From Portland to Glacier...

Wining.

Katherine and I left San Jose this morning excited by the prospects of our day traveling around Northern California. Well, at least I was excited, and I suppose that was more because I was singing along to the Nashville soundtrack rather than the prospects of our day, but regardless, we were happy to be on the road again. That was until we met this man:



Let me introduce you to Mr. Harlow R. Marks, alleged Sierra Club member and tree advocate. Harlow, you see, sets up a table immediately outside the gates of the Muir Woods National Monument-- a largely unimpressive collection of old-growth redwoods that, seemingly due to its close proximity to San Francisco, is wildly popular with tourists. Harlow's table advertises a large sign that states something like, "Save the National Forests! Sign Petition Today!" So, being the good environmentalist that I am, and understanding personally the difficulty involved with something like petitioning, I marched right up and signed the petition.

"The way I've been doing it for years," Harlow said without introduction, "is this way, and it works out real well... It takes just a five dollar donation and then you can sign the petition."

I was obviously confused, first of all because I had of coursed already signed the petition and didn't have any cash on me and second of all because who the hell charges for people to sign a petition? "Uh... sorry I don't have any cash."

Harlow grimaced and yelped in an ornery old voice that didn't have time or patience to deal with a whippersnapper like me, "You mean to tell me that in this day and age you don't carry any cash with you?"

"In this day and age, I use a credit or debit card." I replied moving to scratch my name off with the petition with my pen.

"Well, just leave it. Fine. But don't tell anyone," Harlow said disatisfied with the turn of events. "That could start a hullaballoo." I began to walk away, when Harlow had a change of heart. "Actually, I would like to see some of these start coming back. He proceeded to pull out a small hand cut (by a three year old) card that listed in the uneven typeface of an old ditto machine "Make checks payable to Harlow Marks/Sierra Club." I looked at him slightly dumbfounded. "Wells Fargo won't let me cash checks anymore made out to the SIerra Club. Otherwise I'd have to become a company and get messed up with the government."

"Now just send me that check so you can have a clear conscience." Clear conscience? For what? Signing a petition to save the National Forest? And this from a man who is clearly ripping people off, who most likely had a cease-and-desist order come in from the Sierra Club that prompted him to get out his ink pen and mark out the little purple type that trumpeted the affiliation. Who asks for donations made out to themselves? That's a charity I want to start for sure. As a matter fact I will. Anyone interested in, ummm, saving the redwoods please make checks payable to Jacob Hustedt.



Anyway, the actual woods were rather unimpressive like I said. But we saw some redwoods and got yelled at by a crotchety old man so the day was off to a good start. As we headed off to Napa Valley, we thought things were looking up. The sun was shining and we were beginning to see rows of grape vines dotting the hillsides. We ate a lovely lunch at Buchon, Thomas Keller's cafe version of his much touted French Laundry. Everything was going to be alright... or so we thought. Little did we now that we were about to encounter are most terrifying nemesis yet:



This seemingly mild-mannered yuppie is in reality our most hated foe-- an "Ambassador" for Chandon Vinyards. Yes, that means a tour guide. Somehow Katherine and I ended up at the Disneyland of wineries. Complete with cheesy movies, a schmoozy-to-the-point-of-being-nauseating tour guide, and to top it all of the worst wine I have ever tasted. Yes, kiddies, I sampled wine today that was touted as tasting like strawberries and creme, and sadly, it actually did. The wine had about as much vintage as Kool-Aid (our tour guide assured us that the grapes ferment for the minimum time required by California state law in order to retain "that sweet fruitiness" that so many people like in their wine). Katherine and I ran away from the tour and went to the tasting early. Disgusted that we paid twenty dollars for such a shitty selection we slammed back our samples enticing the wait staff to cheer us on for being "real drinkers." Ah, the sophisticates of Napa Valley...

Very ready for the day to end we set off, and got lost, but eventually found our way down a narrow strip of forgotten highway called Highway 128. 128 twists back away from the valley through hidden vinyards and hills tucked away from the hustle and bustle of the Napa tourist industry. The sun was setting by then and the entire countryside looked golden and hushed, nearly autumnal. The air smelled like freshly tilled soil and the soft breeze cooled the warm setting sun. It was enough to make you want to sit outside, relax, and sip on a glass of Pinot Noir. We were on our way out, but I think we saw wine country at last.

