We've had a surprisingly good time in Auckland despite many local New Zealanders (from other parts of the country) saying that Auckland wasn't worth seeing and wasn't great. It seems as though the North Island people say the South Island isn't great, and the South Islanders say the same about the north. We've enjoyed both...the south for lots of beautiful scenery, small villages, and charm and the north for lots of culture, things to do, etc.
We left our hotel bright and early and things were actually open in Auckland when we set out (being that it's winter here, many of the places we've been haven't opened until 9 or 10 and have shut down by 5). We grabbed our breakfast and began our ascent up Mount Eden. Mount Eden is a volcano. Auckland is built around 26 volcanoes. When we set out, it was sunny and fairly warm. At the base of Mount Eden was a cute park with a great playground. Ed found a fun zip lining ride that basically looked like a toilet plunger attached to a wire above. He rode it down and crashed (supposed to happen) into the four rubber tires above...they stopped you from continuing down. It was lots of fun to ride ("sweet as" as the New Zealanders would say). We then started our walk up the volcano. About half way up, the sky started getting darker, we felt a few drops, but kept going. By the time we reached the top, it was hailing and we were cold and wet. The top offered some nice views, but we didn't stay too long as it was pouring/hailing. We descended the volcano on the other side and the rain stopped. About half an hour later, it started pouring and we took cover under some trees, where we stayed relatively dry. The locals say that because Auckland is on a peninsula, the rain blows in, rains for about a half hour, then stops. That's pretty much what happened. We then walked to the Auckland Museum to get out of the rain again.
The Auckland museum was similar to the Canterbury one in Christchuch, but much bigger. The main attraction was the volcano exhibit...which was quite interesting. Ironically, it didn't rain once while we were in the museum.
After the museum, we walked to a little town called Parnell to stroll around the shops and cafes. Most of the stores were closed because it was Sunday, so we continued our walk to our destination of Mission Bay. While we originally thought it was a fifteen minute walk away, we soon spoke to a local who informed us that it was over three miles (5 k) away. We thought...no problem...but, as usual, it started to pour on us as we were walking...and this time, there was no cover available. Luckily, the rain didn't last long...no more than 10 minutes. The walk out was really nice as we walked along the harbor the whole time.
As soon as we arrived in Mission Bay, we got some gelato. Ed ate tiramisu and Jeanette had chocolate. It was really good. We then walked around trying to find somewhere to eat. It was a cute town...seemed like a small village on Long Island (i.e. Port Jefferson). We ate dinner and it was terrible. Ed didn't even eat half his plate...which is saying something because he can eat almost anything. We caught a bus back since we were about 10 miles from our hotel, it was dark, and we didn't know if it would rain again. We then went to bed.
Today, we woke up early and walked around the city. There wasn't as much shopping as we thought there would be in the central business district. We ate lunch at The Orbit restaurant, which is in the Sky Tower. The Sky Tower is the tallest building in the Southern Hemisphere...even taller than the Eiffel Tower. The elevator had a glass floor and wall, so you could see down and out...Jeanette was petrified on the way up and wanted to cancel lunch. We made it up safely and had great 360 degree views in the restaurant. The restaurant rotated slightly while eating...it finished one loop in an hour. We saw people walking the sky walk outside around the building...very scary. The people are harnessed to a platform above and the walk is not attached to the building. People were also making the largest jump off any building in New Zealand...a 630 foot drop. Lunch was excellent. Ed had steak with mashed sweet potatoes and spinach. Jeanette had a penne pasta dish with chicken, roasted garlic, eggplant, spinach, and parmesan cheese. The elevator ride down wasn't as bad.
We're now headed to the airport for Sydney. We'll post when we can.
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Christchurch
After taking an hour ride in a bus to the hot air balloon site, the bus driver stopped when we were almost there, the pilot let out some test helium balloons to check the air, and then informed us that we would not be able to take the flight because the weather wasn't cooperating...the wind was over 40 mph. So, the bus turned around and we began our journey home. Instead of going back to the hotel that we had already checked out of, we decided to walk around Christchurch for the day. It started raining by 8 am and was pouring by 9. Fortunately, we took refuge in a great natural history museum. The museum had lots of Maori culture (native Polynesians who were in New Zealand first) in addition to dinosaurs, birds (stuffed penguins, albatrose, etc), history of New Zealand, a Da Vinci exhibition, and an Antartic expedition exhibit. The museum was quite interesting and we spent several hours inside.
After the museum, we walked around in the rain some more. Most of it was covered by awnings, but we had to walk seven blocks back to the motel uncovered and got soaked right before leaving for the airport. Ed picked up the Bill Bryson book on Australia. So far, it's pretty funny. Thanks Jason for the recommendation. We returned the rental car and headed for the airport. Our flight was a little delayed because of the rain, but luckily, we left before the forecasted snow began.
After the museum, we walked around in the rain some more. Most of it was covered by awnings, but we had to walk seven blocks back to the motel uncovered and got soaked right before leaving for the airport. Ed picked up the Bill Bryson book on Australia. So far, it's pretty funny. Thanks Jason for the recommendation. We returned the rental car and headed for the airport. Our flight was a little delayed because of the rain, but luckily, we left before the forecasted snow began.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Almost finished with South Island
We've had a great time in the South Island. We're finishing our tour up in Christchurch. We are supposed to go on a hot air balloon ride tomorrow, but the weather isn't sounding too promising...we'll find out tomorrow morning at 5:30. From there, we will fly to Auckland on the North Island and then out to Sydney.
In Queenstown, we went on something called shot over river canyon jets...they went really fast and did 360s. All the ski areas were closed, so we didn't get to go skiing. The day we left Queenstown for a place called Te Anau, it snowed and the ski areas opened. We went on a cruise of Doubtful Sound, which is a fjord. It snowed while we were there...it was quite gorgeous. Apparently it normally doesn't snow on both sides of the mountain we had to drive over to get to the sound...but it did and it was gorgeous...although a little scary driving down unplowed roads in the snow...no one lives over there, so it was fun. The sound was beautiful. We saw dolphins and seals.
We then drove to Dunedin and to a great peninsula called Otago Peninsula. It was beautiful! We went to a beach at sunrise to watch penguins. We saw a few yellow eyed penguins and fur sea lions. We had to cross right in front of the sea lions and apparently they can be aggressive to humans. Luckily, we're alive and fine. It was amazing to see the animals in their natural habitat. There were only five other people on the beach when we saw the animals. It was great.
We then drove up to Christchurch as we are flying here to Auckland. We'll post more when we can.
In Queenstown, we went on something called shot over river canyon jets...they went really fast and did 360s. All the ski areas were closed, so we didn't get to go skiing. The day we left Queenstown for a place called Te Anau, it snowed and the ski areas opened. We went on a cruise of Doubtful Sound, which is a fjord. It snowed while we were there...it was quite gorgeous. Apparently it normally doesn't snow on both sides of the mountain we had to drive over to get to the sound...but it did and it was gorgeous...although a little scary driving down unplowed roads in the snow...no one lives over there, so it was fun. The sound was beautiful. We saw dolphins and seals.
We then drove to Dunedin and to a great peninsula called Otago Peninsula. It was beautiful! We went to a beach at sunrise to watch penguins. We saw a few yellow eyed penguins and fur sea lions. We had to cross right in front of the sea lions and apparently they can be aggressive to humans. Luckily, we're alive and fine. It was amazing to see the animals in their natural habitat. There were only five other people on the beach when we saw the animals. It was great.
We then drove up to Christchurch as we are flying here to Auckland. We'll post more when we can.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
More bad news
We've been having a fantastic time here on the South Island of New Zealand. The scenery is gorgeous...snow capped mountains reaching the sea or lakes. We walked on a glacier the other day, which was really fun, but freezing! At least we had a sunny day to do it. We then drove down to Queenstown, NZ, which is amazing. It's this great little city set at the bottom of a lake surrounded by mountains. Although many of the ski mountains were closed when we arrived, they've now opened due to a recent snow storm and more snow in the forecast. Yesterday we boarded a jet boat to view the Shot River Canyon. It was really fun. The guy drove really fast through this really narrow passageways surrounded by rocks on either side. He did 360s occassionally. It was really fun. We'll be in Queenstown until midday, then we're headed for a cruise on Doubtful Sound, which is supposed to be beautiful.
Well, the bad news is that the motherboard on our computer died. Therefore, we're unable to download/upload our pictures or update our blog frequently. So, although we've lost our camera, video recorder, and computer, we're having a terrific time! New Zealand is beautiful, although a little chilly and a bit expensive. We're hoping to take a hot air balloon ride in a few days in Christchurch, but that all depends on the river...if it's too windy, we don't get to go. Perhaps we'll do it elsewhere! Anyway, hope all is well with everyone.
Well, the bad news is that the motherboard on our computer died. Therefore, we're unable to download/upload our pictures or update our blog frequently. So, although we've lost our camera, video recorder, and computer, we're having a terrific time! New Zealand is beautiful, although a little chilly and a bit expensive. We're hoping to take a hot air balloon ride in a few days in Christchurch, but that all depends on the river...if it's too windy, we don't get to go. Perhaps we'll do it elsewhere! Anyway, hope all is well with everyone.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Wai-o-tapu June 18, 2008
We woke up, ate some breakfast, and headed out to a geothermal wonderland called Wai-o-tapu. We arrived around 8:30 am. When we got there, we were the only car in the parking lot, making us wonder if it was open. Luckily, it was open…just seems like many people here don’t get a start until later in the day as we are often the only people at attractions early in the day…it is winter here, so the tourist season isn’t in full swing. The walk around was approximately 75 minutes long. That gave us just enough time to walk around as a geyser would be erupting at 10:15 am, and it was a short drive away, so we wanted to make sure we would be there in time.
As we began our walk, we saw huge craters in the ground with boiling mud and/or water inside. The mud was very soupy looking because it had rained a bit the day before. The most recent crater was formed in 1986 when some geothermal activity caused the ground to collapse. While walking, there were many danger signs warning us to stay on the path because our weight could cause a collapse. The smell emanating from the park was pretty wretched…just as we started getting used to it, the wind would bring a new smell of sulpher or something else pretty smelly. After seeing the craters, we walked over a bridge with the champagne pools on one side and a mud terrace on the other. The champagne pool side was very steamy and had an orange rim. We then walked through a wooded area with really cool trees to another section of the park. We saw an approximately 10 foot high waterfall colored fluorescent yellow by sulpher. We continued walking to another lake. Everywhere you looked there was bubbling water and you heard hissing sounds. While walking, we saw really cool rock walls that were wavy and had many different colors in them. Lastly, we walked down to a waterfall at the end of the park which cascaded into another lake. When looking over the lake, you could see mountains in the distance. It was very beautiful. As we were finishing our walk and heading back to the visitor center, we saw a place called “Devil’s Bathtub”. It consisted of fluorescent green water…crazy! We hurried back to the visitor center as it was nearing 10:00 and we didn’t want to miss the geyser. We actually had to drive there, so we got in the car and drove a short distance to the car.
We got to Lady Knox Geyser at 10:05 and took a seat in the mini amphitheater. Slightly after 10:15, a park ranger came and began a speech about the geyser. He also dumped soap into the geyser telling us that the soap helped mix the hot and cold water, which forced the explosion of water. Although the soap helped bring the eruption on, the geyser would naturally erupt everyday without the soap. The soap was added so that tourists could watch is at a specific time each day. While he was talking, water started bubbling and trickling out of the geyser. As time went on, the water force became more powerful, until it eventually shot approximately 20 meters in the air. It was pretty cool to watch.
After the geyser, we headed back up to town. There were two lakes near the airport which were supposed to be really cool…called the blue lake and the green lake. You were supposed to be able to walk between the two lakes to see the contrast in color. When we arrived, the walk was closed, so we were only able to view the blue lake…which looked like a pretty standard lake…no special blue hues. From there, we headed up to the airport in Rotorua to take our flight to Christchurch. It was a short and uneventful flight. After landing, we picked up the rental car and realized the camera bag was missing. All the videos of the Grand Canyon and North Island New Zealand in addition to some of our Los Angeles pictures and North Island New Zealand pictures are gone. Worse, our brand new camera and camcorder are gone. We were not happy, but what can you do?
We headed out towards Darfield. It was a pretty small town with not many accommodations, so we continued on to Springfield. On the drive out, we passed many wineries. As we got closer to Springfield, we were able to see the Southern Alps off in the distance as the sun was setting. The snow seemed to glisten as the sun set. We found lodging in a place called Springfield Motor Lodge. Although it provided a backpackers type of accommodation, it was quite nice. We were the only people staying there. We had a full kitchen, a living room, two and a half bathrooms, laundry, outdoor cooking and hot tubs, and four bedrooms available. The only bad thing was that the heating stunk and we were freezing until we went to bed…the comforter was quite warm! There was only one main restaurant in town, so we headed into town to grab some dinner before it closed at 7:00. At this restaurant, we realized what they called “pies” is closer to what we call “pot pies”. When speaking with the cook/owner/waitress/everything, she told us that New Zealand doesn’t really offer fruit pies. Ed had a venison pie and Jeanette had a chicken pie. They were quite tasty. The lady felt bad for us, so we wound up getting two pies, two salads, some potatoes, and a beer for $23…which is quite cheap for New Zealand. We’ve found eating out here to be really expensive…by US standards anyhow. Breakfast the next day consisted of bacon and eggs on toast for Ed and eggs on toast for Jeanette (they only offered eggs…nothing else!) cost $25. Luckily, almost every accommodation has a mini kitchen in it so we can cook food. We need to start doing that!
After dinner, we headed back, watched some television, and then fell asleep…we got under the covers in layers…Jeanette had on two sweatshirts and a long sleeved shirt and pants and Ed wore a sweatshirt and pants to bed because it was so cold. Luckily, we stayed warm during the night. From everywhere we’ve stayed, it appears that the places are heated with little space heaters and nothing else.
