Land Before Time IV: Journey through the Mists

Basically what you need to know is this: In my vision Kate and Ben didn't survive and I barely managed to escape the raving mad Frenchman with my life. The rest of my cross-country trip was spent alone, which is terribly boring - though listening to this American life is almost good enough to replace a real person...scratch that - it's better, but still, without Ben I didn't have anybody to burn me new episodes and without Kate it was hard-er to change CDs. So yeah, with the Frenchman close behind me, I raced into the Nevada desert never to be seen again. He didn't catch me, I just think whatever link I had found into the future became disrupted, like a fuzzy radio station.

I returned from my vision to the whirring of my bike's wheels. Slightly startled by this sudden transportation back and forth in time, I momentarily lost balance and my bike began to tilt. Quickly I acted to regain equilibrium. If it had been anybody else they would have gone careening into the near wooden fence post, but with my superior reflexes I escaped. Oh, and besides, that incident had not been part of my vision.

Back at the campsite, I glumly informed Kate and Ben of the fate of the woman, her boyfriend, and of their own lives. They scoffed, but I can imagine that it isn't easy to swallow that pill. The night went on much as I had predicted it. By the fire we talked soft and laughed hard. We drank our Zion Virgin Ale. We watched the french woman ignore her boyfriend, and turn down his offer of a drink. Knowing the future I tried to ignore what would happen later and instead enjoy these last few moments I had with my friends.

The nearly full moon spilled its blue light onto the campsite. Three beers down I noticed that I had lost track of time and I hadn't been paying attention to the french couple. I jerked my head around and to my great shock saw the frenchman strangling the woman - wait - no, no - they were - MAKING OUT! Gross. Well, after that everything went pretty much back to normal. No necks were broken. No sleeping bags were used as coffins. Ben and Kate didn't shed deep purple blood under a raised cricket bat and the moon's watchful eye.

That night as I tried to sleep, full on s'mores, beer and tuna, I was struck by a twinge of sadness that the events hadn't carried out as I had foreseen. Weird. Then I realized that my knowledge of the future must have actually changed everything in some way. I flashed back to a tenth grade video project I did on "The Butterfly Effect and Chaos theory" where a butterfly's flapping effed things up all around the world and eventually led to the collapse of the Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh(Awesome). In turn that reminded me of Ashton Kutcher's movie "Butterfly Effect," which was far worse by all accounts. Then Ben said something sexist in his sleep. That put my mind at ease and steadily I drifted out of consciousness.



In the morning we woke, watched the French couple dress, then made way for our final overnight stop in Rachel, Nevada. You're probably asking yourself "what the hell is in Rachel, Nevada?" Well, I'll tell you what; not much. You'll know you've reached Rachel when you are 150 miles away from a gas station. You'll know you've reached Rachel when the only traffic on the road is an occasional dust devil. You'll know you've reached Rachel when the land around you becomes stretched and barren, when the mountains strangely remind you of sin. Then it occurs to you that these bald mountains were probably created by Satan's bifurcated tail. Boy, I'll tell you, I loved those mountains, not that I love Satan. I mean I don't really know him, so I'm not going to judge, but what I'm saying is that these mountains were sinfully beautiful.

Somewhere along the long lonely road (actually it's called "The Loneliest Road") we drove through the narrow valley between to peaks of bald rock . As we came to the crest of the road we'd been driving upwards on for sometime we were treated with a great view of this vast arid land. We came to a fork in the road and way off in the distance you could see where both roads hit the horizon in perpendicular directions. It was so far off that our perspective made it appear as though they were headed up into the heavens.

Twenty miles down the road we saw a sign covered in crazy ass stickers. I'd seen this sign in a tour guide book. Under all those stickers it says "The Extraterrestrial Highway," an indication that we had reached our destination. Lo' and behold, half a mile onwards, we reached the small town of Rachel. I mean really small, like a population of 98, and I think that number is a bit of stretch.

