Humble & Houston
Mesa Verde National Park
Raindrops keep falling on my head…Here comes the sun
After the July fourth holiday, I met up with the guys at the Safeway (a grocery store) in Aberdeen. Jaime stayed in Boise, returning one of our fancy autolevels for one that actually worked. But this simple return took a full week instead of a day and the three of us were slightly stranded. We brought my car along to keep a few things dry from the rain, and Chris’s truck to do our work. Every single day of those eight days it rained. I changed clothes three times, rotating from one soaked layer to a slightly dryer layer every few days. Water started to seep in from the bottom of Chris’ tent, soaking everything, while Paul’s rainfly began to lose it waterproofness. We eventually bought a tarp and cramped our three tents underneath it, but this only seemed to slightly improve anything. We started to check the weather report off of Paul’s smart phone searching for any hope of this misery ending, but with few people in the region the weather reports were sketchy at best for just a few scattered towns. One of the later days in the week the weather report boasted of just 20% rain. We were pretty hopeful, but still knew better than to forget our rain jackets. By midday it began to pour but we were so determined to finish two reaches that we nevertheless didn’t walk out of the field until 10p.m. We cheeringly joked that 20% must mean only six hours of rain, while secretly dying on the inside. It was twilight when we began to walk back to the truck and I was tired so I stumbled a little more than usual. While crossing a few larger boulders on the side of the stream my boots lost their grip on the rock and I fell, overtopping my waders slightly as the water tumbled around me. Luckily I screamed pretty loudly and Paul quickly scooped me up. I was so drenched already from that day my little swim almost didn’t even make a difference. The next day was 30% rain. We groaned, predicting this must mean what, 10 hours of rain for the day? But it wasn’t – it was glorious. The sky became the color blue we hadn’t seen in what felt like weeks. And the sun! We were like vampires, sparkling in it’s radiance, unsure of what to do with ourselves other than stop working and bask in it’s glory. Mid grain size measurement, we laid down on the smooth rocks and just stayed there. Paul even started snoring. We couldn’t help ourselves; I couldn’t wipe the smile from my face. You just can’t appreciate the sun without having been through eight days of monsoon. All of our outlooks changed: from depressed, irritated survival mode to much more playful and joking and just plain giddy. And, right on cue, our boss came back in time for the sunshine. I guess you can at least chalk it up as a bonding experience.
Minor Catastrophes and Beautiful Scenery
5/29/2011
Hot Springs, South Dakota to Cody, Wyoming
I hadn’t planned for rain. My tent was old and though we tried to waterproof it since the last fiasco when I hiked the Appalachian Trail with Rachel Wallace, but apparently it hadn’t quite done the trick. I didn’t wake up to thunder or lightening or the sound of rain pelting the side of the tent, I woke up to the torture of water droplets slowly pelting my face from above. Everywhere else my sleeping bag had reliably kept me warm and safe, but now as I looked around, I found all of my scattered maps soaked, my pillow the same consistency as a soaked sponge, and my book twice as thick as it was when I had fallen asleep beside it. Thank god my computer had been out of battery as it was more safely tucked away in my book bag in the center of the tent. I folded and covered everything as best I could by the light of my tiny LED flashlight, but alas it was 4a.m. and I was not moving. The inside of my sleeping bag and I were still dry and warm and so I quickly fell back asleep. I would deal with this shit in the real morning. Several hours later with the rain still not letting up, water finally seeped into my sleeping bag’s one weakness: the zipper. My feet were right at the edge of the tent and now thoroughly soaked. Fine universe, I’m awake.
Accustomed to the warm temperatures of summer, I was still wearing a short-sleeved t-shirt, capri jeans, and (now soaked) flip-flops from the previous day. I tried not to shiver as I threw everything into the car. I lifted the stakes to the useless rain tarp and stuffed it haphazardly into the bag. Immediately the wind picked up the rest of the tent and tossed it against the nearby metal bench. I tried to step in, but I could no longer feel my fingers and was no match for the 1-2 punch of this wind and rain. A crack rang out across the camp (at least to my ears) and the apex of the tent now featured a splayed wooden rod. And thus the quite eventful life of this tent came to a close. I still sat there and painfully continued to take apart the tent so that I could shove it into it’s bag. Finally finished, I threw it into the back of the bug and then just sat in the front seat, refusing to move until the heat came on and the feeling in my fingers returned. I glanced at the temperature reading my car so kindly provides: 41 degrees. Great.