As we began our walk, we saw huge craters in the ground with boiling mud and/or water inside. The mud was very soupy looking because it had rained a bit the day before. The most recent crater was formed in 1986 when some geothermal activity caused the ground to collapse. While walking, there were many danger signs warning us to stay on the path because our weight could cause a collapse. The smell emanating from the park was pretty wretched…just as we started getting used to it, the wind would bring a new smell of sulpher or something else pretty smelly. After seeing the craters, we walked over a bridge with the champagne pools on one side and a mud terrace on the other. The champagne pool side was very steamy and had an orange rim. We then walked through a wooded area with really cool trees to another section of the park. We saw an approximately 10 foot high waterfall colored fluorescent yellow by sulpher. We continued walking to another lake. Everywhere you looked there was bubbling water and you heard hissing sounds. While walking, we saw really cool rock walls that were wavy and had many different colors in them. Lastly, we walked down to a waterfall at the end of the park which cascaded into another lake. When looking over the lake, you could see mountains in the distance. It was very beautiful. As we were finishing our walk and heading back to the visitor center, we saw a place called “Devil’s Bathtub”. It consisted of fluorescent green water…crazy! We hurried back to the visitor center as it was nearing 10:00 and we didn’t want to miss the geyser. We actually had to drive there, so we got in the car and drove a short distance to the car.
We got to Lady Knox Geyser at 10:05 and took a seat in the mini amphitheater. Slightly after 10:15, a park ranger came and began a speech about the geyser. He also dumped soap into the geyser telling us that the soap helped mix the hot and cold water, which forced the explosion of water. Although the soap helped bring the eruption on, the geyser would naturally erupt everyday without the soap. The soap was added so that tourists could watch is at a specific time each day. While he was talking, water started bubbling and trickling out of the geyser. As time went on, the water force became more powerful, until it eventually shot approximately 20 meters in the air. It was pretty cool to watch.
After the geyser, we headed back up to town. There were two lakes near the airport which were supposed to be really cool…called the blue lake and the green lake. You were supposed to be able to walk between the two lakes to see the contrast in color. When we arrived, the walk was closed, so we were only able to view the blue lake…which looked like a pretty standard lake…no special blue hues. From there, we headed up to the airport in Rotorua to take our flight to Christchurch. It was a short and uneventful flight. After landing, we picked up the rental car and realized the camera bag was missing. All the videos of the Grand Canyon and North Island New Zealand in addition to some of our Los Angeles pictures and North Island New Zealand pictures are gone. Worse, our brand new camera and camcorder are gone. We were not happy, but what can you do?
We headed out towards Darfield. It was a pretty small town with not many accommodations, so we continued on to Springfield. On the drive out, we passed many wineries. As we got closer to Springfield, we were able to see the Southern Alps off in the distance as the sun was setting. The snow seemed to glisten as the sun set. We found lodging in a place called Springfield Motor Lodge. Although it provided a backpackers type of accommodation, it was quite nice. We were the only people staying there. We had a full kitchen, a living room, two and a half bathrooms, laundry, outdoor cooking and hot tubs, and four bedrooms available. The only bad thing was that the heating stunk and we were freezing until we went to bed…the comforter was quite warm! There was only one main restaurant in town, so we headed into town to grab some dinner before it closed at 7:00. At this restaurant, we realized what they called “pies” is closer to what we call “pot pies”. When speaking with the cook/owner/waitress/everything, she told us that New Zealand doesn’t really offer fruit pies. Ed had a venison pie and Jeanette had a chicken pie. They were quite tasty. The lady felt bad for us, so we wound up getting two pies, two salads, some potatoes, and a beer for $23…which is quite cheap for New Zealand. We’ve found eating out here to be really expensive…by US standards anyhow. Breakfast the next day consisted of bacon and eggs on toast for Ed and eggs on toast for Jeanette (they only offered eggs…nothing else!) cost $25. Luckily, almost every accommodation has a mini kitchen in it so we can cook food. We need to start doing that!
After dinner, we headed back, watched some television, and then fell asleep…we got under the covers in layers…Jeanette had on two sweatshirts and a long sleeved shirt and pants and Ed wore a sweatshirt and pants to bed because it was so cold. Luckily, we stayed warm during the night. From everywhere we’ve stayed, it appears that the places are heated with little space heaters and nothing else.
Happy Birthday Mom!
Hi Mom,
Just wanted to wish you a very happy birthday. Sorry that we couldn't be there for it, but we hope you have a terrific day!
Love you!
Just wanted to wish you a very happy birthday. Sorry that we couldn't be there for it, but we hope you have a terrific day!
Love you!
Lost
Unfortunately, we won't post pictures from the North Island as we've lost our brand new really nice camera (our Sony) and also our video camera with Ed's chief ceremony and everything. It's quite a bummer as we remember having it to a certain point and we're not sure if it is actually lost or stolen...we remember having it to a certain point after landing in Christchurch. Oh well. We still have our little camera left and will have pictures of the South Island.
Rotorua June 17-18
Once arriving in Rotorua, we proceeded towards the information center as weren’t quite sure what to do. We knew the city was a geothermal hotbed, since it was actually in a volcano, but we weren’t sure how to pass our time. We got a quick bite to eat and then ended up deciding to go to the Rotorua Museum. The museum was in the Government Gardens, which is an area known for its geothermal activity. The museum was originally built as a bathhouse. We walked in the rain around the gardens and then ended up going inside. The building is the most photographed building in New Zealand. The main lobby inside was very nice. We looked around and headed to the basement to kill time before a movie started. The basement had low ceilings so we had to wear helmets as we walked around. We saw the pipes that brought the water in from the springs and some of the rooms that people were treated in. Then we headed back upstairs to the movie. Although cheesy, it explained some of the legends of the area. It talked about the time when the New Zealanders first came to the area and the main priest fought an evil warrior. He locked the evil warrior in the ground which was their explanation for all of the steam. It also told the story of a warrior on an island that fell in love with a lady from the mainland. Since their tribes didn’t get along, they were not allowed to see each other. One night, she swam to visit him in the dark with only the sound of his flute to guide her. They also explained how there were many battles over this land since it was very useful to be near the hot springs for heating and cooking. Finally, the movie got into details of the British colonization. In the 1800’s, more and more British came to the area. The locals profited from showing the British around the springs. In the 1880’s, there was an increase in activity. The elders said the gods were mad that the New Zealanders were profiting. In 1886, the volcano erupted, killing 120 people. At this point in the movie, the benches were shaking around to simulate the earthquake that went along with the eruption. The movie ended with the explanation of the rebuilding and the construction of the building we were in during the early 1900s. We went to the roof to see the panoramic view of the city, but it was closed due to weather. Then we saw a few more rooms where treatment was given. We crossed back over to the other half of the museum to see 3 more exhibits. The first was about the volcano, with many more pictures and details. The second was an exhibit about the culture of the locals. They had totem pole like structures and canoes in the building. The final exhibit was about Kiwi soldiers from WW2. They were actually stationed in Egypt and Italy, not the South Pacific.
We headed back to the town to get a power adapter because the three we brought didn’t work here, only in Europe. After a decent walk in the rain, we headed to NB’s for a bit to eat. We were looking at the menu and the owner offered us free beer. We couldn’t turn that down so we headed inside. Ed had a dark local beer with lamb stew and it was very good. Jeanette had a chicken sandwich. Then, since the rain had subsided, we walked to the lakefront and a free geothermal park. They were really nice, but the park was nothing compared to the ones we would see later. We got soaked as it rained more and more. We headed to our hotel, which was a Best Western but not really. It was a local looking place with a nice hot tub, a bushwalk, and a putt putt course (too wet however). We had gotten passes to go on a gondola ride to the top of a hill and then do some luging. It had cleared up, so we got a good view on the way up. The luge was a little plastic cart with a brake that you ride down a fairly big hill. We strapped on our helmets and headed down the intermediate path. Ed flew down, with the cart almost tipping over on several occasions, while Jeanette went nice and slow. We took a chair lift back to the top. The second trip, Ed opted for the advanced track while Jeanette stuck with the easier one. The advance track had much steeper places where you could get some air and some fairly steep banks around turns. We got up to around 20 mph on the way down. We took the chair lift up and the gondola down. The way down was windy and the gondola rocked a bit. We jumped in the hot tub for a few seconds before getting ready for our dinner show at the Tamaki Village.
On the way to our Maori show at Tamaki Village, we were the first people picked up and talked to the bus driver, Darren. He was part of the tribe and was very friendly. We talked about Tiger Woods and all the famous New Zealanders around the world…the richest New Zealander sportsman is actually Tiger Woods caddy. He was very proud of his country. We picked up a guy from Maryland and we talked to him about scuba diving on the way there. After picking up some more people, we had to pick a chief from our bus. The driver picked Ed after no one volunteered. When we arrived, Ed had to learn the traditional greeting, which was shaking hands and then touching noses twice. It seemed very similar to a Wesley Willis head butt. Ed had to stand in the middle with six other chiefs for the peace offering. They instructed everyone that they could not laugh, move, or smile during this portion of the show. Ed stood up there while the four warriors danced with their weapons, stuck out their tongues, bulged their eyes, and made noises. They also danced with fire. After the ceremony, the chiefs led the people inside. We got to look around at a village that showed what the people would do over the course of the day. There was a tent for cooking, sewing, and giving tattoos as well as several others. Then the chiefs had to stand in the front for another ceremony before entering the sacred building. One of the Tamaki women sang as we walked into the building. The chiefs had to get on stage and greet the main singer. We were seated and then they put on a show of dancing that children would have to do to prepare them for weapons training. Then they did a traditional war dance. After that, they used a guitar to show how they are adapting to modern times, but keeping the same songs. They sang the song about the girl that swam to this island following the sounds of the flute. Then we headed into the dining room for dinner. It was a nice buffet with carrots, potatoes, sweet potatoes (with a local name like Yamari), stuffing, fish in coconut sauce, chicken, lamb, gravy, mint sauce, salad, pasta salad, and bread. Everything was cooked like a clambake. It was delicious.
After dinner, Darren drove everyone back to their respective hotels. While Darren was driving us home, he had each nationality on the bus sing a song from their home country. All the countries sang a song. When it came to the United States, we all decided to sing, “The Wheels on the Bus”. After pretending to kick us all off the bus, Darren led us in a rousing rendition of “God Bless America”. He also had a lot of fun driving us home, leading us to believe that he may be a little intoxicated…but he wasn’t. He would honk when he got excited and drove around more than one traffic circle multiple times. He was hysterical! After finally reaching home, we fell fast asleep.
We headed back to the town to get a power adapter because the three we brought didn’t work here, only in Europe. After a decent walk in the rain, we headed to NB’s for a bit to eat. We were looking at the menu and the owner offered us free beer. We couldn’t turn that down so we headed inside. Ed had a dark local beer with lamb stew and it was very good. Jeanette had a chicken sandwich. Then, since the rain had subsided, we walked to the lakefront and a free geothermal park. They were really nice, but the park was nothing compared to the ones we would see later. We got soaked as it rained more and more. We headed to our hotel, which was a Best Western but not really. It was a local looking place with a nice hot tub, a bushwalk, and a putt putt course (too wet however). We had gotten passes to go on a gondola ride to the top of a hill and then do some luging. It had cleared up, so we got a good view on the way up. The luge was a little plastic cart with a brake that you ride down a fairly big hill. We strapped on our helmets and headed down the intermediate path. Ed flew down, with the cart almost tipping over on several occasions, while Jeanette went nice and slow. We took a chair lift back to the top. The second trip, Ed opted for the advanced track while Jeanette stuck with the easier one. The advance track had much steeper places where you could get some air and some fairly steep banks around turns. We got up to around 20 mph on the way down. We took the chair lift up and the gondola down. The way down was windy and the gondola rocked a bit. We jumped in the hot tub for a few seconds before getting ready for our dinner show at the Tamaki Village.
On the way to our Maori show at Tamaki Village, we were the first people picked up and talked to the bus driver, Darren. He was part of the tribe and was very friendly. We talked about Tiger Woods and all the famous New Zealanders around the world…the richest New Zealander sportsman is actually Tiger Woods caddy. He was very proud of his country. We picked up a guy from Maryland and we talked to him about scuba diving on the way there. After picking up some more people, we had to pick a chief from our bus. The driver picked Ed after no one volunteered. When we arrived, Ed had to learn the traditional greeting, which was shaking hands and then touching noses twice. It seemed very similar to a Wesley Willis head butt. Ed had to stand in the middle with six other chiefs for the peace offering. They instructed everyone that they could not laugh, move, or smile during this portion of the show. Ed stood up there while the four warriors danced with their weapons, stuck out their tongues, bulged their eyes, and made noises. They also danced with fire. After the ceremony, the chiefs led the people inside. We got to look around at a village that showed what the people would do over the course of the day. There was a tent for cooking, sewing, and giving tattoos as well as several others. Then the chiefs had to stand in the front for another ceremony before entering the sacred building. One of the Tamaki women sang as we walked into the building. The chiefs had to get on stage and greet the main singer. We were seated and then they put on a show of dancing that children would have to do to prepare them for weapons training. Then they did a traditional war dance. After that, they used a guitar to show how they are adapting to modern times, but keeping the same songs. They sang the song about the girl that swam to this island following the sounds of the flute. Then we headed into the dining room for dinner. It was a nice buffet with carrots, potatoes, sweet potatoes (with a local name like Yamari), stuffing, fish in coconut sauce, chicken, lamb, gravy, mint sauce, salad, pasta salad, and bread. Everything was cooked like a clambake. It was delicious.
After dinner, Darren drove everyone back to their respective hotels. While Darren was driving us home, he had each nationality on the bus sing a song from their home country. All the countries sang a song. When it came to the United States, we all decided to sing, “The Wheels on the Bus”. After pretending to kick us all off the bus, Darren led us in a rousing rendition of “God Bless America”. He also had a lot of fun driving us home, leading us to believe that he may be a little intoxicated…but he wasn’t. He would honk when he got excited and drove around more than one traffic circle multiple times. He was hysterical! After finally reaching home, we fell fast asleep.
New Zealand Arrival June 16
We boarded Qantas airline Saturday evening, June 14th, at 8:00 pm. There was a slight delay, but we were soon in the air. We ended up sitting in the very last row, next to the bathroom. Although we were originally saddened by our seating prospects, things soon looked up when we realized there was an empty seat in our row and that the seats still reclined. We started the flight by reading, watching a movie, and eating (Ed had salmon, Jeanette had chicken). After about three hours, we decided to try to sleep. We took turns lying down across the seats and ended up sleeping on and off for the next seven hours. Therefore, they were fairly well-rested upon arrival. After waking up, we ate breakfast, read, and watched another movie to round out the last three hours. After a thirteen hour flight and a seventeen hour time difference between east coast time and New Zealand time, we arrived at Auckland International Airport. We went through a painless customs interrogation, collected our bags, and headed off to find a rental car.