So, I had it in my head that where we were headed was gonna be a tacky, but fun motel of sorts. Like glowing stars on our bedroom ceiling, housekeeping in space outfits, lamps in the shape of planets, the whole shabang. I was so so so far off. We stepped into the ALE-EE-INN which had been painted with a huge blue alien on its side maybe twenty years ago. Now it was sort of hard to tell what was on the side of the building. There were a few kitschy extraterrestrial themed souvenirs inside around some plastic fold out tables, but beyond that the place didn't really try to be what it wasn't. What it was - was the town bar.


It was two in the afternoon so we still had a lot of daylight to burn, and there was clearly nothing to do around here. For a while we contemplated getting back on the road and making a break for Reno, but I put my foot down. I said "How does this trip mean anything if we don't stick this one out? Now we made our reservations and we've driven all the way out here. How can we say we've lived if we don't do this?" Well, Ben and Kate were impressed and gave in. We checked in after a really horrible, heart burn inducing meal. I wasn't feeling that well to begin with, so that didn't help. We were shown to our room and by room I mean trailer, a rather bland one at that. Yes, we stayed in a trailer that night. No cool glow lamps, no puss filled fake alien autopsy, no hot housekeepers in spacesuits. After loading our things into the room we went back to the bar to ask how late they were open. While we were there we had the pleasure of meeting a local. He was a kid, a pretty big one. I mean six foot and fifty inches around the waist. A big kid. Not to mention he had this sweet blonde mohawk thing going on. His older brother, who worked at the bar and was only slightly smaller, had caught a bug and was threatening to pour various kitchen poisons on it.

"You know bugs can scream," the younger brother said addressing us.
"No they can't," I thought, but kept it to myself.
"You know if you shoot a rabbit in the ass then crunch its head under your foot they'll scream like a baby," he continued.
"Heh, really," trying to act cool.
"Yeah, and if you snap at a head that has just been decapitated, it'll look at you," he said with a sparkle in his eye.
"You're filled with interesting facts," now visibly freaked out. I mean, I knew he was fuckin' with us, but still I was living in a trailer in the middle of nowhere for the night. I felt like if this kid wanted to do terrible things to me, he could, and without much of a fight. Then his brother came in.
"Stop trying to freak them out."
"Yeah, yeah," said his bigger little bro.
"Freaked out? Us? Naw," me trying to be cool again.

With that we pretty much fled, using Kate's cigarette addiction as our escape plan, and crashed in our trailer beds. Kate turned on the TV, which was static 24-7, and decided to leave it on. This reminded me quite a bit of Poltergeist, the Steven Speilberg classic, and put me a little on edge. I checked the room for trap doors or any way that people could sneak in in the middle of the night. Of course, I was ignoring the fact that we were sharing our bathroom with someone who lived in a separate room in our same trailer.

I took a much needed shower then tried to get some shut eye for the remainder of the daylight. We had made a vague plan to go to the bar later that night and get wasted, but at that moment I was in no mood. Kate was out cold on her bed and Ben was burning the best of Ira Glass onto CDs so I just sort of hung around and read this comic Ben brought with him. There was a storm cooking up outside and we watched it try to build into something worth noting but every time it looked like the rain would hit everything would go real quiet again. It was messing with me as well. I kept getting this feeling like something was going to happen at any moment, something great or terrible. Either the floor in our trailer would suddenly start sinking and reveal this sweet alien theme park underground or hundreds of rednecks would poor through the door threatening to feed us bull testicles if we didn't do whatever they said. The weather never permitted it though, it just kept coming then going, coming then going.

After a few hours Kate woke up. The sun was making its final salute on the horizon, and the clouds above were pissing me off. Rachel is supposed to have one of the clearest night skies in the US. The sky is the reason why Rachel, Nevada is on the map. People have been going there for decades because of some pretty good saucer sightings and its proximity to Area 51, but I couldn't see shite. So I decided since we couldn't see the real thing we would just watch Mars Attacks instead. This was another good choice. It put us in a good mood and a few hours later when it finished up and the sun had signed off we sat in the dimly lit room and stared at one another. Scrutinizing our expressions, trying to guess what the other was thinking. We sized each other up, then sized ourselves up. We couldn't tell if we had the balls to get up and go to the local watering hole, but I knew the answer.

Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith

Where was I?

After Angel's Landing we went back to the campsite for a little R&R. We took up our usual perch on the campsite picnic table and watched the French couple go about their business. We talked for a while about going back to the river trail we saw the day before and taking it balls out, with or without good equipment. Of course, we didn't follow through. Instead we decided to go swimming in the river right next to the campsite. It was effin cold. It took a little convincing to get Kate into the water (said it would make her hair into an afro or something...but mostly I think she's neurotic). We stumbled around in the water for a while, letting the current pull us under. Aquatic fun in general. At one point I snuck out of the water while Ben and Kate weren't looking. For a moment they thought I had drowned. It was hilarious, but what goes around comes around and a few moments later I stepped on a really sharp thorn. So Kate and Ben got their laughs as well.

Wet, cold, and happy we went back to the campsite. My hair was off the heezy so we decided to take a few pictures of me in the wild, where I clearly belong.

After my super hot photo-shoot we went back to our perch. The French boyfriend had gone but the hot chick was still there. Cleverly using our peripheral vision we slyly watched her change from one outfit into another. She wisely used her car door as a visual obstruction. Ben and I began to wonder if she was actually hot or if she was the only hot girl we had seen through the entire midwest. She was like an oasis in the middle of a terribly ugly desert, or maybe just a mirage. Doesn't matter though, in our minds she was still da bomb.

Eventually her boyfriend came back, but something had changed. Their giggling, and playfulness had completely evaporated. They awkwardly avoided one another. Neither looking the other in the eye. Some evil had fallen upon the campground. The girl sat down and started scribbling quickly in a journal, her head in her hands. Ben, Kate and I looked at one another, shocked by the sudden turn in events. This went on for a while. We went to get some wood then and when we returned the frenchman had her wrapped in his arms, trying to console her. She, however, looked away, ignored him completely. Rough.

We set up our fire, and I went off on my bike to get some beer. A few minutes earlier we had watched the Frenchman walk off in a fury and when I entered into the store looking for boos, I found him picking up a few tall boys...for him and the lady, I suppose. I bought my Zion Virgin Ale six pack. It had a picture of a well proportioned woman on the front, so seemed the obvious choice.

On my way back, my bikes wheels spinning fast, and the air rushing past my head, a vision of the future came to me. In a flash I saw the horrifying events of the evening to come.

We would sit around the fire roasting marshmallows talking softly, and laughing loudly. The nearly full moon would glow brightly in the clear sky, deadening the stars and casting an eerie blue light over the campsite. The Frenchman would return to the campsite with his beer, and try to get his girlfriend to drink, maybe lighten the mood. He'd rub her legs, kiss her on the neck, but the plan would backfire. She would staunchly refuse to take any drinks, and shove him away. He would consume first his half of the beer, then her half. First he would sulk, then he would become frustrated and bitter, and soon angry. Later in their tent, an argument would break out (I couldn't understand it because it was in French). From our perch we would watch the silhouettes cast on the sides of their tent. Drunk and angry the frenchman would loose control. In a flurry of confused motion, he would grab her and twist just a little too hard. She would fall limp. We would see. He would panic and leap from his tent. We would duck behind Ben's car, looking at each other wild-eyed, hearts pounding. In a prone position on the ground we'd watch him from under Ben's car. He would stumble about horrified. He would fall to his knees in shallow, quiet sobs. Then...nothing. All motion stops. There, facing away from us, he kneels in penetrating silence, as if in prayer. A stiff wind would blows through the valley kicking up dirt and debris.

Beneath the car Ben sneezes, followed by a very quiet "fuck."