Today is still five-stops-in-one-day day: Wind Cave National Park, jewel cave, Crazy horse monument, Mt. Rushmore, and Badlands National Park. They’re all *kind* of in a close South Dakota/Wyoming cluster and I’m running out of time.
The campsite didn’t have running water, so I drove to the visitor’s center and hauled in a bag of clean, dry clothes. I changed quickly, but waited until everyone was gone from the bathroom to wash my face and brush my teeth so I didn’t look like the hobo I actually was. Just at the finish line, a park ranger walks in and attempts to hold a conversation with me. I quickly spit out my toothpaste and continue the conversation, but alas I am caught. Yes world, I am living out of my car. She thought it was hilarious, said she’d seen worse, and we walked out together. She signed me up for the official wind cave tour and soon I was in one of my favorite places: a dark, claustrophic, cave, situated out of the wind and rain (finally). The cave itself is incredibly unusual. Instead of being formed by running water, it was essentially a big underwater lake. The stagnant water allowed for the limestone that was eroded away to form a hard calcite shell within the cracks of the remaining limestone. Thus, when the water just kind of drained out of the cave, these square calcite deposits remained. The technical term for these is boxwork and this cave alone holds the majority of the world’s specimens on top of being one of the largest caves in the world. The lack of the normal stalactites and stalagmites and other running water formations made this cave a little boring, and my co-tourists were a little annoying with their constant “why would anyone willingly explore this place?” ( – umm cause its really cool guys).
I stamped my book and left for the next stop on this five-stops then lots of driving day. Driving to the next destination, I suddenly got cell service for a few precious moments. During which I listened to a voicemail from Lydia, bemoaning that I had left my laptop charger at her apartment. Ugh. Great. Oh well, it would have to be shipped to me in Idaho. In the mean time, without my mapquest source, (soaked) paper maps will have to guide me the rest of the way.
Jewel cave is apparently much prettier than wind cave. Obviously from the title, it’s a little more showy, more sparkly, and therefore more tourists were attracted to it on this rainy day – leaving zero tickets left when I arrived. I stamped my passport anyways and moved on to the next stop.
The Crazy Horse monument is certainly interesting in theory. Struck down early in life for his cause, he is supposed to be depicted atop a horse, windswept hair atop both heads, with Crazyhorse pointing out over his lands, in a monument that would be bigger than Mt. Rushmore. But the carving began in 1948 and you can still only see Crazy Horse’s face. On top of this the intro documentary thing had a sort of political rant on not accepting government money. And finally on top of this, the history of the mountain carvers is a little strange. The original carver, Ziolkowski (who also worked on Mt. Rushmore), died in the 1980s, but his work has continued through his wife and ten children’s efforts. That’s right ten children: five girls and five boys. The boys work on the mountain and the girls cook and run the gift shop. I don’t know why I found this so…strange…but I didn’t like it. Probably related to the political rants, slow progress, and very defined gender roles – meh. The museum itself was a little showy but very fascinating and the gift shop was filled with interesting things that I couldn’t possibly afford. The rain made it a little hazy, but I snapped my picture of this unfinished rock slab.
The rain maintained its constant drizzle as I headed further up the side of the mountain. As I climbed higher, a hazy fog set in, greatly reducing the visibility. For some idiotic reason, I did not pay attention to this, as I could still see the road and that was all I needed. I pay the admission fee for Mt Rushmore, march up to the observation deck, and then laugh awkwardly loud. It wasn’t there. There was a plaque explaining details of everything that should be in front of me, but there was just fog. I couldn’t even see an outline. I went back to the gift shop to buy some postcards to pretend like I had seen it, and struck up a conversation with the retired navy guy ringing me up. Apparently, I should join the military. I smiled, shrugged my shoulders, thanked him for his service, and listened pleasantly to another round of grandchildren stories. When he got more customers, I politely left, stamped my passport, watched a documentary, and followed a ranger on a hike to get a closer view of the monument, just in case. The fog did clear slightly, but only enough for me to see the outline of Washington’s head. The small children running about kept staring at the adults, wondering why they kept trying to see a big rock that wasn’t even visible. It’s kind of a shame I didn’t get to fully see it, but the ticket is good for the entire year so maybe I’ll make it back – but probably not, oh well.