Dans et Dehors

Ahhh . . . Beef. Okay, so I don't eat it but for three days now we've been hearing about the glory that is In-n-Out Burger. "Have you been? They use fresh ingredients, you can watch them make it, and it's so clean." So after a long day walking around San Francisco we finally broke down. I had a grilled cheese that comes with everything. "It's like a burger, but without the beef." The fries were very tasty and I even had a chocolate/vanilla shake. All of this hints at the secret menu, which everyone here knows about, but I won't spoil. Anyway their standard menu is incredibly simple. Burger, Cheese Burger, Double cheeseburger, fries, and shakes. Jake had the double cheeseburger and found it quite tasty.

Here's Jake demolishing his burger.


Here's my brother with his very own chocolate/vanillla shake.

San Fran . . . what's with all the Saints?

My brother and sister-in-law just moved to San Jose last April so we were fortunate enough to have a place to stay in the San Francisco area. It was great to see them and where they're living. We drove into San Francisco on our second day with them and walked around the Fisherman's Wharf area. We had wanted to go over to Alcatraz but we hadn't thought to get reservations, so basically shit out of luck. We could see it from the pier but that didn't do much for us. We did get to go aboard the Balclutha, a full rigged ship built in 1886, that's moored in San Francisco Bay.




On our way out of the city the next day we passed over this strange and brightly colored structure that spanned the bay.

Santa Cruz Boardwalk

After our marathon drive up the Pacific Coast Highway we stopped in Santa Cruz and went to the boardwalk. Props to my brother for the excellent suggestion. It turns out that on Monday and Tuesday nights all the rides are ¢75. I enjoy the odd roller coaster ride and there's a pretty neat one at the boardwalk called the Giant Dipper. It opened in 1924 and is still very popular. Jake's not a fan of roller coasters but I honestly didn't think this one was going to be a big deal. I mean it was built almost 90 years ago, how scary could it be? Half the fear would be in whether the structure would hold together, not the ride itself. Jake was persuaded and though the line was sizable, it moved quickly.

Okay, first of all, the Giant Dipper was awesome. Second of all, it was hardly tame. Maybe it was my surprise but the ride was plenty exciting. The track goes up a ways and their are multiple drops (or dips), all good enough to lift you out of your seat. I could have ridden it again and again but we had other things to see.

The second best ride at the boardwalk is the carousel, built in 1911. I finally understood what going around in circles on a wooden horse is all about. After a few moments we saw people throwing something at the mouth of a big clown on one of the walls near the carousel. As it turns out, if you sit on the outside, you can grab metal rings from a dispenser that reaches over to the carousel. You have to time it right and then almost immediately throw it at the clown. If you get it in, it lights up. A mother in front of me, balancing her child on her lap, out did us all.

US-1

From LA, Katherine and I took on the somewhat daunting but totally worthwhile task of navigating the steep inclines and twisty tree-lined passages of the Pacific Coast Highway. The driving wasn't exactly easy in my 2-wheel-drive manual and we did travel the 400 miles between Los Angeles and San Francisco at an average speed of 40 mph and gas costs $4.60 per gallon along the route, but the spectacular views-- waves crashing on rocks hundreds of feet below the jagged cliffs that housed the highway, made it all worth it.

Drunk.

Los Angeles was slightly more debaucherous than anything that had come before it, but not at all as debaucherous as my last visit to Lalaland. The first night in LA I spent with Katherine and her friend Andrea. They both went to NYU together, and Andrea is currently finishing her MA at USC. We went to some bars on Hermosa Beach, where I drank too much, threw up on a floor, and somehow lost $60. "Meh," I hear the minions who have seen me wasted say, "I've seen worse." Regardless, as pennitence for my drunk and disorderly behavior I will post the following picture from that fateful evening.



Who needs a rosary when you bad dancing? Anyway, other than my drunken ass, the night was pretty fun.



The next day, Andrea, Katherine, and I went out for Mexican food before heading over to Santa Monica where we spent sometime shopping on the promenade and hanging out on the beach. It was rather cool to think that Katherine and I had made it all the way to the Pacific Ocean.



