October 5: Griffith Park (LA)

On the way back from the Grand Canyon I decided to hit up Griffith Observatory, in LA.  I'm a sucker for planetariums and figured it would be good for a quick afternoon stopoff before heading home.  It turned out to be the biggest surprise of the trip.  

The night before I stayed in Laughlin; thought I could do some gambling and hit the town for a bit but I was pretty wiped from the hike so I won $120 at the blackjack table, had dinner at the Outback steakhouse in the casino (the Aquarius), and went to bed.   On the way there (somewhere around Kingman) I snapped a couple good sunsets while driving.  Yay.

Anyway, Griffith is a lot more than just an observatory with stupid exhibits - it's an entire park in the middle of LA with some cool bike trails and a fantastic panoramic view of the city.  Definitely worth a side trip if you're ever in the LA area.  The planetarium was fantastic; 40 minute show that is absolutely worth the $7 it costs.  If you're one of those people who thinks planetariums are lame and only for 9-year olds, then you're obviously a bad person and I can't help you. It's an entertaining and inspiring show that everyone should take a few minutes to experience.  There's also a cool movie in the lower section that gives some background on the whole place and how it came to be.  Plus it's hosted by Spock (+10 points).

venus is the bright gray spot

When I first got there it was raining like hell and the clouds were all around so I couldn't get any good shots othe surrounding city, but later on the sun came out a bit.  The fog was so bad I was literally 100 yards from the observatory and had to ask a guard where it was because I couldn't see it. Pretty sure he thought I was an idiot.

gondor?I would definitely go back and spend a bit more time there on a nice day. The weather was so bad they didn't even have the main telescope open (insert sad face here).  

The photo at the left is one I obviously didn't take.  

October 4 - 5: Grand Canyon

I'm not sure whether to classify my experience at the GC a complete disappointment or awe-inspiring. I guess the canyon was awe-inspiring but my performance was a complete disappointment. We'll get to that in a minute.

First off, April and Chad (Durango) told me I should do a couple things on the way to the GC, and since they were spot-on with the trail suggestions I decided to do everything they suggested without question. The first one was to stop at the 4-corners monument near Teec Nos Pos (look it up). It's the place where Utah, New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado all meet.  I would say that it was spectacular and I felt the "Power Of Four" or something, but it was just raining and cold and I had mud in my shoes and that's pretty much all I have to say about that.

20 minutes of my life i cannot get back

After that, you have to drive through Navajo country, which is pretty impressive.  They really milk the code-talker angle though.  April said there was a cool Burger King I had to visit in Kayenta, AZ.  She said it had a neat code talker exhibit that I had to check out.  I heard her say "Burger King" and I guess I should have expected it to be somewhat less than a Smithsonian-level exhibit, but I was expecting a bit more than a what it was. It didn't even have its own room!  C'mon, BK!  The play room out back could fit 9 SUVs in it, yet these guys helped defeat the Nazis and only get half of a wall in the main dining room.  Where's the Navajoian Rosa Parks when you need her.  Respect!

So anyway, I arrived from Durango at the canyon around noon and hit the visitors center, since that's what you're supposed to do according to the lady who took my $25 at the entrance. The view really is amazing, but I was there to hike into the damn thing, not look at it from the top, so I moved on. There was a trail called "Grandview" that sounded promising, so I headed for that.  I didn't really do any research on it, but figured I'd just wing it and hope for the best. There were a bunch of people at the overlook where the trail started, but no one actually hiking the trail, for reasons which became apparent pretty quickly. The trail basically heads straight down along a windy, rock-filled path no more than 2-3 feet wide at any point, with a rather sobering drop into the canyon on one side and a wall on the other.

Grandview TrailheadSo I went down about 1/4 mile before realizing that this was not a bright idea.  The wind was starting to gust, and it was beginning to rain, which told my primitive brain that maybe walking on a thin, already-questionable trail with a 4000 foot drop on one end might not be a good life choice.  

So after backtracking I decided to find another trail not designed specifically for population control, and so I took a shuttle to the South Kaibab trail.  This is one of the ones they take the mules down, and if a damn mule can walk a trail, I figured I was alright.  

ass

At this point is was already about 2pm so I had to get down as far as possible as quickly as possible so I could get back up before dark. Luckily the trail was wide enough that I could basically run down the thing, so that's what happened. I was a bit surprised how steeply it went down but it was really well-maintained. It didn't take long at all to go down about 1000 feet, just 15 minutes or so. There was a landing there with a restroom and some really great views. Most people were turning around here to go back up but I saw a lady coming up from the trail below and asked her if there was any reason to keep going down there this late in the day. She said if you go around the bend about another 1/2 mile you could see the river. I figured that was worth going for, so I started jogging down some more.

 pathetic!After about 10 minutes I still hadn't seen the area she was talking about, and was getting a bit worried about the time, since the trek back was going to be a pretty steep ascent and I'd just done a 15-mile hike the day before.  I kept going a little further until I was pretty sure I was the lowest person on this trail who wasn't camping the night, and decided it was time to head back.  I really wanted to see the river though, so that was disappointing, but I'll just have to go back and do it right next time.

toby maguireThe way up was pretty tough, but didn't take as long as I thought. I was back at the top around 5pm, well before dark.  There was definitely time to have kept going down for a bit longer.  I guess the highlight was the black tarantula that sauntered into my path about mid-way up. Ugly little bastard.