Because we wanted a one-way rental between Auckland and Rotorua, a small airport, the charge was more than expected. However, by picking up a manual car, we were able to save over half the price of an automatic…in addition, the Avis representative gave us an “accidental” deal and couldn’t take it back once it was given (we didn’t even argue). We lugged our backpacks to our car for the next few days, a Mitsubishi Lancer, and began our journey of driving a manual car on the wrong side of the road. Quite our style (i.e. stupidly), we began driving without consulting a map. After realizing we didn’t know where we were going, we looked at a map, asked a pedestrian who had just moved to the area last week, and finally got to the main road that would take us to the day’s destination, Waitomo Caves. On the way down, we stopped a small rest area, hoping wireless internet would be available as we were unsure if our reservations for the cave tour and the bed and breakfast were confirmed. Fortunately, wireless internet was available with the purchase of a cup of coffee. Unfortunately, we had not received any confirmation e-mails. We continued along the way and hoped for the best.
We arrived at The Legendary Black Water Rafting Company after only one wrong turn and one incorrect stop at a different rafting company. Whoops! We were going to stop for lunch, but decided to stop into the rafting company first to get a reservation for the 2:00 tour, as advertised on their website. Luckily, when we got there, there were only available spots on the 11:00 tour. It was about 10:59. We skipped lunch, changed into our swimming trunks, and hopped on the tour. The water was expected to be 8 degrees Celsius – translation ~48 degrees Fahrenheit. We were told the water gets up to 68 degrees in the summer, but the water is much deeper in the winter, which makes for a much better trip. Because the water was so cold, we put a thermal lined sweater underneath our wetsuits to help keep us warm. We put on booties and rubber boots. We then put on our harnesses and helmets with lights as we would be abseiling (rappelling – going down a rope) first. After putting on our gear, we hopped into a van that would take us to the cave entrance.
Once arriving at the cave, we received a quick lesson in how to use the clip that would control the speed of our descent. We practiced on a hill twice each, which didn’t really do much to calm Jeanette’s nerves. We headed over to the hole in the ground which we would be descending. It was 37-40 meters deep (over 100 feet). Jeanette decided to let the other two couples go first to ensure that they made it down alive. The hole we descended was approximately 3 feet in diameter. When it was our turn to go, the guy hooked us up (individually as only one person abseiled at a time) and we rappelled down. Because the rope was fairly stiff at the top, we descended fairly slowly, even when not using the braking technique. Once getting through the hole, we continued our descent in a larger diameter, but still close to a wall. Ed didn’t have any trouble controlling his speed, but it was not a smooth ride (rather jerky) as he often slowed to look around. You weren’t able to see the bottom of the cave because it was pitch black. After what seemed a shorter than expected time, he reached the bottom, still expecting the worse part to be ahead. Jeanette descended after Ed. She also went down rather slowly and jerkily and reached the bottom sooner than expected…maybe it took a minute or a two. After walking a little bit ahead, we all had to turn off our headlamps as it was time to do zip lining in the dark. It reminded Ed of Space Mountain as you did not know what to expect in the dark. We went last again and heard the others scream in terror and/or delight as they went down. When some reached the end, the tour guide would make loud noises that echoed through the cavern to scare people. We all made it down alive. It was probably a 3 second trip for approximately 100 yards over the stream down below.
After zip lining, we all sat down on a cliff looking over the stream and had a snack. We got to choose coffee or tea and were each given a honey-oat-coconut sort of combination cookie. After eating our snack that helped warm our bodies for the cold water, we were shown how we would be entering the water below. Ed was first this time because the British guy asked Ed why we were always last. Ed took the rubber tube, placed it behind him, and jumped off the cliff into the dark water below. It was an approximately 12-15 foot drop. He landed with no problem. The others followed suit. Surprisingly, we all landed in the tubes. We paddled over to a rope and followed the rope for approximately ten minutes, looking around the cave with our headlights on. The tour guide then told us to turn off our headlamps so we could admire the glow worms inside the glow worm caves. He explained that glow worms were actually a fancy name given to the maggots that had fluorescent poop. It turned out that not many people came to the caves when they thought maggots were inside, so they call it glow worms instead. We then returned, with Ed as the leader, in the dark with our headlamps off so we could admire all the glow worms. Once getting back to the place where we jumped off the cliffs, we got off the floats and threw them up to the tour guide up above. We then started walking, or swimming when it got deeper, for a while. The water was quite cold, but not unbearable. We went down a slide over a little waterfall and continued our journey. Throughout the walk/swim, we had to crawl and squeeze through tiny passages. We saw a bluish/purple eel in the water. After a half an hour of walking around, we drank some warm liquid that tasted a bit like warm Tang and ate a few pieces of chocolate. We then headed to the Twin Falls, where there were actually three waterfalls. We shimmied up them one at a time with the tour guide telling us to where to place our feet. Each waterfall was an approximately ten foot climb up with water pouring down on our faces. The hole we ascended the cave through was smaller than the hole we descended to enter the cave. We caught a ride back to the rafting company, took our equipment off, took a warm shower, and then were given tomato soup and bagels.
While eating, we spoke with our new friends from the tour, one couple from Ireland and one from England. We found out that one couple was traveling for one year and the other was traveling for nine months. Here we thought we had a long vacation! One couple had spent four months in Asia (China, Vietnam, Japan, Thailand, and a few others we can’t remember), three months in Australia, and would be spending three months in New Zealand with a little while longer in Fiji and the United States. The other couple had traveled to South America (Peru, Bolivia, Chile), a few months in Fiji, a few months in Australia, and would be spending a couple months in Asia. We were jealous! After chatting and eating, we drove towards where we thought our bed and breakfast was located. After several kilometers on the road and a few headed through their 1600 acre sheep and beef farm, we arrived. No one was there to greet us, but there was a note on the door telling us to head to our cabin. We carried our luggage in through the drizzle and settled in. At this point, we were both tired, and since it was dark and rainy, we decided not to drive back to town for dinner. We relaxed, read, and started eyeing the breakfast food for dinner. Around 6:00 or so, our host, Rachel stopped by. She said she had sent us a confirmation e-mail telling us to bring food up with us as there was a mini kitchen in our cabin, but we never received it. As she felt sorry for us, she returned with a few kiwis and ramen noodle packages. We ate our makeshift dinner and went to bed around 8:00.
We woke up the next morning at 6:45 because we wanted to get an early start on the day. It was pouring when we woke up. We decided to take a short walk on the property down to see some glow worms. After looking at them, we showered, ate, and packed up our stuff. We were on the road to Rotorua by 8:00, when the sun was just coming up. It rained the entire two and a half hour ride to Rotorua. We drove through many green rolling hills that were often filled with sheep and/or cows.
Because we wanted a one-way rental between Auckland and Rotorua, a small airport, the charge was more than expected. However, by picking up a manual car, we were able to save over half the price of an automatic…in addition, the Avis representative gave us an “accidental” deal and couldn’t take it back once it was given (we didn’t even argue). We lugged our backpacks to our car for the next few days, a Mitsubishi Lancer, and began our journey of driving a manual car on the wrong side of the road. Quite our style (i.e. stupidly), we began driving without consulting a map. After realizing we didn’t know where we were going, we looked at a map, asked a pedestrian who had just moved to the area last week, and finally got to the main road that would take us to the day’s destination, Waitomo Caves. On the way down, we stopped a small rest area, hoping wireless internet would be available as we were unsure if our reservations for the cave tour and the bed and breakfast were confirmed. Fortunately, wireless internet was available with the purchase of a cup of coffee. Unfortunately, we had not received any confirmation e-mails. We continued along the way and hoped for the best.
We arrived at The Legendary Black Water Rafting Company after only one wrong turn and one incorrect stop at a different rafting company. Whoops! We were going to stop for lunch, but decided to stop into the rafting company first to get a reservation for the 2:00 tour, as advertised on their website. Luckily, when we got there, there were only available spots on the 11:00 tour. It was about 10:59. We skipped lunch, changed into our swimming trunks, and hopped on the tour. The water was expected to be 8 degrees Celsius – translation ~48 degrees Fahrenheit. We were told the water gets up to 68 degrees in the summer, but the water is much deeper in the winter, which makes for a much better trip. Because the water was so cold, we put a thermal lined sweater underneath our wetsuits to help keep us warm. We put on booties and rubber boots. We then put on our harnesses and helmets with lights as we would be abseiling (rappelling – going down a rope) first. After putting on our gear, we hopped into a van that would take us to the cave entrance.
Once arriving at the cave, we received a quick lesson in how to use the clip that would control the speed of our descent. We practiced on a hill twice each, which didn’t really do much to calm Jeanette’s nerves. We headed over to the hole in the ground which we would be descending. It was 37-40 meters deep (over 100 feet). Jeanette decided to let the other two couples go first to ensure that they made it down alive. The hole we descended was approximately 3 feet in diameter. When it was our turn to go, the guy hooked us up (individually as only one person abseiled at a time) and we rappelled down. Because the rope was fairly stiff at the top, we descended fairly slowly, even when not using the braking technique. Once getting through the hole, we continued our descent in a larger diameter, but still close to a wall. Ed didn’t have any trouble controlling his speed, but it was not a smooth ride (rather jerky) as he often slowed to look around. You weren’t able to see the bottom of the cave because it was pitch black. After what seemed a shorter than expected time, he reached the bottom, still expecting the worse part to be ahead. Jeanette descended after Ed. She also went down rather slowly and jerkily and reached the bottom sooner than expected…maybe it took a minute or a two. After walking a little bit ahead, we all had to turn off our headlamps as it was time to do zip lining in the dark. It reminded Ed of Space Mountain as you did not know what to expect in the dark. We went last again and heard the others scream in terror and/or delight as they went down. When some reached the end, the tour guide would make loud noises that echoed through the cavern to scare people. We all made it down alive. It was probably a 3 second trip for approximately 100 yards over the stream down below.
After zip lining, we all sat down on a cliff looking over the stream and had a snack. We got to choose coffee or tea and were each given a honey-oat-coconut sort of combination cookie. After eating our snack that helped warm our bodies for the cold water, we were shown how we would be entering the water below. Ed was first this time because the British guy asked Ed why we were always last. Ed took the rubber tube, placed it behind him, and jumped off the cliff into the dark water below. It was an approximately 12-15 foot drop. He landed with no problem. The others followed suit. Surprisingly, we all landed in the tubes. We paddled over to a rope and followed the rope for approximately ten minutes, looking around the cave with our headlights on. The tour guide then told us to turn off our headlamps so we could admire the glow worms inside the glow worm caves. He explained that glow worms were actually a fancy name given to the maggots that had fluorescent poop. It turned out that not many people came to the caves when they thought maggots were inside, so they call it glow worms instead. We then returned, with Ed as the leader, in the dark with our headlamps off so we could admire all the glow worms. Once getting back to the place where we jumped off the cliffs, we got off the floats and threw them up to the tour guide up above. We then started walking, or swimming when it got deeper, for a while. The water was quite cold, but not unbearable. We went down a slide over a little waterfall and continued our journey. Throughout the walk/swim, we had to crawl and squeeze through tiny passages. We saw a bluish/purple eel in the water. After a half an hour of walking around, we drank some warm liquid that tasted a bit like warm Tang and ate a few pieces of chocolate. We then headed to the Twin Falls, where there were actually three waterfalls. We shimmied up them one at a time with the tour guide telling us to where to place our feet. Each waterfall was an approximately ten foot climb up with water pouring down on our faces. The hole we ascended the cave through was smaller than the hole we descended to enter the cave. We caught a ride back to the rafting company, took our equipment off, took a warm shower, and then were given tomato soup and bagels.
While eating, we spoke with our new friends from the tour, one couple from Ireland and one from England. We found out that one couple was traveling for one year and the other was traveling for nine months. Here we thought we had a long vacation! One couple had spent four months in Asia (China, Vietnam, Japan, Thailand, and a few others we can’t remember), three months in Australia, and would be spending three months in New Zealand with a little while longer in Fiji and the United States. The other couple had traveled to South America (Peru, Bolivia, Chile), a few months in Fiji, a few months in Australia, and would be spending a couple months in Asia. We were jealous! After chatting and eating, we drove towards where we thought our bed and breakfast was located. After several kilometers on the road and a few headed through their 1600 acre sheep and beef farm, we arrived. No one was there to greet us, but there was a note on the door telling us to head to our cabin. We carried our luggage in through the drizzle and settled in. At this point, we were both tired, and since it was dark and rainy, we decided not to drive back to town for dinner. We relaxed, read, and started eyeing the breakfast food for dinner. Around 6:00 or so, our host, Rachel stopped by. She said she had sent us a confirmation e-mail telling us to bring food up with us as there was a mini kitchen in our cabin, but we never received it. As she felt sorry for us, she returned with a few kiwis and ramen noodle packages. We ate our makeshift dinner and went to bed around 8:00.
We woke up the next morning at 6:45 because we wanted to get an early start on the day. It was pouring when we woke up. We decided to take a short walk on the property down to see some glow worms. After looking at them, we showered, ate, and packed up our stuff. We were on the road to Rotorua by 8:00, when the sun was just coming up. It rained the entire two and a half hour ride to Rotorua. We drove through many green rolling hills that were often filled with sheep and/or cows.
Los Angeles June 12-14
We checked into the hotel and got all set up. We decided to go to Santa Monica for the evening. We took a wrong turn out of the hotel and went a few miles the wrong way before we got straightened out. Since it was rush hour, we skipped the highway and went down the Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) the whole way. It is not too scenic through the city. We found a pretty sweet parking lot and were off. We went to the 3rd Street Promenade and looked around for a place to eat. It was a very nice outdoor mall with dinosaur water statues in the center. No cars were allowed so there were people walking everywhere. Every little bit there were street performers. There were a lot of musicians, a guy that balanced plates and utensils on his head and threw more stuff (candelabras) up there from his foot, and the typical gold or silver painted “statue” people. Jeanette saw a little Greek place, but Ed thought it looked kind of shady. We decided to keep walking towards the beach to see what else was going on. It had been overcast and cool, about 65 degrees. All of a sudden, it got a little sunny, so there was hope of a nice sunset. We looked at the beach area; it was very nice with trees and flowers and bums everywhere. It was really nice, but there are a lot of homeless Americans on benches (Jeanette doesn’t like the word bum). We saw the pier off in the distance with a roller coaster and Ferris wheel. The sunset was nice for a few seconds, and then it got all cloudy again. The boardwalk was getting close to closing so we played two quick games of skeeball and headed back to the town. Ed wanted to try PF Changs so we headed over that way. We got in to the restaurant without a wait since it was pretty late. Jeanette had Chicken Lo Mein and Ed had Lemongrass Prawn with Garlic Noodles. The little sauce they mix for you was really good on the noodles, but much too spicy for poor Jeanette. Just to mention, this was the night of Game 4 of the NBA finals. Since the Lakers were playing the Celtics, we expected bars to be crowded with people watching the game. Most people seemed fairly indifferent. We saw as many Celtics fans as Lakers fans. We always heard LA wasn’t a sports town, but we were shocked. After dinner, tt was late, so we headed back to the hotel.