My friend Brett, who recently moved to LA for Teach for America (he's a preschool teacher!), met up with us, and I spent the rest of the evening with him.



Not needing a change in my normal LA routine, we spent the night-- you guessed it-- eating Mexican food and drinking! This drinking was done Brett-style, which for those of you not-in-the-know, consists of taking as many shots of cheap vodka in a one hour period as humanly possible (these were mostly done in the kitchen, however the last few might have been done in a cardboard refrigerator box) in an attempt to wake up in the fetal position in a strange place with a mysterious amount of pictures on your camera that you don't remember taking.

If you were worried about us . . .

Bagdad Cafe

Onward and outward from the Canyon, Arizona stretches into vast expanses of arid desert. I've never really been in a desert and I can say that it is a very interesting and not entirely pleasant experiences. Hundreds of miles between gas stations, dust devils blowing round the desert floor, empty black mountains rising out of the nothingness, and the foreboding sights of abandoned cars, hoods propped open, left to swelter in the unbearable heat of the Mojave. This, of course, was more than a little disconcerting to me. My car, bless her transmission, has seen better days, afterall, but she pulled on through, the trooper and got us through the 100+ blistering heat in fine form.



About 80 miles outside Barstow, California we pulled off at a desert town called Newberry Springs. Now where exactly these "springs" were located, I couldn't tell you. From the looks of it, Newberry Springs is something out of some post-apocalyptic novel. It was not so much a town as a cluster of homes and businesses that dprung up along a mile and half of old Route 66. Sometimes the buildings were as much as a quarter mile apart, and abandoned trucks, decrepit old trucks of the Steinbeckian order, litter there lawns. Smack in the middle of this smoldering mirage stands a relic of that past time, before the construction of the interstate behemoth that is slowly strangling the scant community, the Bagdad Cafe.



By no surprise the only resturaunt in the town, the aptly named Bagdad Cafe earned its reputation after being the subject of a 1988 eponymous film starring Jack Palance. It's menu is basic diner fair, but its ambiance shares an uncertain synergy between with its arid surroundings. Ceiling fans buzz noisily and flies zip around your hamburger and french fries as the elderly waitress asks in a sleepy disinterested tone, "Where ya from?" You can tell she really doesn't care about the answer, but it's what she has been asking folks for the last twenty years, and she supposes she might as well not change her routine. She hollers your order back to the fry cook, who takes his time making it. He hasn't been here for half as long and honestly doesn't give much of a damn about cooking. The burgers a bit dry and the fries a bit overdone, but then again it isn't a place you go for the food. You go there for the dirt, the soiled bathrooms, the clean ashtrays stacked in piles behind the cash registers, relics of an age when people lit up cigarettes with their cups of coffee. It's a dark place, a sad place. A place that exists, you feel, not precisely out of love or a need for money, but more for the sake of tradition. That doesn't mean precisely that they need the cafe to live on forever, but rather that they're just doing what they know how to do, they're getting through life like they know how to and doing the best they can. For some folks that means frying food, I guess, for others asking empty questions and receiving empty answers over drink orders and pots of coffee. And then some of us, when we don't know exactly what's going on in our life, we pick up and leave it. Move it some other place and see how it settles in. It might not work out, I suppose, but I think, for good or bad, most people are trying as best they can.

It’s a big ol’ hole in the ground

There’s not a lot to do at the Grand Canyon other than look at it, and it is very pretty to look at, and hike in and around it. On our second day we chose a hike from our guidebook that proclaimed to be the steepest day hike in the area. It’s called the Grand View trail and I think the name is fitting. It descends approximately 3,000 feet over three miles to Horseshoe Mesa, the location of a last chance copper mine set up in the late 19th century. I think Jake and I both happen to have the type of personality that makes us want to do the most difficult thing in the book. I believe the guide said something about "hydration systems," we just went for the low-tech option of three liters of water each.



The descent is steep and full of switchbacks, and though you’re not fighting gravity it’s still pretty challenging. Every so often we’d turn around to see how far we’d come and know that the farther we went the harder it would be for us to climb back. The trail was not heavily traveled and we only passed a few other groups. It was nice to find a place that was not teeming with the RV crowd but it did bring home how difficult it would be to get help out here if we ran into trouble.