The final stop of the day was the badlands of South Dakota. The badlands are only an hour from the Mt. Rushmore area, but on the nice local map they pass out to everyone, they’re on two separate squares. With a little maneuvering I found a route that had the least mileage, brought me through the most area of the badlands, and avoided the highways. About halfway along this route, the paved road suddenly ended and a dirt/gravel road took its place. I was not aware of this upcoming shift and almost lost complete control of the car, slamming on the breaks and twisting from side to side as if I was driving on ice. I regained control and came to a stop in the middle of the road, heart pounding, making sure I still had all my limbs. Apparently “avoiding highways” is not the fun side road of the east coast but instead a freaking dirt road which shouldn’t even count as real road. But I couldn’t turn around now, I was already behind schedule and halfway there, so I buckled up (figuratively of course) and cautiously continued driving. The nightmare of getting stuck in the mud with no cell service pervaded my mind, but I brushed it away and continued on, rolling up the windows as the tires constantly splashed grime at my sides. The thrill of it all was kind of exciting and I couldn’t wait to see the badass dirt on the side of my car proclaiming that my bug – not a jeep or truck or SUV – had just off-roaded. I didn’t run into any people (though can you believe there were mail boxes on this non-existent road?) nor Buffalo (ugh!), but the scenery was absolutely beautiful. An hour or so later I returned to a paved road and the visitor’s center. It was 6:15 p.m. and the sun was beginning to set, so I quickly caught the last documentary showing, stamped my passport, admired Buffalo postcards, breathed in the air and sights around me, and headed back to the road.
There were two things now weighing on my mind. I no longer had a tent which meant I needed to find a hostel or hotel. Hostels were out of the question as I had no computer to look one up nor were there really any cities that would have had one anyways. So a hotel. Most hotels require that you be 21. I am 20. But maybe I talk my way (desperately pleading and looking pathetic) into one. The second thing was that I was running out of time. I had two days to get to Boise and there were numerous National Parks along the way that I wanted to stop at, including Yellowstone and Craters of the Moon. So, no longer inhibited by the need to set up camp during light, I decided I would drive toward Yellowstone for as long as I could stay awake and then get a hotel room.
For some reason most of the places I stopped at today offered free coffee. Now I normally don’t like coffee at all, but this was both free and warm, so I probably drank maybe 6 cups throughout the day. In any event, I was wired, fresh off my dirt road success, and ready for another challenge. So I started driving. The rain continued throughout, but the fog came and went. Just when I was about to pull off the highway because I literally couldn’t see from this fog, it would clear and I would think to myself – ok, I can go for one more town, it’s just so close. I kept a constant watch on the temperature outside to make sure the rain didn’t turn to ice, but it held at around 42 degrees. But then I took it too far. The next town that looked so close on the map was actually on the other side of a mountain. The road became smaller (though still paved, thank god) and started winding back and forth up the side of this thing, like I was on the polar express. I tried to stay calm and imagine dancing men pouring me hot chocolate, but then my temperature indicator dropped to 32 degrees and the rain turned into sleet and then to snow. I have driven through snow once before in my life and that was in a mini-van in the middle of the day in a city. But I couldn’t turn around; I must be almost there, right? Nope. It was now dark, about 2am, no other humans were on the road, and the snow in my high beams made it look like I was going warp speed on the Enterprise, though I was crawling at 20 miles an hour. Though I couldn’t really see, the snow on either bank of the road rose to several feet and the pines, as tall as skyscrapers and as dense as sardines, looked like those fake, bright white trees in A Charlie Brown Christmas. WHY DO THESE MAPS KEEP SENDING ME DOWN CRAZY ROADS? A little scared, I was more focused on overcoming this mountain, and several tense hours later I emerged from the ski resort and snowmobile crossing areas intact. It was now 4 a.m. and I was exhausted, but the first town I came across had neither an open hotel nor some bright-lit convenient store where I could safely rest in the parking lot. So I traveled on. I finally arrived in Cody, Wyoming where there were no open hotels, but there was a 24/7 McDonalds. I parked in front of the drive-through, pretending like someone would be able to keep track of me in such a high traffic area and fell asleep in my reclined front seat.