The next morning, we did some laundry to avoid early rush hour traffic and because some of our clothes were caked in red clay dirt from our Grand Canyon trek. We left around 10 to go to the post office and car wash. Then we headed back out around 11. The freeway was still packed, so we got off and went on some side roads to Beverly Hills. The houses on the way were nice enough, but fairly small (there were a few larger ones) and very close together. Beverly Hills was nice, but only a small area. We walked around quickly and took a few pictures. Jeanette got a chocolate shake from Baskin Robbins and we headed out. We stopped at an In n Out burger for lunch. After eating lunch, we continued on to Sony Studios for a tour. We got there and they showed us a movie about the history of Columbia/Sony. It featured clips of all their famous movies like Spiderman and Men In Black. Then they showed a “sneak preview” of Hancock that was the same as the one we just saw in the theaters. We headed into the studio lot and saw Main Street. It was an old fashioned town they use for movies by changing a few things here and there (i.e. change signs in front of stores, etc). All of the buildings had offices behind the facades, which is different from many other sets that don’t have anything behind the facades. Our tour guide took us into the main building where the producers work and showed us the 9 Oscars the studio had won since its inception. They are called Oscars because a lady working in the artist’s office saw the picture of the original design and said that looks like my Uncle Oscar. The name stuck. Then we went to soundstage where they were striking a set from the new Beyonce thriller Obsessed. A sound stage is called a sound stage because the old silent movies used glass stage which couldn’t be made sound proof. They used the term to differentiate between the two types. Then we went past the Happy Madison building (Adam Sandler’s production studio). He was inside and filming a movie Bedtime Stories but we didn’t see him. We saw his Escalade golf cart and a picture of his bulldog. Then we went to another soundstage for Obsessed. This one was a house with props all around. Then we went into the Till Death soundstage. Most of the set was gone since the show is likely to be cancelled. We did walk up the stairs to see that there was no second floor because that would be a separate set. After that we walked past the Angels and Demons set which we couldn’t look at. They were recreating the Sistine Chapel. Then we headed to the building where they made the background scenery paintings. They cost about $40,000 to rent one. To make it, they take a picture of a real location and trace it onto a huge canvas then paint it. It takes 16 years to be a master that is allowed to paint them. Then we headed to Jeopardy! I guess neither off us has watched in a while because the set looked much different then we remembered. Every single show was on hiatus so nothing was being filmed. We learned that there is an online test to see if you are smart enough to get on the show. Only 10% are, and then they are whittled down based on personality at tryouts. So if you tryout, don’t forget to smile. That wrapped up the tour.
We then headed to Hollywood since the studio was in Culver City. People were saying how hot it was, but it was only 70 and sunny. We parked about a mile away and walked down to Hollywood Boulevard. Ed thought it would be a nice walk past Sunset and other famous places, but it wasn’t. It was kind of shady and mostly fast food places. Then you get to the main street which is about 4 blocks long. We saw the famous Chinese Theater, Kodak Theater, and the Walk of Fame. We went through all that quickly and tried to figure out if we should take a bus tour. While deciding, we saw some terrible street performers. A guy from the Jimmy Kimmel Show offered us free tickets so we took them instead of going on the tour. We ran up to California Pizza Kitchen (real California cooking) for some cheesy garlic bread, a Mediterranean salad, and a BBQ chicken salad. On the way out, we caught a glimpse of the Hollywood sign in the distance. We got in line at 6:15 instead of the suggested time of 6:45, but it worked out because when they let people in at 7:30, we were almost the last ones. We waited for the Friday night show to wrap up and then got in our seats. They were taping a show for Sunday before the NBA finals. David Cook, the guy that won American Idol was on, so we were going to a show that we had never seen to watch a guy from another show we had never seen. There was a fat bald guy that warmed the crowd up. The girl sitting next to Jeanette was going crazy and they gave here a free shirt. Jimmy Kimmel came out after a bit and introduced the band and the announcer (Dicky Barrett of the Mighty Mighty Bosstones). He made some jokes, mostly about one unemployed guy in the front row. Then he left and we had to clap for some taped clips. Then the show started and he came back out. They showed a satellite interview with Barack Obama. Jimmy and Barack didn’t seem to be on the same page answering questions, probably because they weren’t in the same place. During the taping, they had to have commercial breaks, not quite sure why. It seems like they could cut them since it isn’t a live show, but they didn’t. Then David Cook came out and answered a few questions. Jeanette wanted him to sing, but Ed was glad he didn’t. That was the end of the show. We had a long walk back to the car and headed home.
In the morning, we had to pack and gather all the information that we needed for New Zealand. We got out of the hotel at noon or so. That didn’t leave us enough time to go to Griffth’s Park, so we went to Venice Beach. Our first impression was some flea market like stores and dirty street performers. We walked for a bit and realized we were headed back to Santa Monica. We went up there for lunch at the Greek place we saw the other day. It wasn’t great, but better than the airplane food we will be enjoying soon. We stopped for a crepe with dark chocolate and strawberries. We walked back to Venice Beach and our second impression was the same as our first. It was cool and cloudy, but the sun came out. That was a nice change. Very cloudy and cool all weekend. We found the outdoor gym and watched kids climb on some gymnastics equipment. We also saw a weight lifting competition. That part was pretty entertaining. We headed back to the car and drove over the airport.
The next morning, we did some laundry to avoid early rush hour traffic and because some of our clothes were caked in red clay dirt from our Grand Canyon trek. We left around 10 to go to the post office and car wash. Then we headed back out around 11. The freeway was still packed, so we got off and went on some side roads to Beverly Hills. The houses on the way were nice enough, but fairly small (there were a few larger ones) and very close together. Beverly Hills was nice, but only a small area. We walked around quickly and took a few pictures. Jeanette got a chocolate shake from Baskin Robbins and we headed out. We stopped at an In n Out burger for lunch. After eating lunch, we continued on to Sony Studios for a tour. We got there and they showed us a movie about the history of Columbia/Sony. It featured clips of all their famous movies like Spiderman and Men In Black. Then they showed a “sneak preview” of Hancock that was the same as the one we just saw in the theaters. We headed into the studio lot and saw Main Street. It was an old fashioned town they use for movies by changing a few things here and there (i.e. change signs in front of stores, etc). All of the buildings had offices behind the facades, which is different from many other sets that don’t have anything behind the facades. Our tour guide took us into the main building where the producers work and showed us the 9 Oscars the studio had won since its inception. They are called Oscars because a lady working in the artist’s office saw the picture of the original design and said that looks like my Uncle Oscar. The name stuck. Then we went to soundstage where they were striking a set from the new Beyonce thriller Obsessed. A sound stage is called a sound stage because the old silent movies used glass stage which couldn’t be made sound proof. They used the term to differentiate between the two types. Then we went past the Happy Madison building (Adam Sandler’s production studio). He was inside and filming a movie Bedtime Stories but we didn’t see him. We saw his Escalade golf cart and a picture of his bulldog. Then we went to another soundstage for Obsessed. This one was a house with props all around. Then we went into the Till Death soundstage. Most of the set was gone since the show is likely to be cancelled. We did walk up the stairs to see that there was no second floor because that would be a separate set. After that we walked past the Angels and Demons set which we couldn’t look at. They were recreating the Sistine Chapel. Then we headed to the building where they made the background scenery paintings. They cost about $40,000 to rent one. To make it, they take a picture of a real location and trace it onto a huge canvas then paint it. It takes 16 years to be a master that is allowed to paint them. Then we headed to Jeopardy! I guess neither off us has watched in a while because the set looked much different then we remembered. Every single show was on hiatus so nothing was being filmed. We learned that there is an online test to see if you are smart enough to get on the show. Only 10% are, and then they are whittled down based on personality at tryouts. So if you tryout, don’t forget to smile. That wrapped up the tour.
We then headed to Hollywood since the studio was in Culver City. People were saying how hot it was, but it was only 70 and sunny. We parked about a mile away and walked down to Hollywood Boulevard. Ed thought it would be a nice walk past Sunset and other famous places, but it wasn’t. It was kind of shady and mostly fast food places. Then you get to the main street which is about 4 blocks long. We saw the famous Chinese Theater, Kodak Theater, and the Walk of Fame. We went through all that quickly and tried to figure out if we should take a bus tour. While deciding, we saw some terrible street performers. A guy from the Jimmy Kimmel Show offered us free tickets so we took them instead of going on the tour. We ran up to California Pizza Kitchen (real California cooking) for some cheesy garlic bread, a Mediterranean salad, and a BBQ chicken salad. On the way out, we caught a glimpse of the Hollywood sign in the distance. We got in line at 6:15 instead of the suggested time of 6:45, but it worked out because when they let people in at 7:30, we were almost the last ones. We waited for the Friday night show to wrap up and then got in our seats. They were taping a show for Sunday before the NBA finals. David Cook, the guy that won American Idol was on, so we were going to a show that we had never seen to watch a guy from another show we had never seen. There was a fat bald guy that warmed the crowd up. The girl sitting next to Jeanette was going crazy and they gave here a free shirt. Jimmy Kimmel came out after a bit and introduced the band and the announcer (Dicky Barrett of the Mighty Mighty Bosstones). He made some jokes, mostly about one unemployed guy in the front row. Then he left and we had to clap for some taped clips. Then the show started and he came back out. They showed a satellite interview with Barack Obama. Jimmy and Barack didn’t seem to be on the same page answering questions, probably because they weren’t in the same place. During the taping, they had to have commercial breaks, not quite sure why. It seems like they could cut them since it isn’t a live show, but they didn’t. Then David Cook came out and answered a few questions. Jeanette wanted him to sing, but Ed was glad he didn’t. That was the end of the show. We had a long walk back to the car and headed home.
In the morning, we had to pack and gather all the information that we needed for New Zealand. We got out of the hotel at noon or so. That didn’t leave us enough time to go to Griffth’s Park, so we went to Venice Beach. Our first impression was some flea market like stores and dirty street performers. We walked for a bit and realized we were headed back to Santa Monica. We went up there for lunch at the Greek place we saw the other day. It wasn’t great, but better than the airplane food we will be enjoying soon. We stopped for a crepe with dark chocolate and strawberries. We walked back to Venice Beach and our second impression was the same as our first. It was cool and cloudy, but the sun came out. That was a nice change. Very cloudy and cool all weekend. We found the outdoor gym and watched kids climb on some gymnastics equipment. We also saw a weight lifting competition. That part was pretty entertaining. We headed back to the car and drove over the airport.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Grand Canyon - June 8-11 - Very Long Post!
We woke up, finished our last minute packing, ate breakfast, and grabbed a few last minute items from the grocery store for the trek (peanut butter, apples, Gatorade) before beginning the hour and a half drive to the Grand Canyon. In the beginning of our drive, we saw a deer close to the side of the road. While we were able to avoid the deer, the car behind us was not so lucky. While Ed was watching in his rearview mirror instead of paying attention to the windy road in front of us, he saw the car behind us hit the deer as it attempted to cross the road. The speed limit on the road was 55, and hitting the deer was unavoidable. The deer attempted jumping over a fence on the one side of the road, didn’t make it, freaked out, and darted across the road in front of the other car. The car hit the deer and it went tumbling three times, then got up, and ran straight into the woods…probably in rough shape.
From then on, the ride was less eventful. The car ride was beautiful. It very mountainous, with some of the mountain peaks still having snow on them. There were many evergreen trees as we drove through Kaibab National Forest. We could see the ski areas as we drove through. We arrived at the Grand Canyon around 10…a bit later than expected. Fortunately, the Grand Canyon wasn’t as crowded as we expected and we got a close spot to the visitor center. We spoke with a ranger there who gave us directions to the Backcountry Office to attempt obtaining overnight camping permits.
We drove to the Backcountry office with our fingers crossed. We spoke to the ranger who informed us that there was a last minute cancellation for that night and there was room for the following night to camp out at the Bright Angel campground. While we originally wanted to hike rim to rim, we were still happy to have received any campground at all, being that there are very few campsites available. There were 25 campsites at Bright Angel, 10 at Cottonwood (in the North Rim), and 15 at Indian Gardens. The ranger told us we should wait until about 3:30 to begin our hike down as the heat wouldn’t be as bad then. Therefore, we decided to walk around the top of the South Rim for a little while to kill time. We walked around, mesmerized by the ginormity of the canyon. We were surprised that there few guardrails preventing people from going over the side…especially at the top where all the tourists hang out. If you took one step too far, it was conceivable that you may fall over 1000 feet down. We walked two miles up to Yapi Point. We then walked back, getting some lunch at one of the restaurants. We were surprised that the food wasn’t incredibly overpriced…as there isn’t much else to eat in the area unless you bring your own lunch. Ed had beef stew in a bread bowl, while Jeanette opted for chicken fingers. We were sure to eat a hearty lunch as the Grand Canyon brochures warn you countless times that you need to be well hydrated and double your calories during hikes. Otherwise, you risk dehydration, heat stroke, and heat exhaustion. We probably took their advice too seriously, but hey, better safe than sorry. There was one story about a young woman who had completed the Boston Marathon and was in great shape who had died of heat exhaustion while hiking down the canyon with only one bottle of water. That scared us as neither of us has ever run a marathon. We then walked back to the car, made sure we had everything we needed, and began our journey to the start of the South Kaibab trail…that entailed taking two buses and picking up a hiking pole each at the camp rental sections.