We reached the bottom after two and a half hours and looked around at the old miner’s home. It would have been nice to spend a little more time there and take a rest but we began to hear rumbles of thunder coming from the clouds gathering on the edge of the canyon.


So we began the ascent and it seemed like a relief to be going up for a change. That didn’t last. All we could do was take it slow and steady with plenty of stops to let the muscles recoup for a moment. It was one steep climb after another, entirely unrelenting. But we made it to the top in three hours, for a total time of five and a half hours. Not bad at all. The book had said it would be a 4-6 hour hike so we’re quite fit, it turns out. As we reached the top, we began to meet other folk who were coming a short way down the path to snatch a few views. “How far did you go?,” they asked as we huffed and puffed past. “All the way to the bottom, to Horseshoe Mesa.”



This picture was taken from the start of the trail. Down below, where there's the patch of shadow, is approximately the spot we hiked to. It's also possible to make out the shape of the mesa and see how it got it's name.

Big Holes

There wasn't any internet or cell phone access at the Grand Canyon, so it seems we got a little behind on our blogging. But have no fear all of you people out there in blogland, Crazy Chester and Ms. Moses are back with a vengence and with a more stable level of internet access for the rest of our trip!

Katherine took over some of the driving on the way to the Grand Canyon. And as all of you know, Katherine is a badassssss...



On the way out from Albuquerque we stopped at one of the most unique places we have visited so far on our trip, the Acoma Pueblo in Sky City, New Mexico. Well over 2000 years ago, the Acoma people moved their village to the top of rocky mesa where it still exists as a Native American community to this day.



The tour was lead by a college student who had grown up in the mesa, and he made a point to remind everyone that they were just tourists and that they were expected to follow tribal laws out of respect, which everyone did... almost. Some poor excuse for a mother allowed her two year old twins to run around screaming on the sacred alter of the mission for about five minutes while the tour guide praddled on about how holy it was to his people until finally he stopped talking, picked one of the kids up like a proverbial sack of potatos, and told the mother he wasn't allowed up on the alter. I wanted to applaud, but I restrained myself. Children, afterall, are the Acoma's most precious resource (I learned something). The village itself was stunning. Small adobe and stone houses, pitched high against the blue sky, built right to the edge of the mesa's steep cliffs which plummeted over 300 feet to the New Mexican savannah. Perhaps the coolest part of the experience was the fact that the village was still an active Native American community. Men helped one another patch walls in a new building, young children text messaged people on there cell phones, girls flirted shyly with our tour guide... it was a community still as real and alive as it had been 2000 years before.



The tour took longer than we thought it would, so afterwords we were eager to make our way to the Grand Canyon. It was already about three by the time we got back to our car, and we still had a six hour drive ahead of us. I have to admit that the day was pretty long. We saw a lot though. We stopped in Arizona twice. Once at the Petrified Forest National Park, which we kind of, sort of, half-ass drove through. It was kind of, sort of, half-ass pretty.



Katherine sat and contemplated the half-assed beauty of the Painted Desert and came to the same conclusion I did... "Screw the petrified wood... we're leaving." So, onward we ventured down ol' route 66 in search of a big hole in the ground. The first one we came to, however, wasn't quite as big as we were thinking...



Yes, that's right folks... Meteor Crater, AZ. A 50,000 year-old almost-tourist-trap that shows off its wears daily for the low, low price of $15/ticket. Well worth the stop for a chance to commune with a real life Michael Bay sized disaster and a meet-and-greet with our own Apollo astronauts.



The day still not over, we fueled up and plodded onward through Flagstaff, where we loaded up on groceries and camping essentials before making our way to Grand Canyon National Park, well past ten. We pulled in breifly at Mather Point to see what we could see, but found instead several strange persons flailing about like madmen. One was lying flat on the asphalt, while another was scrambling up the hood of his car.

"What is going on?" Katherine asked.
"Don't get out of the car."
"Are they on shrooms?"
"Probably..."

