon, especially since our time here is so short.  Now its off to our campsite, we’ve got some s’mores  to make tonight!

Listen to the signs.  They know best.

Some of the switchbacks descending into the canyon!

The grandeur that is the canyon

On Sunday, we entered the Grand Canyon, entering the park around noon.  The visitor center area was packed and we walked along the south rim for a few hours.  Lots of helicopters flying about too.  Whether they were for tours or rescue crews picking up a stranded hiker, who knows.  But of course the main attraction is the Grand Canyon, and what an appropriate name.  There are so many vistas from which to see the canyons far below.  Every time you look at the thing, it seems like it’s a new view you’ve never seen before.  And you can’t possibly take it all in in one glance.  It’s overwhelming to try and imagine how such a canyon could form hundreds of millions of years ago (at least that’s what the geology ranger said at the visitor center).  I have seen canyons before on my trip, but even a sliver of the Grand Canyon trumps all the others.  More than a mile down from rim to the Colorado far below, there are sheer cliffs of red, orange, salmon pink, and white rock, depending on when the layers were formed.  There were more gradual slopes as well, and plateaus down within the canyon too.  All in all, a straight line shot from south to north rim is about 10 miles, with a hike from rim to rim of at least 24 miles.  If you wanted to drive from south rim to north rim, the only road that passes over the Colorado at Navajo bridge, requires a 250 mile trip.  Not even man has been able to penetrate this vast landscape with his roads.  There are no driveable roadways going down into the canyon, all the wall are too steep.  The only way down is by hiking, or by pack mule.  After getting our bearings on where we wanted to hike on Monday, Justine and I decided on a hike that would go from the south rim, down the Kaibab trail, with the option of descending all the way to the Colorado river at the bottom of the canyon.    A good night’s sleep was necessary for such an endeavor, so we were both out cold by 10.

Vegas heat

So sleeping in the desert was not as easy as we had hoped.  As you might assume, it was quite hot all night.  I myself sweated all night, and could never find the cool side of the pillow, because there wasn’t one.  We did our best, though, to rejuvenate our energy stores with a  hardy scrambled egg breakfast, followed by a swim in Lake Meade, which was very refreshing.  We also had a close encounter with a Coyote, who looked hungry and extremely thin.  Still feeling a bit disgusting, we drove into Las Vegas, stopping for an our just before noon at the Henderson Bird Viewing preserve, where I was able to do some birding in this little oasis of ponds in the middle of the city and desert.  Lots of good birds, including White-faced Ibis and Long-billed Dowitcher- new birds for me!  Justine enjoyed the Avocets and Stilts, both of which have very long legs and are kind of comical shorebirds.  Ok enough is enough, we needed to do Las Vegas.  We parked at the MGM Grand, and strolled down The Strip, hopping in and out of casinos, shopping malls, restaurants, all in hopes of trying to stay out of the heat of the day.  Still, we had trouble staying cool.  It was over 100 in the city on this particular day, and we both just really wanted a shower.  Oh wouldn’t it have been nice to stroll into one of those luxurious hotel rooms and take a shower in a bathroom the size of a new York city apartment.  Hmm, well that’s just what we did!  Thankfully, one of Justine’s roommates from last year just happened to be in the city for a surprise birthday party celebration.  We were very gracious when she offered to let us shower in her hotel room in the Encore.    

(Gotta love those vegas street vendors, though.  Everyone asking you for spare change.  We must have passed a hundred Hispanic people trying to hand us “baseball cards” of your favorite porn star, with a number to call at the bottom.  They get right in your face and flick the cards at you, but they never touch you.  I guess they could get in trouble for that.  The urge to punch one of them was high, but we figured it wasn’t in our best interest to do that.)

Back on the street, we tried to stay out of the heat again, trying not to break a sweat again.  Justine treated me to a dinner at the PBR bar and grille, because, oh yea! It was my birthday!  I’m now 23.  Im old.  Just another year in the books, but a great place to spend a birthday.  Around 7, we drove out of Vegas, camping at a KOA campground outside Kingman, AZ for a night of much more enjoyable sleep in the “less hot” desert of northern Arizona.