While we rode the last bus to the start of the trail, Jeanette became nervous. But, once we got there, there were other people starting day hikes down. We started the trail down around 3:45 and took lots of pictures around every corner. It was amazing to see how much you are unable to see from the top of the canyon. After a few miles, there was another whole layer canyon we saw with different rock formations and colors, vegetation, etc. At the beginning of the hike, we took our time, talking to different people along the trails for ten minutes at a time, took pictures, etc, but towards the end, there were no people. We hiked the last two hours or so completely by ourselves. Jeanette got worried because we were still hiking and the sun was going down. She was scared of hiking in the dark. We found out later that many people hike in the dark and that the moon is extremely bright down there…many people don’t even hike with flashlights in the dark…they only use the moonlight. We finally saw the Colorado River and the bridge we had to cross in order to arrive at our campsite. Before crossing the bridge, there was a short, dark tunnel that we had to go through. We went over the Colorado River, then over a creek, and arrived at our campground after 6.9 miles around 7:30. The campsite was between a huge rock wall and a creek, so it was quite picturesque. There were approximately 25 (maybe 30) campsites. We started to set up our tent, which was on loan from Sarah and Jason. This was our first time setting up a tent by ourselves, and we encountered a couple problems. We were having a hard time getting the poles to hook into the spots that they were supposed to. We asked a guy to help us. We had everything set up pretty much correctly. The guy forced the pole into the hole too forcefully, and the pole wound up splitting a little bit. He realized that the pole was simply caught in the material at the top. Once we rearranged the fabric, the pole slid in easily. The ground was really hard, so we couldn’t get the stakes into the ground. We threw some clothes into the tent to get it to flat. We clipped the tent to the attached clips, but it was a little too tight and caused a little tear in the tent. Besides that, no problems at all. Since we had already hiked 11 miles that day, we went to bed after eating around 9:30. When we were getting ready for bed, we heard four hikers come in. They had come down the South Kaibab trail. Two hikers decided to camp out for the night, and two decided to continue along the trail. They were all wearing head lamps that had soft colored lights. We felt dumb for having a regular flashlight as everyone else had head lamps or soft colored lights. Our food for the entire hike consisted of: beef jerky, dried fruit, cheetos, nuts, pretzels, twizzlers, granola bars, and chocolate pudding. We forgot to make our sandwiches before we left, so we didn’t have any substantial food.
We had a tough time sleeping because it was warm out, the ground was extremely hard and rocky, and there were animals rustling around. We heard a story about a rattlesnake being killed by a couple because it was right outside there tent the night before. We’re not sure why they killed it instead of scaring it away, but they killed it with a rock. The guy’s wife yelled at him because you are technically not allowed to kill rattlesnakes. It seemed like most campers woke up around 5 and went to bed around 9. We woke up around 5 with many other people. We decided that our legs felt good enough to carry us to Ribbon Falls, which was allegedly 6 miles away. Since we didn’t carry around our 30-40 pound packs all day, we decided to pack our little backpack with water and food. We headed out early, which was good, because we had to walk through “the box”, which is a desert area with very little shade. We walked through Phantom Ranch, which is a lodge with air conditioning and a little restaurant down there. We saw where they kept the mules at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. After walking about half a mile, the trail to Ribbon Falls began (therefore .5 miles was added to the initial 6 mile hike each way). We followed a tributary (a creek that feeds into the larger river) towards the North Rim. It was a smaller canyon with walls several hundred feet tall. Most views were blocked by the canyon we were in. We didn’t see anyone for the first two hours as we went down the creek and crossed several bridges. We walked out of the canyon into “the box”, where it was definitely warmer, probably in the mid 90s. We later found out from a park ranger that the temperature in the shade was 107 degrees. We brought eight bottles of water with us and had finished more water than expected before midday. Therefore, when we got close to Ribbon Falls, which was an extra mile than expected as we didn’t take the unmarked short cut, we decided to continue hiking to Cottonwood campground (which is ¾ of the way to the North Rim and has nice views of the North Rim), an extra 1.4 miles each direction, to fill up our water. A passing hiker told us that the campground was only 25 minutes away, so we went. It took us longer to get there as the hike was vertical for part of it. After 45 minutes, we didn’t know how much further away it was, so we stopped, had a snack, and Jeanette put band aids on the blisters on her feet as they were hurting. We then kept walking until we arrived at the campground. We filled our water, ate a little more, and wound up speaking to a couple from Sacramento…the guy was the person who helped set up the tent. They told us that this was their 5th or 6th time hiking the entire canyon and that they’ve done many different trails/routes. We also met some people who had started hiking at 3:20 am to hike rim to rim in one day.
We headed to Ribbon Falls, which people had said were beautiful and a great place to swim for an afternoon. As we got close, there wasn’t a clear path to the falls, so we hiked through the water and brush. When we got to the falls, we though they were nice, but were expecting something much bigger. Ed went right up to the waterfall and found out that the water was cold. The water maybe came up to his knee, definitely not deep enough to go swimming. Ed went behind the falls and looked around. We then found a shady spot to hang out, eat, and relax. It was nice and cool in the shade, and sometimes even chilly when the mist from the waterfalls sprayed us. It was quite windy and the waterfall blew in many different directions. It also changed its’ pattern down the rocks several times. While we were there, a youth group from Mississippi came by. There were nine boys aged 10-13 who had hiked with the one youth group leader from the North Rim down. The other youth group leader and two other boys showed up about an hour later. The group was on vacation for a week and half visiting different national parks. They stayed for a little bit and then hiked back out the North Rim…definitely a long hike for one day, especially when leaving in the middle of the day when the heat was the worse. We walked up the side of the waterfall, took pictures mid way up behind the waterfall, and as we were hiking out, we wound up meeting a family that was camping right beside us at Bright Angel. All the campers were super friendly and very willing to share their hiking adventure stories/advice.
We headed back across the shortcut, which was walking through lots of water and rough, unmarked desert paths. As we headed back through the box, we dipped our hats in the water several times to keep us cool. After about 10-15 minutes, our completely soaked hats were dry. Fortunately for us, there was a breeze while we were hiking, which helped offset some of the heat. Because the breeze was very strong, we started to get worried that our tent had blown away as the ground was too hard to stake it down. We didn’t see anyone during the whole trip back. When we exited the desert section and entered the cavern section, Jeanette saw one deer up the canyon above the path. Ed saw several deer below the path. As we were walking, a buck started running towards us. Ed realized we were blocking their escape route, so we slowly backed up and let the deer pass before continuing on. It was a little scary since the path is very narrow and there were approximately 5 bucks with antlers, 2 babies, and a doe that appeared to be charging us. Luckily, they just wanted to get to the other side of the canyon to climb up with their friend. We arrived back at the campsite around 6:30 to finish our 17 mile hike on our “rest” day. Fortunately, our tent was still there.
We then ate dinner and cooled off in the creek, since our campsite seemed was one of the hottest places in the whole canyon. We headed over to the Phantom Ranch amphitheater to see the ranger show at 7:30, but no one showed up, including the ranger. We heard the canteen at Phantom Ranch had snacks, so we sat on benches outside there until it opened. It was nice and air conditioned inside. We shared a bagel and a snickers. We wound up speaking to two people from Fort Worth, Texas. The one guy had hiked the Grand Canyon many times. He had gone with 72 people on 30-40 trips. People asked him to go there and hike with him. While speaking with them, we found out that they were employees of Lockheed Martin. The experienced hiker told us about his uphill hiking technique, which is similar to the “Indian runs” we ran while playing soccer in high school. Essentially, one person would always be resting, while the others hiked. The lead hiker would rest while the others passed him, then he would start hiking when he got to the end of the line. He said that it worked and that if we saw him while we were hiking, we could definitely join him as the technique works better the more people you have. Around 9:00, we headed back to the campsite to go to bed. While getting ready for bed, Ed saw a rabbit and what he thought was a snake. He later realized it was the tail of a ring tailed fox. We tried to go to sleep, but it was incredibly hot, probably in the 90s, and even the occasional breeze had hot wind. We woke up at 4:00, after a restless night of very little sleep, started packing our things, ate breakfast, and headed out by 5:00. We were quite intimidated by the hike ahead of us as it was a 9.5 vertical hike. Jeanette’s foot was hurting quite badly as she had a blister that became infected on her heel right where it rubs against the shoe every time you take a step. Ed started the hike wearing his sandals to avoid hurting his blisters the entire hike.
We started the first 4.5 miles towards Indian Gardens campground. We had heard that this was the easiest part of the hike, except for Devil’s Corkscrew, which was very steep and windy. We started the hike along the Colorado River, going slightly up at an easy pace. After about a mile, we were very disappointed to find that we had to go down the same amount we had just gone up. As we started ascending again, we followed a creek, which was a different tributary to the Colorado River. We had to cross the creek several times during the trek. The first two and a half miles were fairly easy. Then we hiked Devil’s Corkscrew, which was as hard as the last 4.5 miles. We spoke with many people from Bright Angel campgrounds who were camping at Indian Gardens to break up the hike. Surprisingly, we finished the first half of the hike in 2 hours and fifteen minutes. We refilled our waters, ate some more breakfast, and rested for 45 minutes before heading out again. Although the rest of the hike was steep, there were rest houses every 1.5 miles. We made it to the next rest stop pretty quickly, in 50 minutes. We weren’t messing around with taking too many pictures. Instead, we hiked as fast as we could to avoid hiking the hardest part of the trail in the hottest part of the day. It seemed like this part of the trail was the easiest of the last 4.5 miles, but that may have been because we had the most energy. We refilled our water again and rested 10 minutes or so. We then proceeded to the next rest house. This part of the hike was much harder and we had to move over several times for mules to pass. The path smelled horrendous. It smelled like manure and the worst smell of urine ever! Maybe this is why people like to hike out the north rim…no mule smells!!! We spoke with a crazy, philosophical guy that we didn’t really understand everything he was saying. Pretty much the gist of his talk was to tell us that we would be profoundly changed by our hike in the Grand Canyon and that we should avoid gossip in real life. When Jeanette asked him how much longer to the next rest house, he did not give a straight answer. He just blabbered on about staying in the present moment and not worrying when the arrival would happen. Finally, he said we would be pleasantly surprised soon. We were…the rest house was only two more hills and curves up. We arrived at the next rest house in an hour. We stopped, ate, and drank water. We also spoke with a couple from Chicago who had attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison (they asked us about it as Ed was wearing a Wisconsin Hockey shirt). They had rafted in to Phantom Ranch and were walking the 9.5 miles out. After resting for a little bit, we continued on our journey up.
The last mile and a half was really hard for us. Our feet were aching, the backpacks seemed quite heavy, the trail was quite steep and windy, and it was getting warmer. A few other couples and we took turns passing each other as we took many rests along this part of the trip. Some of the couples were just day hikers while others were making the long hike up. We met two other families that were from Madison, WI along the way. At the campsite, we had met other people from Madison too. So, there were lots of Madison-ites present. We had to move over one more time for the mule pack to pass by. Finally, we saw the end. Once we got up there, we walked another .5 miles back to the car. So, despite a few pesky blisters, we made it out rather unscathed. It was a great feeling to finally take the backpacks off and change our shoes. We unloaded some stuff, got in the car, drove to Market Plaza to return our hiking poles, and headed back towards Flagstaff in search of food. We were starving and Pizza Hut lunch buffet sounded delicious. We looked for nearby restaurants in our handy Tom-Tom (affectionately called Ed-Ed, our GPS system – thank you Ed’s work friends) and found one halfway between the Grand Canyon and Flagstaff. The food tasted delicious! We had breadsticks and half pepperoni-half cheese stuffed crust pizza. After eating, we headed to a different Quality Inn in Flagstaff.
After checking in, we immediately took showers and took an hour long nap. We didn’t want to sleep too long because neither of us are nappers and we didn’t want to throw off our sleep schedule. After waking up, we decided to head to the movies. We went to see Sex and the City (lucky Ed). Although the movies were only .2 miles away, we got lost and it took us about fifteen minutes to find. We got there a little late, but it was okay because we missed most of the previews before the movie started. The movie was okay. Jeanette thought the show was better, but it was definitely watchable…probably better to rent. After the movies, we went to Target to find cleaning supplies for the camera and video camera, which had become quite dusty after the Grand Canyon excursion. We picked up the supplies, got a bite to eat at Wendy’s (yes, we are very healthy eaters), and headed back to the hotel. We watched TV for a little bit (Mets v. Arizona baseball game) and went to sleep.
We woke up the next morning at 6:00. We ate breakfast and headed towards Los Angeles. For the first little bit of the drive between Arizona and California, it was the most desolate strip we’ve been on since western Texas. The drive wasn’t super scenic either as it was all desert and a few mountains, although they looked like big dirt piles…just our opinion of course. We stopped for lunch and ate at a place called Firehouse Italian because it looked better than fast food. After eating a chicken parmesan sub and mozzarella sticks (way healthier than fast food by the way), we filled up with gas that cost $4.99 a gallon, and drove to Los Angeles. We lucked out with the traffic, hitting very little. There was a lot going in the other direction and it was just starting to pile up in our direction…yet we made it to our hotel rather quick.
From then on, the ride was less eventful. The car ride was beautiful. It very mountainous, with some of the mountain peaks still having snow on them. There were many evergreen trees as we drove through Kaibab National Forest. We could see the ski areas as we drove through. We arrived at the Grand Canyon around 10…a bit later than expected. Fortunately, the Grand Canyon wasn’t as crowded as we expected and we got a close spot to the visitor center. We spoke with a ranger there who gave us directions to the Backcountry Office to attempt obtaining overnight camping permits.
We drove to the Backcountry office with our fingers crossed. We spoke to the ranger who informed us that there was a last minute cancellation for that night and there was room for the following night to camp out at the Bright Angel campground. While we originally wanted to hike rim to rim, we were still happy to have received any campground at all, being that there are very few campsites available. There were 25 campsites at Bright Angel, 10 at Cottonwood (in the North Rim), and 15 at Indian Gardens. The ranger told us we should wait until about 3:30 to begin our hike down as the heat wouldn’t be as bad then. Therefore, we decided to walk around the top of the South Rim for a little while to kill time. We walked around, mesmerized by the ginormity of the canyon. We were surprised that there few guardrails preventing people from going over the side…especially at the top where all the tourists hang out. If you took one step too far, it was conceivable that you may fall over 1000 feet down. We walked two miles up to Yapi Point. We then walked back, getting some lunch at one of the restaurants. We were surprised that the food wasn’t incredibly overpriced…as there isn’t much else to eat in the area unless you bring your own lunch. Ed had beef stew in a bread bowl, while Jeanette opted for chicken fingers. We were sure to eat a hearty lunch as the Grand Canyon brochures warn you countless times that you need to be well hydrated and double your calories during hikes. Otherwise, you risk dehydration, heat stroke, and heat exhaustion. We probably took their advice too seriously, but hey, better safe than sorry. There was one story about a young woman who had completed the Boston Marathon and was in great shape who had died of heat exhaustion while hiking down the canyon with only one bottle of water. That scared us as neither of us has ever run a marathon. We then walked back to the car, made sure we had everything we needed, and began our journey to the start of the South Kaibab trail…that entailed taking two buses and picking up a hiking pole each at the camp rental sections.