Then it dawned on me. They were looking at the stars. Next thing you know, we were scrambling on top of our own car to get a look at the crystal clear sky. Millions of lights, hundreds of costellations, dozens of shooting stars cascaded across the night. It was hands down one of the most beautiful night skies I had ever seen. Katherine, however, wasn't content with star-gazing and decided she wanted to get a closer look at the canyon. Next thing I know she's barrelling over a small cement barrier announcing, "I'm sure we can see something..." heading directly for the invisible canyon. Luckily, she realized that it might not be the best idea in the world and stopped. :-)

Finally, we got to our campsite and put up our tent. It took well over an hour to do in the dark, but we got her done. And when we woke up in the morning it looked pretty damn good if I do say so myself.



The next day we walked around the rim of the canyon and out on Shoshone Trail. She certainly doesn't fail to impress. Pictures!

Grand Canyon

Sublime youth, your millennia have
rewarded you the most staggering of adulthoods.
Your deep folds entrap the minds of men.
Your ribbon-wafered recesses open the night
and drag the sun to your bellows
and with it pull on you a blanket of stars.
Sleep there in silence young one.
Keeper of youth, changeless in your steady decay.
Watch over our dead—your dead—
As they fall, follies of a forgotten frontier.
Cling to them with your crags, your crevices,
Until one day they be born again, in your image
And rise up, a sun-soaked mesa, scarred and battered,
Baring itself, a naked wound, to an ageless god.

The Land of Enchantment

In Mrs. Both's third grade class at Donovan Elementary School, Mrs. Both-- still to this day, I believe-- makes each of her students write a report on their favorite state in the union. How I ended up with New Mexico I don't really remember but what I do remember is just about everything else: State Motto- "Land of Enchantment," State Bird- Roadrunner, State Mineral- Turquoise, and they live in adobe houses and hang dried peppers on their doors. Anyway, it was with great excitement that I finally crossed into this, the fifth largest state in the union and it really hasn't disappointed. New Mexico has a beautiful desert landscape that plateaus into Rocky Mountain vistas and bluffs that are truly stunning. Scattered in between the scenery are countless little towns and villages, all a little more liberal and a little more progressive than one might expect.



Katherine and I spent a couple hours walking through Old Town in Albuquerque yesterday. It was a bit touristy and a bit kitschy but the old adobe buildings had such a distint charm that it really didn't feel like a tourist trap at all. We're staying at a really nice old motel that dates back to the heyday of Route 66, complete with a blinking neon sign and a tell-it-like-it is name: The Monterey No Smokers Motel.



"Either of you a smoker?" the gruff man at the front desk asked upon arrival. "No sir..."

But we are definitely drinkers, and the lucky coincidence that my dear friends Katie and Stevie had just moved into Albuquerque proved rather serendipitous. We met them downtown at a bar called Burt's Tiki Lounge. It was pretty cool. A decent hip-hop dj, and cheap drinks lead to a very drunk Jake (and I think a much more sober Stevie, Katie, and Katherine). Lots of fun, and I woke up at 8:30 AM with no alarm and no hangover. :-)





Anyway, we're off to the Grand Canyon today. Probably won't get there till the evening because we're stopping at Sky City, an Acoma Pueblo built on top of a 300 foot bluff and (perhaps) the Petrified Forest.

"On the road again"

After sleeping surprisingly well in the oversized bed of the Elvis suite, I awoke to find that Jake had not faired so well. The general sketchiness of the place had freaked him out enough that he was disturbed by large cracks around the door-frame and the paranoid delusion that someone was trying to look in . . . Okay, maybe it wasn’t that extreme but Jake has decided he’s not so crazy about motel’s that don’t have diamond star ratings like those given out by AAA.

So we packed up and left Clinton, OK and in no time crossed into the Lone Star state. Our first stop of the day was Amarillo, where we happened upon Sheplers Boots and Jeans. We bought neither, instead opting for hats. When in Texas ...



I have to say, I love Big Sky country. It’s somewhat inexplicable but it really does feel like there’s more of it out here. Parts of the Texas panhandle are especially flat, with no trees and few building to break up the horizon. We intended to visit the Cadillac Ranch off of I-40 but we saw it from the road, the back ends of ten cars sticking out of the ground. We felt we’d seen what we needed and kept on going to New Mexico.



On the road to Albuquerque, where we will be spending the night, we got our first look at mountains. The landscape filled up with sagebrush and the highway dipped up and down through the foothills. It was necessary to stop, take photos, and do our best impressions of Wrangler ads.