“Wow, this cheese looks real” and other adventures
5/25/2011
St. Louis, MO into Kansas
Miles: yah, I’ll get back to you on that (a bunch?)
At 8:45 I was awoken by a gaggle of gigglers in the next room. I wanted to shoot them. I hadn’t even seen them come in, but I noticed a ton of beer around their area and heard the voices of two girls and a guy (even though alcohol is forbidden from the rooms which are also divided by gender – also, since when was I stickler for the rules? – oh yah when you became really annoying). I hobbled to the kitchen to toast my bagel (despite a lack of butter) and get away from them. Apparently Rory had also been awakened by them too and joined me, eating yet another meal of Ramen. We turned on the 90s boom box and rocked out together, singing terribly to the stylings of John Mayer and Taylor Swift. In between such amazing songs (do you like my sarcasm?) a weather report cackled in the threat of tornados today. The previous night my roommate Shannon had texted me with the same concern, and though I certainly took note, I wasn’t very worried. I packed up my stuff, slipped my key into the magic slit in the door (this is literally what the slit in the door called itself), and headed back to the arch.
This time I was there during normal business hours and I bought a ticket for both the tram (ride to the top of the arch) and a tour of the Mississippi on the Huckleberry Ferry (I literally almost just wrote Buckleberry Ferry – what is wrong with me?). I rode with two older guys in the star trek/x-men esque bright white, round capsule that propelled us (at the raging speed of 4mph) to the top of the arch. In the capsule we discussed the inevitable topic that comes up when people ask me what my major is: climate change. The guy to the right of me didn’t ‘believe’ in it, and I, thanks to my communicating climate change class, happily skipped over that part and started discussing pollution in general and how it would be nice to fix that – which he agreed with.
I got to the top and the two guys pointed out the baseball stadium (while bragging slightly of course) and other various significant features on the landscape. To look out the tiny windows you kind of need to plant your feet solidly on the ground, and lean into this angled, carpeted window ledge. I layed there for a good twenty minutes, at first just admiring the Mississippi and the skyline both east and west, and then contemplating what would happen if this thing catastrophically fell over onto it’s side. I decided that the window would have the best view of the fall, but the capsules would probably be the safest, I left undecided as to which I would choose, but fairly certain that I would never have to. Out of the capsule, I toured the westward expansion museum. A blonde-haired park ranger woman stood at the entrance, next to a prominently featured Thomas Jefferson statue. I stared at it a moment and decided it looked exactly like the one at William and Mary. I asked her about it, she did a little research, and came back to me later with a flyer detailing the history of the statue. I apologized for making her do work, but she seemed pleased by the research/ having something other to do than patrol small children. Turns out I was right: W&M Jefferson and museum Jefferson have the same bronzer.
The museum was interesting with brightly colored pictures, a huge amount of quotes from Lewis and Clark, and several sketchy, though still strangely human-like animatronics. The fact that I was making this same journey west into terra incognita from the same starting point, that the museum had featured Lewis and Clark’s quotes so prominently, and that in general Thomas Jefferson is pretty baller, persuaded me to buy a copy of the Journals of Lewis and Clark in the gift shop. I stamped both it and my national parks passport with the date and place. I was getting antsy now to leave, but I still had my ferry ride. I walked out to the docks, concerned by the flood of student groups I never seemed to shake, but soon found that some mechanism on the boat wasn’t functioning and the trip was canceled. Slightly disappointed and slightly excited to return to the road, I got my money back and headed out.
The first hour or so was filled with a few grey clouds, but nothing worrying. I kept the radio on and my eye out, but nothing looked too threatening. Almost suddenly though, I drove into a patch of black clouds and the world seemed to turn gray in the middle of the afternoon. The rain at first wasn’t too bad, but it suddenly started to hail, and nickel-sized bullets began pelting my wind shield. Several tractor-trailers pulled over to the side of the road and so I did as well, though you have to hand it to FedEx as all of them continued trucking on. The radio stations I flitted between were saying nothing so I trusted trucks more than other cars because I knew they had that whole radio communication thing to talk to each other and they had probably driven through things like this before. My mind flashed to both those tornado videos they always show in school and that movie, Twister. With this combined expertise, I located rope and a bungee cord to tie myself to something (though hopefully not in a barn with sharp objects) and admired my selection of ditches on the side of the road. I was prepared, but after just a few minutes, blue sunny skies appeared once again, so the trucks and I pulled out.
