Driving me crazy

Hey, belated Happy Birthday Mac!! And nice poem, Mo. Should we start a collaboration and make a poetry book, "Men, As Is" or "Bent but not Broken"? I like the idea, so get me your stuff, you broken dreamers.

The white line is the trip plus this past weekend.

Monday, 5/11.

That was a long road trip, over 3,000 miles. I picked up Frank in Las Vegas, and we stayed in the downtown at the old El Cortez. Low ceilings and lots of smoke. We gambled for about twenty minutes, and both won big money, a total of about $40. We left at 6am for Zion Canyon, and arrived there in time to get a campsite in South Campground. This is a first-come first-served campground, so we waited around while people left and got a decent site. We had reservations on Sat. and Sun. at Watchman campground, and it was supposed to rain on Sat., so we got an early start on Sat. and moved to our reserved site. The sites in Watchman are bigger and nicer.

Zion is very organized, with shuttles that take you to all the points of interest in the park, and to the local town. There are bike trails and lots of hiking trails, and it is a very popular park for rock climbers. When we set up our camp we sought shade for the tent and moved the table into shade, not realizing that the trees were covered in Western Tent caterpillars. They were just finishing up their final larval stage before pupating, and were raining little shits the size of this period . all over everything. Plus, I got guts stains on my butt by sitting on them, rest their souls.

Continuing 5/18

Somehow I never finished this; I got too caught up in the doing and not the recording, plus I have been waiting for pics to go along with the words. Let me continue where I was a week ago:
We stayed at Zion for three nights, hiked all around and got pretty dirty. We showered up on Sunday, and Monday we left for Bryce early as the campgrounds there are 1st come 1st served. We got a campsite in North Campground, about 50 yards from the rim of the canyon, very nice. The rim trail is awesome, with Sunrise and Sunset points, but we didn't continue on to Inspiration Point because I was already inspired just looking at the big uphill trek to get there. How many hoodoos can you look at in one week?

On Tuesday, we made a day road trip out of Bryce to the Dixie National Forest and to Capitol Reef National Park, a long 350 mile loop, with some hikes into places like Escalante Petrified Forest, where against my collector nature I left everything as is.

On Wednesday we drove to Canyon de Chelly, in Arizona near the New Mexico border. There is a free campground in the park, but it was dominated by RVs and close-together sites, so we went ten miles up the road to Spider Rock Campground. $10 and very cool campground near the rim. Somehow we did not get to the rim and view Spider Rock, we left too late to make it all the way to the rim and the next day we were stressing on our drive back to Frank's house in New Mexico.

Thursday morning we got up early and headed to Frank's, and Friday morning I hit the road for SLO early. I was going to have to make a decision whether to stay on hwy 10 and stay at Joshua Tree National Park. then into the LA area then cut up the coast, or veer up hwy 95 through Lake Havasu to hwy 40, and bypass the fires that were raging in the Santa Barbara area, the Jesusita fire.

I decided to be prudent and headed up 95, hoping to find a decent campground in the Lake Havasu area. There were many campgrounds, and they were dominated by the boat gangs, so I bypassed them. I could have gone all the way home and arrive past midnight, but that would be 16 hours of driving in one day. I normally am sleeping at 10pm, so I considered other options. Mojave National Monument was right along hwy 40, so I pulled in there and was greeted by a sign that said Providence Mountains campground 6 miles, Hole in the Wall Campground 10 miles.

I was born in Providence so it seemed providential, and I was rewarded with the coolest six-site campground you could hope for. There was one other group of four people there, and they were camped in one of the two sites at the top parking lot. I took the lowermost site, overlooking the desert below. Unfortunately I did not have a camera and this picture does not do it justice, but my site was below the camper on the right, down about seventy feet.

The full moon was rising and the sun setting as I got there, and it was beautiful. Only remoteness and heat must keep this place from being full. As I was struggling to erect the tent, I was imagining the people camped above having a chuckle, watching the old gyu trying to put up this giant tent. The two women of their party came down and offered to give me a hand, which I gladly accepted, and my tent was up in another minute.

I left early the next morning, but I have this place tagged for a future trip, with time to do some exploring. There is a cavern here that needs looking at. As I was leaving I went a little further up the road to see Hole In the Wall Campground, and it too was pretty nice, with around 40+ sites, and two short hike-in sites that looked great. There is another campground 9 more miles up the road, but it turns to dirt at Hole In the Wall, so after a few miles when the road got rougher, I turned around and headed for SLO, and was home by 3pm Saturday, May 9th.

Last Friday Dana and her sisters and Barry and I went to Joshua Tree, where Barry and Stacy had found a house, Villa dei Fiori, on the edge of the National Park with a pool, 3 bedrooms, very nice pad. Check it out:

http://www.daleallanpelton.com/index.htm

It was very hot there, over 100. The pool was a cooling relief, and I wore a rash guard to limit the sun exposure, but I felt I was getting too much sun. We hiked around the National Park on Saturday, looked at the sights such as Skull Rock and Barker Dam, took a pool and lunch break in the afternoon, then went to Key's View for a hazy view all the way to Palm Springs and the Salton Sea. Sunday we hiked the area all around the house. Dana and I watched a coyote watch us and then lope away. After another pool session in the heat, we cleaned up the place and left. Dana and Stacy sketched out some drawings for the guest book, and I left this poem:

The dove calls out,

"Who who,

who is there?"

The quail insist,

"I am here, I am here!"

The rising sun colors the rocks,

and the heated air

rises from the desert,

lifting the sun to

greater heights.

The Joshua trees stand guard,

offering solace and sanctuary

in desolate beauty.

One result of all this traipsing and hiking is that the extra sunlight has triggered some graft v. host, in the form of mucositis. The inside of my mouth is a little raw and my lips are shot. I just talked to my Stanford doc, and he ordered up some steroids for a while, 30 mg/day for 5 days, then 20 mg/day. I was trying to skip my June appointment but now it's a must. I was going to play 36 holes of golf today on the county's 'play-all-day with one greens fee' offer, but I will wait until tomorrow when I will need to work off a steroid jag. I will update this with photos once I get them.