While we rode the last bus to the start of the trail, Jeanette became nervous. But, once we got there, there were other people starting day hikes down. We started the trail down around 3:45 and took lots of pictures around every corner. It was amazing to see how much you are unable to see from the top of the canyon. After a few miles, there was another whole layer canyon we saw with different rock formations and colors, vegetation, etc. At the beginning of the hike, we took our time, talking to different people along the trails for ten minutes at a time, took pictures, etc, but towards the end, there were no people. We hiked the last two hours or so completely by ourselves. Jeanette got worried because we were still hiking and the sun was going down. She was scared of hiking in the dark. We found out later that many people hike in the dark and that the moon is extremely bright down there…many people don’t even hike with flashlights in the dark…they only use the moonlight. We finally saw the Colorado River and the bridge we had to cross in order to arrive at our campsite. Before crossing the bridge, there was a short, dark tunnel that we had to go through. We went over the Colorado River, then over a creek, and arrived at our campground after 6.9 miles around 7:30. The campsite was between a huge rock wall and a creek, so it was quite picturesque. There were approximately 25 (maybe 30) campsites. We started to set up our tent, which was on loan from Sarah and Jason. This was our first time setting up a tent by ourselves, and we encountered a couple problems. We were having a hard time getting the poles to hook into the spots that they were supposed to. We asked a guy to help us. We had everything set up pretty much correctly. The guy forced the pole into the hole too forcefully, and the pole wound up splitting a little bit. He realized that the pole was simply caught in the material at the top. Once we rearranged the fabric, the pole slid in easily. The ground was really hard, so we couldn’t get the stakes into the ground. We threw some clothes into the tent to get it to flat. We clipped the tent to the attached clips, but it was a little too tight and caused a little tear in the tent. Besides that, no problems at all. Since we had already hiked 11 miles that day, we went to bed after eating around 9:30. When we were getting ready for bed, we heard four hikers come in. They had come down the South Kaibab trail. Two hikers decided to camp out for the night, and two decided to continue along the trail. They were all wearing head lamps that had soft colored lights. We felt dumb for having a regular flashlight as everyone else had head lamps or soft colored lights. Our food for the entire hike consisted of: beef jerky, dried fruit, cheetos, nuts, pretzels, twizzlers, granola bars, and chocolate pudding. We forgot to make our sandwiches before we left, so we didn’t have any substantial food.
We had a tough time sleeping because it was warm out, the ground was extremely hard and rocky, and there were animals rustling around. We heard a story about a rattlesnake being killed by a couple because it was right outside there tent the night before. We’re not sure why they killed it instead of scaring it away, but they killed it with a rock. The guy’s wife yelled at him because you are technically not allowed to kill rattlesnakes. It seemed like most campers woke up around 5 and went to bed around 9. We woke up around 5 with many other people. We decided that our legs felt good enough to carry us to Ribbon Falls, which was allegedly 6 miles away. Since we didn’t carry around our 30-40 pound packs all day, we decided to pack our little backpack with water and food. We headed out early, which was good, because we had to walk through “the box”, which is a desert area with very little shade. We walked through Phantom Ranch, which is a lodge with air conditioning and a little restaurant down there. We saw where they kept the mules at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. After walking about half a mile, the trail to Ribbon Falls began (therefore .5 miles was added to the initial 6 mile hike each way). We followed a tributary (a creek that feeds into the larger river) towards the North Rim. It was a smaller canyon with walls several hundred feet tall. Most views were blocked by the canyon we were in. We didn’t see anyone for the first two hours as we went down the creek and crossed several bridges. We walked out of the canyon into “the box”, where it was definitely warmer, probably in the mid 90s. We later found out from a park ranger that the temperature in the shade was 107 degrees. We brought eight bottles of water with us and had finished more water than expected before midday. Therefore, when we got close to Ribbon Falls, which was an extra mile than expected as we didn’t take the unmarked short cut, we decided to continue hiking to Cottonwood campground (which is ¾ of the way to the North Rim and has nice views of the North Rim), an extra 1.4 miles each direction, to fill up our water. A passing hiker told us that the campground was only 25 minutes away, so we went. It took us longer to get there as the hike was vertical for part of it. After 45 minutes, we didn’t know how much further away it was, so we stopped, had a snack, and Jeanette put band aids on the blisters on her feet as they were hurting. We then kept walking until we arrived at the campground. We filled our water, ate a little more, and wound up speaking to a couple from Sacramento…the guy was the person who helped set up the tent. They told us that this was their 5th or 6th time hiking the entire canyon and that they’ve done many different trails/routes. We also met some people who had started hiking at 3:20 am to hike rim to rim in one day.
We headed to Ribbon Falls, which people had said were beautiful and a great place to swim for an afternoon. As we got close, there wasn’t a clear path to the falls, so we hiked through the water and brush. When we got to the falls, we though they were nice, but were expecting something much bigger. Ed went right up to the waterfall and found out that the water was cold. The water maybe came up to his knee, definitely not deep enough to go swimming. Ed went behind the falls and looked around. We then found a shady spot to hang out, eat, and relax. It was nice and cool in the shade, and sometimes even chilly when the mist from the waterfalls sprayed us. It was quite windy and the waterfall blew in many different directions. It also changed its’ pattern down the rocks several times. While we were there, a youth group from Mississippi came by. There were nine boys aged 10-13 who had hiked with the one youth group leader from the North Rim down. The other youth group leader and two other boys showed up about an hour later. The group was on vacation for a week and half visiting different national parks. They stayed for a little bit and then hiked back out the North Rim…definitely a long hike for one day, especially when leaving in the middle of the day when the heat was the worse. We walked up the side of the waterfall, took pictures mid way up behind the waterfall, and as we were hiking out, we wound up meeting a family that was camping right beside us at Bright Angel. All the campers were super friendly and very willing to share their hiking adventure stories/advice.
We headed back across the shortcut, which was walking through lots of water and rough, unmarked desert paths. As we headed back through the box, we dipped our hats in the water several times to keep us cool. After about 10-15 minutes, our completely soaked hats were dry. Fortunately for us, there was a breeze while we were hiking, which helped offset some of the heat. Because the breeze was very strong, we started to get worried that our tent had blown away as the ground was too hard to stake it down. We didn’t see anyone during the whole trip back. When we exited the desert section and entered the cavern section, Jeanette saw one deer up the canyon above the path. Ed saw several deer below the path. As we were walking, a buck started running towards us. Ed realized we were blocking their escape route, so we slowly backed up and let the deer pass before continuing on. It was a little scary since the path is very narrow and there were approximately 5 bucks with antlers, 2 babies, and a doe that appeared to be charging us. Luckily, they just wanted to get to the other side of the canyon to climb up with their friend. We arrived back at the campsite around 6:30 to finish our 17 mile hike on our “rest” day. Fortunately, our tent was still there.
We then ate dinner and cooled off in the creek, since our campsite seemed was one of the hottest places in the whole canyon. We headed over to the Phantom Ranch amphitheater to see the ranger show at 7:30, but no one showed up, including the ranger. We heard the canteen at Phantom Ranch had snacks, so we sat on benches outside there until it opened. It was nice and air conditioned inside. We shared a bagel and a snickers. We wound up speaking to two people from Fort Worth, Texas. The one guy had hiked the Grand Canyon many times. He had gone with 72 people on 30-40 trips. People asked him to go there and hike with him. While speaking with them, we found out that they were employees of Lockheed Martin. The experienced hiker told us about his uphill hiking technique, which is similar to the “Indian runs” we ran while playing soccer in high school. Essentially, one person would always be resting, while the others hiked. The lead hiker would rest while the others passed him, then he would start hiking when he got to the end of the line. He said that it worked and that if we saw him while we were hiking, we could definitely join him as the technique works better the more people you have. Around 9:00, we headed back to the campsite to go to bed. While getting ready for bed, Ed saw a rabbit and what he thought was a snake. He later realized it was the tail of a ring tailed fox. We tried to go to sleep, but it was incredibly hot, probably in the 90s, and even the occasional breeze had hot wind. We woke up at 4:00, after a restless night of very little sleep, started packing our things, ate breakfast, and headed out by 5:00. We were quite intimidated by the hike ahead of us as it was a 9.5 vertical hike. Jeanette’s foot was hurting quite badly as she had a blister that became infected on her heel right where it rubs against the shoe every time you take a step. Ed started the hike wearing his sandals to avoid hurting his blisters the entire hike.
We started the first 4.5 miles towards Indian Gardens campground. We had heard that this was the easiest part of the hike, except for Devil’s Corkscrew, which was very steep and windy. We started the hike along the Colorado River, going slightly up at an easy pace. After about a mile, we were very disappointed to find that we had to go down the same amount we had just gone up. As we started ascending again, we followed a creek, which was a different tributary to the Colorado River. We had to cross the creek several times during the trek. The first two and a half miles were fairly easy. Then we hiked Devil’s Corkscrew, which was as hard as the last 4.5 miles. We spoke with many people from Bright Angel campgrounds who were camping at Indian Gardens to break up the hike. Surprisingly, we finished the first half of the hike in 2 hours and fifteen minutes. We refilled our waters, ate some more breakfast, and rested for 45 minutes before heading out again. Although the rest of the hike was steep, there were rest houses every 1.5 miles. We made it to the next rest stop pretty quickly, in 50 minutes. We weren’t messing around with taking too many pictures. Instead, we hiked as fast as we could to avoid hiking the hardest part of the trail in the hottest part of the day. It seemed like this part of the trail was the easiest of the last 4.5 miles, but that may have been because we had the most energy. We refilled our water again and rested 10 minutes or so. We then proceeded to the next rest house. This part of the hike was much harder and we had to move over several times for mules to pass. The path smelled horrendous. It smelled like manure and the worst smell of urine ever! Maybe this is why people like to hike out the north rim…no mule smells!!! We spoke with a crazy, philosophical guy that we didn’t really understand everything he was saying. Pretty much the gist of his talk was to tell us that we would be profoundly changed by our hike in the Grand Canyon and that we should avoid gossip in real life. When Jeanette asked him how much longer to the next rest house, he did not give a straight answer. He just blabbered on about staying in the present moment and not worrying when the arrival would happen. Finally, he said we would be pleasantly surprised soon. We were…the rest house was only two more hills and curves up. We arrived at the next rest house in an hour. We stopped, ate, and drank water. We also spoke with a couple from Chicago who had attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison (they asked us about it as Ed was wearing a Wisconsin Hockey shirt). They had rafted in to Phantom Ranch and were walking the 9.5 miles out. After resting for a little bit, we continued on our journey up.
The last mile and a half was really hard for us. Our feet were aching, the backpacks seemed quite heavy, the trail was quite steep and windy, and it was getting warmer. A few other couples and we took turns passing each other as we took many rests along this part of the trip. Some of the couples were just day hikers while others were making the long hike up. We met two other families that were from Madison, WI along the way. At the campsite, we had met other people from Madison too. So, there were lots of Madison-ites present. We had to move over one more time for the mule pack to pass by. Finally, we saw the end. Once we got up there, we walked another .5 miles back to the car. So, despite a few pesky blisters, we made it out rather unscathed. It was a great feeling to finally take the backpacks off and change our shoes. We unloaded some stuff, got in the car, drove to Market Plaza to return our hiking poles, and headed back towards Flagstaff in search of food. We were starving and Pizza Hut lunch buffet sounded delicious. We looked for nearby restaurants in our handy Tom-Tom (affectionately called Ed-Ed, our GPS system – thank you Ed’s work friends) and found one halfway between the Grand Canyon and Flagstaff. The food tasted delicious! We had breadsticks and half pepperoni-half cheese stuffed crust pizza. After eating, we headed to a different Quality Inn in Flagstaff.
After checking in, we immediately took showers and took an hour long nap. We didn’t want to sleep too long because neither of us are nappers and we didn’t want to throw off our sleep schedule. After waking up, we decided to head to the movies. We went to see Sex and the City (lucky Ed). Although the movies were only .2 miles away, we got lost and it took us about fifteen minutes to find. We got there a little late, but it was okay because we missed most of the previews before the movie started. The movie was okay. Jeanette thought the show was better, but it was definitely watchable…probably better to rent. After the movies, we went to Target to find cleaning supplies for the camera and video camera, which had become quite dusty after the Grand Canyon excursion. We picked up the supplies, got a bite to eat at Wendy’s (yes, we are very healthy eaters), and headed back to the hotel. We watched TV for a little bit (Mets v. Arizona baseball game) and went to sleep.
We woke up the next morning at 6:00. We ate breakfast and headed towards Los Angeles. For the first little bit of the drive between Arizona and California, it was the most desolate strip we’ve been on since western Texas. The drive wasn’t super scenic either as it was all desert and a few mountains, although they looked like big dirt piles…just our opinion of course. We stopped for lunch and ate at a place called Firehouse Italian because it looked better than fast food. After eating a chicken parmesan sub and mozzarella sticks (way healthier than fast food by the way), we filled up with gas that cost $4.99 a gallon, and drove to Los Angeles. We lucked out with the traffic, hitting very little. There was a lot going in the other direction and it was just starting to pile up in our direction…yet we made it to our hotel rather quick.
Sedona - Detailed - June 7
We got a bit delayed leaving the hotel because there was a detour. We ended up going through downtown Tucson. It seemed nice enough, but we didn’t stop or anything. We drove up towards Sedona through Phoenix. This was the most traffic we had seen on our trip. In Phoenix, Ed saw a billboard for In ‘n Out Burger. We used the handy GPS to track one down. They don’t have anything but burgers (really good ones) so Jeanette got a chicken sandwich from McDonalds. The drive from Phoenix to Sedona had tons of mountains and evergreens. We were not expecting that at all. After about 5 hours, we got up to Sedona. We stopped at Chapel Rock on the way. It is a church up on a hill with great views. Then we stopped at the Gap for Jeanette to get a new tank top. We didn’t have too many directions, but we thought we could figure out how to get to the nice section of town. We thought wrong. The first problem was that the whole town is under construction. The second problem is that we went towards downtown. It was all fast food and banks and whatnot. We ended up turning around and heading to our hotel. We figured out we had to go uptown and that is where we headed. We parked in a lot and headed to a few stores. There was live music playing out in front of them. We looked at some jewelry and T-shirts and a place called the Jerky Hut. Then we got sucked in by someone trying to sell us a time share. When we got out of there, we went to a few more local stores. We met a guy from Cazenovia who owned one of them. Another lady seemed very pretentious when we tried to make small talk with her. It seemed like Main Street was very touristy. Most of the people loved their little town and took any chance to tell you how great it was. We headed to some little shop village we had seen earlier. It was getting late, like 6pm, so most of the stores were closing. The village was very nice and was hosting a wedding when we were there. At that point, we decided to get some food. We looked around at a ton of restaurants because they were all very much overpriced. We ended up at an Italian place that was pretty good. You could tell it was fancy because it had Astroturf out in front. We sat on the patio that had some good smelling flowers and a little traffic noise. Jeanette had Fettuccini Alfredo with spinach, grilled chicken, and mushrooms. Ed had tortellini with Portobello mushrooms. Both of us liked our meal. Then we ran to the grocery store to get some supplies for the Grand Canyon. The town seemed to close down pretty early expect for a few bars. It wasn’t a bar night, so we went back and watched some TV.