I guess the bottom line is that if you go to the GC, you have to go into the canyon if you're at all able. Standing on the top is still worth going there for, but it's an amazing thing standing inside it away from all the crowds snapping photos up top.  

 

October 2 - 4: Durango, CO

Durango was without a doubt the highlight of the trip.  The town is gorgeous and the weather was perfect; mid to high 60s and sunny.  I got into town from Amarillo around 4pm so there was no time to do any hiking.  There was really only time to find a hotel and hit the town. Trip Advisor helped me find the Wapiti Lodge, which had wifi and was walking distance to downtown.

"wapiti" is navajo for "our air conditioning doesn't work"

After wandering around a bit I found a cool rooftop bar that had a pretty good guitar guy, a female hockey team taking pictures everywhere, and a weird homeless-looking guy who told me where to find the best steak in town (not sure how he knew that).  They also have the worst website in the history of websites.

spot the hockey team

Since I always follow the advice of homeless people, I decided to go get that steak, at a place called the Ore House. It was honestly one of the best steaks I've ever had (20 oz. t-bone). April and Chad were sitting next to me at the bar and gave me some advice on where to hike the next day. They convinced me to do the Colorado Trail, a long hike that runs from Denver down to Durango, since I was looking for something about 10 miles with good scenery. As an aside - Chad was an engineer at Lockheed and got fed up, so he and his wife went to Durango and opened up a flower shop. Gotta respect that.

So I got up around 7am to grab some breakfast and hit the trail. The weather was fantastic - about 65 and sunny. The trailhead is just a few miles outside of downtown and was pretty easy to find.

trail headI parked and headed out around 9. The early part of the trail follows the Animas river for a while before heading up to higher ground and back into the woods. There's one overlook that was pretty spectacular, about 2 miles in. After that it was mostly wooded areas with a couple good views.  

first overlook

There were some runners initially, but they quickly disappeared. Same with the hikers. After a while all I saw were a couple bikers. About 5 or 6 miles in I stopped even seeing bikers and was basically alone. It's a little nervewracking to realize you're completely alone in the middle of nowhere but it's also a good adrenaline rush.  So I decided to keep heading further out until about 2pm, to give me time to get back before dark. But around 1:30 I came across some relatively fresh droppings in the trail that were not from any animal I was familiar with. I knew there were bears and mountain lions in the area so I got a bit paranoid and figured it might be time to head back.  It's a great feeling to be out in the woods alone until you start to think you might be being watched by something with fangs.

should have gone left

On the way back I decided to take an alternate route back just to see something different, so I turned off on the Dry Fork Trail, not realizing that I was adding about 5 miles to the trek and another 1000 feet of elevation change. So my 2000 foot, 10 mile hike turned into a 3000 foot, 15 mile hike.  Bad idea.  

I finally saw a couple bikers again on this section of the trail though, so that was a good feeling.  There were a few little makeshift campsites too, from people doing the hike from Denver, I'd presume.

Overall it's a great hike, especially in the fall when the leaves area all changing.   

 

October 1-2: Fort Worth, Amarillo

Stopped in Ft. Worth to watch the 2nd half of the VT/Clemson game (pathetic).  Thanks to Matt I ended up at a pretty good bar that put the game on for me: the Pour House.  

After that debacle was done it was time to hit the road and head up to Durango, with a stop at a Motel 6 in Amarillo for the night.  Good times.

September 24-October 1: Houston, Galveston, Austin

So I finally ended up in houston and got down to business.  Picked up Drew at the airport, went to Ed and CB's house and hung out there for the weekend.  After that I met up with Vance (who lives 5 minutes from Ed) and crashed there for a few days.  

Why did I stay there a few days?  Because this is the view from his back porch:

vance's house on lake houston

The water is normally much higher but it's still pretty sweet.  Oh, and he has a pool table, shuffleboard, ps3, wii, xbox, and giant tv's in every room.  Not a bad place to crash for a bit.

One day I went down to Galveston.  Not much to say - it's a beach town and I live in San Diego, so nothing new to experience.  Oh!  I rode the ferry...there were pelicans.  I found a crappy bar called The Spot and had a shrimp po-boy and some beer. It was actually pretty good. And I bought vance a couple hermit crabs for being a good host. I'm sure he loves them.

this is what beer looks like in Galveston

Vance and I took off for Austin on Thursday and first went over to Lake Travis. The weather was crap as there was a storm rolling in so there was nobody out at the bars, but it's got to be a cool scene in the summer.  We just hit a couple places:  The Oasis and Carlos n' Charlies.  Both dead. But the views were cool.

sunset on lake travis

After that we headed back to 6th street to see what all the fuss was about.  We bar-hopped a bit and had a bartender tell us that there was a place that hands out free bacon on Thursdays.  We decided that as men, we could not pass this opportunity up.  The place is called Lavaca St. Bar, and they do indeed pass out free bacon on Thursdays.  I can't even begin to tell you how upset I am that it took me this long to find a magical place like this.  

that'll do, pig

After that, Vance roped me into helping him clean out his office at Lockheed (no more shuttle program) by promising beers.  I did get a beer out of it...and a NASA water bottle, and a small gym towel. Totally worth it.  The next day it was time to start the trek back, after having a pretty good pulled pork sando at the Tin Roof BBQ.