I thought I was in the clear, when the radio suddenly turned to a constant broadcast with the local weatherman. They were naming Tornado warnings for all of these counties I had never heard of. I cautiously unfurled my map across the steering wheel and began looking for any names I recognized. When they mentioned Columbia Public Schools were on lock down, and I saw that I was 20 miles outside of it, I decided to find the nearest exit. The golden arches of McDonalds served as my beacon of hope as I knew they had delicious food and reliable wifi. As I sat on a plastic bench, watching the skies “turn blacker than hell” as the lady next to me claimed on the phone with her family, I suddenly reconsidered my choice, pondering the architectural stability of a fast food restaurant. The McDonalds tv only had two channels, one of which was luckily the weather channel, and two concerned women sat beside me engrossed in the dozens of red squares now popping up on the screen. The woman on the far end was very hard of hearing and kept repeating she was from Oklahoma. The woman next to me had grown up in Joplin, MO – a town that had just made national headlines for being demolished by tornadoes. She was visibly quite concerned. There were maybe twenty or thirty of us total scattered throughout the McDonalds, most people were in groups of two, but there was one large 5-person family. A woman who had previously seemed fairly normal, started shouting about running to the toilet (because it had no windows) in a heavy accent I couldn’t quite place. Everyone kind of stared at her as she wondered why no one was following her crusade, but she did eventually amass a small group of very concerned women who pestered the McDonalds manager for information. The manager’s golden boy did a little bit of crowd control, but his humor did little to wane the fears of the women.
Soon the manager was off the phone with an announcement that two tornadoes had touched down – one about a mile and a half west, the other two miles east. Because the tornado was not within a mile, he could not require anyone to seek safety but he would allow those who wanted to into the back bunker of McDonalds. Everyone gathered around all panicky as we marched behind the counter, past the deep fryers and employees rolling their eyes, and into the refrigerator. We all squeezed in, but I was able to claim a back corner next to the door to the freezer, setting my bookbag on the vanilla soft serve. The five person family stood next to me near the salad dressing, parents hugging their children for mutual warmth. One of the nearby adults joked “hey, this cheese looks real.” After a few moments of silence in the cramped conditions, the golden boy asked if anyone wanted to play a game and I shouted that I have a deck of cards, but our efforts of cheer were only met with silence and grunts. I thought about opening my laptop and playing some dance music to make it a party with the apple dippers, but once again felt the mood was inappropriate. With no one to talk to, I pulled out my Houdini book and began to read a passage on escaping from a locked chamber. As people begin to shiver, the golden boy passes out aprons. When one lady put hers on, she proclaimed this was the only time she would ever wear a McDonalds uniform, which I felt was slightly offensive to the people providing us shelter, but received much more laughter than any previous attempts at jokes. Just as we settled in, the manager came into the refrigerator and said it was safe to come out. We marched out with a few more tasteless jokes about stealing something, though I tried to say thank you to everyone, and emerged into the store, noting the rain had stopped and the sky had turned a normal hue. I waited a few minutes to get my bearings and then headed back onto the highway. The Tornado warnings had all expired in the area and the weather channel had its eyes turned on the next round heading toward St. Louis as I drove the opposite direction, west. On the highway, unless you were looking for evidence, you didn’t really find it. The roads were completely clear of debris and everywhere around looked just as it did after a normal rainstorm. I did run into one accident where it looked like no one was harmed but the car had done a nosedive into a ditch. One the opposite side of the road, a tractor-trailer lay on its side. Several road signs were snapped in half and lay peacefully on the grass.
When the tornadoes had fully subsided, I found that I was in Kansas.
The rest of the drive was remarkably uneventful. I had pondered whether to pay for a hotel room in the aftermath of the storms, but decided I neither wanted to pay for it nor deal with the whole not-being-21 thing. I found Clinton Lakes State Park and paid a total of 11 dollars for camping and parking the night. A few days beforehand the lock to my trunk became finniky (it has been for a while) and will now mostly refuse to unlock. I kind of know how to fix it, but don’t really have the proper tools or motivation to do it, so in the last remaining hour of light I reorganized my car, making everything easy to find and clearing the front seat off. Though a few showers peppered my tent, overall it was one of the most relaxing nights on the road yet.