We got up and ate some breakfast at the hotel. Jeanette’s legs were very tired from her early morning workout the day before. We headed down to Red Rock State Park for a hike. We went on a few trails and saw some gorgeous scenery. There were many lizards around ever corner. Then we saw a rattlesnake moving away from us. After that, we saw a few deer and a rabbit. It was a very nice park with great views. Then we headed up to Slide Rock Park. There are natural “waterslides” in the river. The lot was full so we went up the road a mile and parked on the side of the road. We went down a very steep path to the creek. We were attempting to walk down to the park. Ed went right in the water while Jeanette stayed up on the rocks. About half way there, Jeanette reluctantly got in the water up to her knees. We made it to the park and it was worth the trip. Although aimed at smaller kids, Ed went down the natural red rock slide. He also jumped from a red rock ledge that was about 15 feet up. Then we headed back up. There were a lot of people out, enjoying the nice day and great views. We got back in the car and drove towards Oak Creek Park. The drive was through the woods, not deserts at all. It was also very mountainous. When we got to the “park”, we realized it was just a scenic overlook. We got to see the road we drove up on and the creek. After that, we drove to Flagstaff. It has a nice downtown area with a bunch of stores, little plazas, and restaurants. Some of the plazas and restaurants had live music outside on this gorgeous afternoon. Most of the store were closing soon, so we saw a few and then headed to the hotel. There was an Outback nearby, so we got a quick bite and went back to the room to sort out things to take to the Grand Canyon. We had to make a quick trip to Target for a few last minute things. We came home and watched part of the movie, “Natural Lampoon’s Vacation”. It seemed like we were following their itinerary pretty closely…at least from the part we saw. They drove from Flagstaff to the Grand Canyon, then out to Los Angeles. We didn’t watch the ending, which Ed has seen, but went to bed to wake up early for our drive to the Grand Canyon.
We got up and ate some breakfast at the hotel. Jeanette’s legs were very tired from her early morning workout the day before. We headed down to Red Rock State Park for a hike. We went on a few trails and saw some gorgeous scenery. There were many lizards around ever corner. Then we saw a rattlesnake moving away from us. After that, we saw a few deer and a rabbit. It was a very nice park with great views. Then we headed up to Slide Rock Park. There are natural “waterslides” in the river. The lot was full so we went up the road a mile and parked on the side of the road. We went down a very steep path to the creek. We were attempting to walk down to the park. Ed went right in the water while Jeanette stayed up on the rocks. About half way there, Jeanette reluctantly got in the water up to her knees. We made it to the park and it was worth the trip. Although aimed at smaller kids, Ed went down the natural red rock slide. He also jumped from a red rock ledge that was about 15 feet up. Then we headed back up. There were a lot of people out, enjoying the nice day and great views. We got back in the car and drove towards Oak Creek Park. The drive was through the woods, not deserts at all. It was also very mountainous. When we got to the “park”, we realized it was just a scenic overlook. We got to see the road we drove up on and the creek. After that, we drove to Flagstaff. It has a nice downtown area with a bunch of stores, little plazas, and restaurants. Some of the plazas and restaurants had live music outside on this gorgeous afternoon. Most of the store were closing soon, so we saw a few and then headed to the hotel. There was an Outback nearby, so we got a quick bite and went back to the room to sort out things to take to the Grand Canyon. We had to make a quick trip to Target for a few last minute things. We came home and watched part of the movie, “Natural Lampoon’s Vacation”. It seemed like we were following their itinerary pretty closely…at least from the part we saw. They drove from Flagstaff to the Grand Canyon, then out to Los Angeles. We didn’t watch the ending, which Ed has seen, but went to bed to wake up early for our drive to the Grand Canyon.
We made it out
We were able to get walk-in backcountry permits that allowed us to hike all the way down the canyon, camp out at the bottom, and then hike out. It was a great experience, but very exhausting. We took the South Kaibab trail seven miles down to get in, camped at Bright Angels campground, walked 17 miles to the north rim (not all the way out) on our "rest" day, and then hiked nine miles up the Bright Angels trail yesterday. We were hurting! We're now back on the road, headed to LA. We will write in the car and hopefully post something tomorrow. A few facts to keep you busy.
FACT: The best kind of turf is smurf turf.
FACT: Snakes can't drill holes in rocks.
FACT: Southerners don't plan on doing things, they fix on doing things.
FACT: The only thing worse than another ice age would be a heat age. (It was 107 in the Grand Caynon in the shade and not much cooler at night. We couldn't sleep too well and I might have been a bit crazy. I couldn't help but picture a saber tooth tiger crossed with Mr. Bigglesworth running around in 120 degree heat.)
FACT: The best kind of turf is smurf turf.
FACT: Snakes can't drill holes in rocks.
FACT: Southerners don't plan on doing things, they fix on doing things.
FACT: The only thing worse than another ice age would be a heat age. (It was 107 in the Grand Caynon in the shade and not much cooler at night. We couldn't sleep too well and I might have been a bit crazy. I couldn't help but picture a saber tooth tiger crossed with Mr. Bigglesworth running around in 120 degree heat.)
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Grand Canyon
We are headed up to the Grand Canyon tomorrow. We will update the blog when we get back to civilization. Sedona and Flagstaff were both fun, but the best time was at Slide Rock State Park.
We also saw our first rattlesnake at Red Rock State Park. Ed didn't freak too much!
We also saw our first rattlesnake at Red Rock State Park. Ed didn't freak too much!
White Sands June 6, 2008
We pulled into the visitor center first. There wasn’t much going on inside the visitor center, although it was really cool looking. It was an adobe style building with flowering cacti outside. We proceeded to drive back towards the trails. We paid our small entrance fee of $3 each, which would last six days. We arrived at the first trail, a nature trail, which covered 1 mile. As we started walking, Ed spotted a camouflaged lizard, but Jeanette did not. We hiked up the sand dune and followed the markers for our one mile loop. Along the way, there were several bugs, lizards, and cacti. We took several pictures. We had a hard time following the path at the beginning because we couldn’t easily locate the markers. As we finished the nature trail, Ed got the bright idea to go sledding down the hill as that’s what many people do here. Since we didn’t have sleds, he attempted using the lid of the cooler, which did not work at all!
We then headed back towards Akali Flat trail, which is a 4.6 mile hike in the dunes or as Ed calls it the “idiot trail”…more about that in a minute. Along the way, we stopped at one of the restrooms. Ed gagged in there as it was a glorified port-a-potty that stunk!
Anyway, we arrived at the trail at 12:20 and started our hike. It is affectionately called the “idiot trail” by Ed because we always seem to start our activity in the hottest part of the day. We began our hike with two bottles of water in hand (we both drank one bottle of water before starting the hike). We followed the trail markers out…although we lost sight of some of them. There was a sign telling us that if a windstorm should occur, do not move from the nearest trail marker. Instead, you should wait until the storm is over, and then try to locate the next trail marker. Luckily, we did not have this problem. The only things we saw out in the dunes were a few reddish colored ants, lizards, and grasshoppers. The dunes seemed to go on for a long time. Some of the low areas consisted of hard, dried up gypsum that was easy to walk on. However, some of the higher parts of the dune were made up of softer sand that was harder to walk on and got in your shoes as you hiked up and down the dunes. We drank a little bit of water every 10 minutes, even if we weren’t thirsty, to enjoy we were staying fairly hydrated. We made it to the half way point in the flats and looked around for a little bit before moving on. Truthfully, it didn’t look that different than anything else. Apparently, the flats mean the area in which the white sand is produced. It is a disappearing lake basin that produces the white sand. The wind carries the white sand from this basin to other parts of the park to give the whole area white sand. We continued on to the second half of the hike. It was a bit hotter at this point and we were definitely thirstier. It felt like there was a lot of going up and down the dunes on this portion of the hike…it may have been because we were tired…but we had to empty our shoes of sand more frequently. We got back to the car, drank some cold water, and Ed ate a quick snack…a granola bar with peanut butter. We then drove to the one last trail in the park. It was only .3 miles, so we quickly finished it. We stopped at the gift shop on the way out. We bought some post cards and then headed out. We started our drive towards Tucson. We noticed that there were two new fires in the mountains closer to Las Cruces that hadn’t been there, or at least not as big, in the morning. We drove to Las Cruces and stopped at a local, hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant. We don’t remember the name of it, but it was super cheap and pretty good. It cost $7 for a huge plate of food consisting of refried beans, rice, enchiladas, deep fried cheese stuffed pepper, a taco, and some flautas. Jeanette ate refried beans, rice, and a chicken burrito. After eating, we drove to Tucson, Arizona.
While driving, there were some small hills along the way, but overall, it was pretty flat. The land was pretty open, with a few farms here and there. Before entering Arizona, we went through a border patrol station that was not on the border at all. It claimed that it was responsible for finding 20,000 pounds of drugs in people’s cars. Just to make sure that we weren’t going into Mexico, Ed asked the border patrolman, who laughed at us, and sent us on our way.
We arrived in Tucson, checked in to the Quality Inn motel. The time changed again as Arizona does not recognize daylight savings time. The hotel was really nice and was built in adobe style architecture. There were many large cacti outside and a covered wagon. The motel had wireless internet, a decent breakfast, and laundry. We did some laundry and headed out to Dairy Queen for some ice cream between loads of laundry. We came back and fell fast asleep.
We then headed back towards Akali Flat trail, which is a 4.6 mile hike in the dunes or as Ed calls it the “idiot trail”…more about that in a minute. Along the way, we stopped at one of the restrooms. Ed gagged in there as it was a glorified port-a-potty that stunk!
Anyway, we arrived at the trail at 12:20 and started our hike. It is affectionately called the “idiot trail” by Ed because we always seem to start our activity in the hottest part of the day. We began our hike with two bottles of water in hand (we both drank one bottle of water before starting the hike). We followed the trail markers out…although we lost sight of some of them. There was a sign telling us that if a windstorm should occur, do not move from the nearest trail marker. Instead, you should wait until the storm is over, and then try to locate the next trail marker. Luckily, we did not have this problem. The only things we saw out in the dunes were a few reddish colored ants, lizards, and grasshoppers. The dunes seemed to go on for a long time. Some of the low areas consisted of hard, dried up gypsum that was easy to walk on. However, some of the higher parts of the dune were made up of softer sand that was harder to walk on and got in your shoes as you hiked up and down the dunes. We drank a little bit of water every 10 minutes, even if we weren’t thirsty, to enjoy we were staying fairly hydrated. We made it to the half way point in the flats and looked around for a little bit before moving on. Truthfully, it didn’t look that different than anything else. Apparently, the flats mean the area in which the white sand is produced. It is a disappearing lake basin that produces the white sand. The wind carries the white sand from this basin to other parts of the park to give the whole area white sand. We continued on to the second half of the hike. It was a bit hotter at this point and we were definitely thirstier. It felt like there was a lot of going up and down the dunes on this portion of the hike…it may have been because we were tired…but we had to empty our shoes of sand more frequently. We got back to the car, drank some cold water, and Ed ate a quick snack…a granola bar with peanut butter. We then drove to the one last trail in the park. It was only .3 miles, so we quickly finished it. We stopped at the gift shop on the way out. We bought some post cards and then headed out. We started our drive towards Tucson. We noticed that there were two new fires in the mountains closer to Las Cruces that hadn’t been there, or at least not as big, in the morning. We drove to Las Cruces and stopped at a local, hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant. We don’t remember the name of it, but it was super cheap and pretty good. It cost $7 for a huge plate of food consisting of refried beans, rice, enchiladas, deep fried cheese stuffed pepper, a taco, and some flautas. Jeanette ate refried beans, rice, and a chicken burrito. After eating, we drove to Tucson, Arizona.
While driving, there were some small hills along the way, but overall, it was pretty flat. The land was pretty open, with a few farms here and there. Before entering Arizona, we went through a border patrol station that was not on the border at all. It claimed that it was responsible for finding 20,000 pounds of drugs in people’s cars. Just to make sure that we weren’t going into Mexico, Ed asked the border patrolman, who laughed at us, and sent us on our way.
We arrived in Tucson, checked in to the Quality Inn motel. The time changed again as Arizona does not recognize daylight savings time. The hotel was really nice and was built in adobe style architecture. There were many large cacti outside and a covered wagon. The motel had wireless internet, a decent breakfast, and laundry. We did some laundry and headed out to Dairy Queen for some ice cream between loads of laundry. We came back and fell fast asleep.
Saturday, June 7, 2008
More Facts
FACT: Rivers do not need to include water.
FACT: Jeanette was a member of Atlantic Starr (why else would she be able to sign their terrible songs)
FACT: Arizona is the stupidest state (because they do not celebrate daylight savings time)
FACT: Jeanette was a member of Atlantic Starr (why else would she be able to sign their terrible songs)
FACT: Arizona is the stupidest state (because they do not celebrate daylight savings time)
Carlsbad Caverns June 5
We went to Carlsbad Caverns on June 5th. We drove through West Texas, which was quite unpopulated. We saw lots of cows and oil drills on the sides of the road, but that was about it. It definitely became more desert like as we entered into New Mexico. We went on a tour of Carlsbad Caverns and we really enjoyed it! We also watched the bats fly out of the caves for their evening feeding at about 8:00 pm. It was pretty cool to see that many caves exit the cave that we had just explored. Apparently, 400-500 bats cramp into the space of the inside of a baseball hat. There are about 400,000 or so bats that fly out of the caves during the summer. During the winter, they migrate south to Mexico, Central America, and even Brazil (according to the Park Ranger). We attempted camping in Carlsbad, but by the time we left the bat show, it was hard to find the place that the Park Ranger had told us to go as it was dark (she said to pull off on a dirt road). Oh well...hopefully soon we will get to use our borrowed tent.
Thursday, June 5, 2008
San Antonio Pictures
Sorry guys. We would have posted more pictures, but we're short on time and the internet is being fussy. If you want to see a lot of pictures, check out the link on the side of the page.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Random Facts by Ed
Fact: Fish are the goats of the sea (after Robert told us that the fish in Lake Travis eat sausage, cheese whiz, etc)
Fact: Cowboys dance the night away
Fact: Cowboys dance the night away
San Antonio June 4
Hi guys. I first wanted to thank everyone for their birthday wishes. I really appreciate it. We had a great day in San Antonio. It was such a charming city...we were definitely impressed. In fact, we've liked the Texan cities the best thus far. We arrived in San Antonio around 10:30, visited the Alamo, and then walked around the downtown Riverwalk area. It was great. The pictures don't do this city justice. We saw Indiana Jones when it became really hot outside (around 3:30) and then walked around outside again. Then, we had dinner at The Cheesecake Factory...I know, not very authentic, but I love that place.
Austin June 1-4
We got to Austin in time for a late dinner in the downtown area. We went down to 6th Street to look for a restaurant upon recommendation of Jason’s friend who lives in Austin. We parked in the middle of the long downtown strip of bars and restaurants because we weren’t entirely sure where to go. We walked around until we found Z Tejas, which was a really cool looking restaurant…it was actually in 2 sections connected by a bridge. We got some good chips and salsa (guacamole based), salad with grilled chicken (for Jeanette), and pork tenderloin stuffed with chorizo (for Ed). We walked around downtown some more and saw the strip of bars for “young folks”. It was really nice. As we were walking, we heard lots of live music coming from the bars. There was also a really good band playing on one of the rooftops. We continued walking and eventually walked up to the state capitol, which was really nice. While walking, it was pretty windy, and Jeanette pulled a Marilyn Monroe with her skirt going flying up. Luckily, she caught it quick and wasn’t too embarrassed. We then headed back to the hotel.
The next morning we woke up and ate crappy hotel breakfast. This hotel offered the worst breakfast so far, especially since there wasn’t southern gravy anymore. We drove to Scubaland to pick up our scuba equipment for the day. We’re surprised that they thought that we would show up as we called only a week in advance and scheduled our open water dives in mid week. However, a really nice worker, Kerry, set everything up for us and sent us on our way with our scuba instructor, Robert. We had four tanks, wet suits, BCDs, regulators, weights, and, overall, lots of equipment. Our first three open water dives were completed at Texas State University – San Marcos Aquarena Center, which consists of springs. We had a lovely picnic in the parking lot consisting of pretzel, cheetos, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and bananas. We took a walk through the wetlands while waiting for our class to begin. We saw gars (which Ed correctly identified, thank you The Great New York State Fair), which are extremely hard to see, turtles, bass, and a bunch of fish. Jeanette got completely freaked out because it was a very swampy area and was scared to go diving in the swamp. Luckily, we saw the spring area before diving. It was crystal clear, about 20 feet deep, and very clean. Although we were a bit apprehensive of diving and scared our instructor would think we were horrible as we completed the pool portion in an extremely condensed one day, we met Robert and were immediately put at ease. He is definitely one of the nicest and most patient people we have ever met. We got a tour of the Aquarena center, including looking at the aquarium and seeing the bottom glass boats. This center used to privately owned and super cheesy. There was a mermaid show complete with swimming pigs. The area we were diving in had some remnants from the show including an underwater viewing station that we swam around. We then suited up for the dives. We re-learned how to put the gear together, put our wet suits on, baked in the sun for a little bit, and then dove in. We could barely walk to the platform because it was so hot and sunny. We don’t have the fins with booties, so it was burning our feet like crazy! The water was 72 degrees because it was from a spring…people even dive here in the winter….and it was wicked refreshing. While we were swimming around, there were different types of fish between 12-24 inches, crawheads, prawns, turtles, fountain darters (which are pretty tiny), etc. The fish were not scared of us at all and swam right up to us. We practiced some skills on the other dives including clearing a flooded mask, regulator recovery, buddy breathing, controlled emergency swimming ascent, maintaining neutral buoyancy, cramp removal, tired diver tow, etc. Robert was nice enough to take pictures of us underwater with his underwater camera. It was really cool. Around 7 pm. we started to wrap us and filled out our log books. We got out around 8, were starving, and went to dinner at a place called Threadgills, known for its home-style cooking. There was a live band there (we think it was called Jeff and Friends) consisting of three guitarists, a fiddler, a keyboardist, and a lady singer. Almost everyone in the band sang a song or two. They were good…a country jamboree. We were real creative in our menu selection…chicken fingers for Jeanette and buffalo chicken fingers for Ed. Ed noticed everything in Austin was spicier than in other places…everything from salsa to the “regular” buffalo chicken sauce. Ed watched the hockey game through multiple overtimes as Jeanette fell asleep.
Photos courtesy of Robert, our scuba instructor.
The next day, we woke up early for our next open water dive. Robert was nice enough to allow us to go out on his boat, a pontoon boat, called The Giant Stride. We learned how to set up our equipment again, this time on a boat. We went out to a place called Starnes Island at Lake Travis. We jumped into the water, at which point, Ed noticed he could barely see his feet. We descended down 50 feet and were freaking out a bit as we could hardly see around us. As we descended the water dropped from a warm 82 to a cool 68. It was scary being down there and not being able to see anything. It was okay once we settled at the bottom. We did a complete mask removal and clear and practiced hovering some more. Luckily, Robert held Jeanette’s hand for a lot of it so no one got lost. He also had a strobe light attached to the back of his BCD so we would be able to find him should we have gotten lost. We couldn’t find a sunken boat in the area, so we started to ascend. We stopped for a safety stop, which Jeanette didn’t know what we were doing. Ed signed the word safety to Jeanette and she wanted Ed to do the safety dance for the sign instead. Ed found an empty bottle of beer and pretended to drink it underwater. We brought it up with us to surface and recycled it. We then headed out to another spot, where a sunken boat was guaranteed. We descended another 45 feet, this time a little less scared, and saw the boat and a few fish (perch). It was cool to see, even though you couldn’t see that much with the poor visibility. We got back up on the boat, docked, and schlepped all the equipment to shore. We then loaded the equipment into golf carts and drove it to our car. After thanking Robert for all his help, we headed out to lunch. We got to a highly recommended BBQ placed, called County Line, at 2:30 only to find that they stopped serving lunch at 2:00. Ed was highly disappointed, so we headed out towards a park in the same area with the hopes of finding food on the way. We ended up eating at the Hula Hula on Lake Austin. Ed had a Hawaiian style hamburger with pineapple, bacon, Monterey Jack cheese, and peppers…it was okay. Jeanette had a grilled chicken sandwich with cheese…go figure. We decided to skip the park on the lake as we had just eaten on the lake, despite the promise of peacocks in the trees at the park, and opted to return our equipment instead. We returned our scuba stuff, got our temporary Scuba licenses, and went back to the hotel to shower. We headed back out and went to a place called Ziller Park and Lady Bird Johnson Lake. After a quick drive thru, we headed down to the South Congress shopping area…it was nice, but most stores were closed because we got such a late start (it was 6:30). We headed back downtown and got some pictures of the capitol while it was still light in downtown Austin. On the way to the capitol, Jeanette was interviewed by a local TV station, called KVUE, about the presidential election. She didn’t want to go on TV, but the reporter begged, and she somehow spurted out a logical answer. After visiting the capitol, we stopped at Jamba Juice as it was still 95 out at 7:30. It was quite windy, so it didn’t feel quite that hot. We walked around 4th Street, which is the bar section for the older people and heard some more live music. We walked around 6th Street again, checked out some movie times at a place that had beer, food, and movies, but it was sold out for the entire night. We walked down to a local music store and bought Ed the new Weezer CD. We walked back to the car and drove back to the hotel. We watched a little Office and Sex and the City reruns and went to sleep.
Overall, we really liked Austin. It seems like a really fun place to live…lots going on. It was really clean and the people were really friendly…they said “howdy” and “y’all” a lot.
The next morning we woke up and ate crappy hotel breakfast. This hotel offered the worst breakfast so far, especially since there wasn’t southern gravy anymore. We drove to Scubaland to pick up our scuba equipment for the day. We’re surprised that they thought that we would show up as we called only a week in advance and scheduled our open water dives in mid week. However, a really nice worker, Kerry, set everything up for us and sent us on our way with our scuba instructor, Robert. We had four tanks, wet suits, BCDs, regulators, weights, and, overall, lots of equipment. Our first three open water dives were completed at Texas State University – San Marcos Aquarena Center, which consists of springs. We had a lovely picnic in the parking lot consisting of pretzel, cheetos, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and bananas. We took a walk through the wetlands while waiting for our class to begin. We saw gars (which Ed correctly identified, thank you The Great New York State Fair), which are extremely hard to see, turtles, bass, and a bunch of fish. Jeanette got completely freaked out because it was a very swampy area and was scared to go diving in the swamp. Luckily, we saw the spring area before diving. It was crystal clear, about 20 feet deep, and very clean. Although we were a bit apprehensive of diving and scared our instructor would think we were horrible as we completed the pool portion in an extremely condensed one day, we met Robert and were immediately put at ease. He is definitely one of the nicest and most patient people we have ever met. We got a tour of the Aquarena center, including looking at the aquarium and seeing the bottom glass boats. This center used to privately owned and super cheesy. There was a mermaid show complete with swimming pigs. The area we were diving in had some remnants from the show including an underwater viewing station that we swam around. We then suited up for the dives. We re-learned how to put the gear together, put our wet suits on, baked in the sun for a little bit, and then dove in. We could barely walk to the platform because it was so hot and sunny. We don’t have the fins with booties, so it was burning our feet like crazy! The water was 72 degrees because it was from a spring…people even dive here in the winter….and it was wicked refreshing. While we were swimming around, there were different types of fish between 12-24 inches, crawheads, prawns, turtles, fountain darters (which are pretty tiny), etc. The fish were not scared of us at all and swam right up to us. We practiced some skills on the other dives including clearing a flooded mask, regulator recovery, buddy breathing, controlled emergency swimming ascent, maintaining neutral buoyancy, cramp removal, tired diver tow, etc. Robert was nice enough to take pictures of us underwater with his underwater camera. It was really cool. Around 7 pm. we started to wrap us and filled out our log books. We got out around 8, were starving, and went to dinner at a place called Threadgills, known for its home-style cooking. There was a live band there (we think it was called Jeff and Friends) consisting of three guitarists, a fiddler, a keyboardist, and a lady singer. Almost everyone in the band sang a song or two. They were good…a country jamboree. We were real creative in our menu selection…chicken fingers for Jeanette and buffalo chicken fingers for Ed. Ed noticed everything in Austin was spicier than in other places…everything from salsa to the “regular” buffalo chicken sauce. Ed watched the hockey game through multiple overtimes as Jeanette fell asleep.
Photos courtesy of Robert, our scuba instructor.The next day, we woke up early for our next open water dive. Robert was nice enough to allow us to go out on his boat, a pontoon boat, called The Giant Stride. We learned how to set up our equipment again, this time on a boat. We went out to a place called Starnes Island at Lake Travis. We jumped into the water, at which point, Ed noticed he could barely see his feet. We descended down 50 feet and were freaking out a bit as we could hardly see around us. As we descended the water dropped from a warm 82 to a cool 68. It was scary being down there and not being able to see anything. It was okay once we settled at the bottom. We did a complete mask removal and clear and practiced hovering some more. Luckily, Robert held Jeanette’s hand for a lot of it so no one got lost. He also had a strobe light attached to the back of his BCD so we would be able to find him should we have gotten lost. We couldn’t find a sunken boat in the area, so we started to ascend. We stopped for a safety stop, which Jeanette didn’t know what we were doing. Ed signed the word safety to Jeanette and she wanted Ed to do the safety dance for the sign instead. Ed found an empty bottle of beer and pretended to drink it underwater. We brought it up with us to surface and recycled it. We then headed out to another spot, where a sunken boat was guaranteed. We descended another 45 feet, this time a little less scared, and saw the boat and a few fish (perch). It was cool to see, even though you couldn’t see that much with the poor visibility. We got back up on the boat, docked, and schlepped all the equipment to shore. We then loaded the equipment into golf carts and drove it to our car. After thanking Robert for all his help, we headed out to lunch. We got to a highly recommended BBQ placed, called County Line, at 2:30 only to find that they stopped serving lunch at 2:00. Ed was highly disappointed, so we headed out towards a park in the same area with the hopes of finding food on the way. We ended up eating at the Hula Hula on Lake Austin. Ed had a Hawaiian style hamburger with pineapple, bacon, Monterey Jack cheese, and peppers…it was okay. Jeanette had a grilled chicken sandwich with cheese…go figure. We decided to skip the park on the lake as we had just eaten on the lake, despite the promise of peacocks in the trees at the park, and opted to return our equipment instead. We returned our scuba stuff, got our temporary Scuba licenses, and went back to the hotel to shower. We headed back out and went to a place called Ziller Park and Lady Bird Johnson Lake. After a quick drive thru, we headed down to the South Congress shopping area…it was nice, but most stores were closed because we got such a late start (it was 6:30). We headed back downtown and got some pictures of the capitol while it was still light in downtown Austin. On the way to the capitol, Jeanette was interviewed by a local TV station, called KVUE, about the presidential election. She didn’t want to go on TV, but the reporter begged, and she somehow spurted out a logical answer. After visiting the capitol, we stopped at Jamba Juice as it was still 95 out at 7:30. It was quite windy, so it didn’t feel quite that hot. We walked around 4th Street, which is the bar section for the older people and heard some more live music. We walked around 6th Street again, checked out some movie times at a place that had beer, food, and movies, but it was sold out for the entire night. We walked down to a local music store and bought Ed the new Weezer CD. We walked back to the car and drove back to the hotel. We watched a little Office and Sex and the City reruns and went to sleep.
Overall, we really liked Austin. It seems like a really fun place to live…lots going on. It was really clean and the people were really friendly…they said “howdy” and “y’all” a lot.
Happy Birthday Jeanette
Hopefully we will have some details about our stay in Austin later, but today we are going to be celebrating Jeanette's Birthday in 100 degree San Antonio.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Pictures
We've posted links to our albums from places we've visited. There are lots of pictures in these links.
New Orleans in Pictures
Ashton's Bed and Breakfast
We had lots of fun in New Orleans and really liked the city. Here are some pictures of downtown New Orleans (French Quarter, Warehouse District, Garden District)
We had lots of fun in New Orleans and really liked the city. Here are some pictures of downtown New Orleans (French Quarter, Warehouse District, Garden District)
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