The frenchman jumps up and swings around toward us. His eyes drift to our location. We're caught. Wait, no. He seems distracted. He dives inside his tent and turns off the light inside. His silhouette disappears. We hear stuff sacks and sleeping bags rubbing together, being zipped and unzipped. A few moments later he pokes his head out of the tent, and looks around. His face, whether by moonlight or not, is pale blue, his expression grim. He disappears for a few moments more then reemerges ass first pulling a heavily loaded sleeping bag. It's her. Kate gasps. Ben quickly covers her mouth. The frenchman pauses for a moment, then continues dragging the cumbersome sleeping bag towards his car. He pops the trunk and with relative ease, picks up the body and tosses it in the trunk. It lands with a solid thud. He quietly closes the trunk, then moves to open the nearest rear door. Inside, he digs around, tossing a Mcdonald's Bag out behind him. Finally he finds what he's looking for and slowly pulls it out from the car. In the dark it's hard to see the strange and apparently important objects he's found. One is made of several aluminum poles where legs might be on some terrible mechanical monster. The other appears to be...a cricket bat. Then, in a flash, the mechanical monster explodes into a fully extended campsite folding chair. Gingerly he places it on the ground facing our campsite. He sits in it and stares absently in our direction, the cricket bat resting across the arms of the chair. We understand his intentions, and nobody moves a muscle, nobody even breathes...

... next- has Harry met his match. A cricket match. Stay tuned

Episode 2: Attack of the Clones

Our arrival at Zion Nation Park brought a steep charge that almost turned us away from the gates but we managed to leave one car out of the park which saved us a few clams. We set up our tent, which was just big enough for the three of us (Ben, Kate, and I). I took a brief nap at which point I discovered that the tent is filled with hidden pockets.

Back story - I've used this tent for near eight years now. In fact I used it on a prior cross-country road trip with my family just before I went to high school. So you can imagine my astonishment when I found upwards of six more pockets hidden in the seams of the tent. Quickly I dug into Ben's car to find things I could use to fill them. With that done I found that I was a little pumped from all the excitement and couldn't get back to sleep. I emerged from my cocoon and sat on our campsites picnic table. I stared off into the rows of tents filling this southern part of the Zion Valley. Almost immediately I noticed a woman in the site adjacent to us. She was beautiful. A few years my senior, but you know, not out of my league. She was staying with, what I can only assume was her boyfriend. They were speaking a foreign language - french maybe. From my perch I silently watched them build their tent and place their maps and books on their picnic table. "Creepy," you might say, but I felt much better about it when, later, Ben and I caught each other looking over at our neighboring campsite and laughed about it. Okay, well maybe Ben is a bad example of something that isn't creepy.

After we finished resting up we made our way to the visitors center. We caught a tram up to some easy hikes. The first was a short half mile hike to the weeping wall, which is exactly what it sounds like. Little droplets of water come cascading down this giant wall of limestone and then curve inwards where the rock forms the shape of a curling wave. We stood beneath the falling water and received its giardia shower. Cool fact- Apparently it takes 1200 years for the water to travel from the top of the Zion peaks, down through the limestone cavities, and out onto the side of the wall. So our shower originated back when the Maori people migrated to New Zealand and the Mayan Civilization began to fall. That's pretty old.

We completed the weeping wall hike and moved on towards the nice river walk located near the top of the park. We walked along the river taking in the beautiful red and yellow limestone scenery. Somewhere on the walk we came around a bend and I noticed another hiker peering deeply into a porous wall that bordered the path. He looked a little tense and then quickly moved on when we reached him. Curiously, I inspected the space that seemed so intriguing to him. "Whoa," I gasped, then called out to Ben and Kate who had moved on a few steps further. In a few seconds we were all gathered tightly around a small crevice in the rock, staring intently. There, behind a thick white curtain of web, was a huge black spider with a tiny red hourglass stamped into its abdomen. A Black Widow. I had never seen one before and I waited for Kate our resident insect and arachnid expert to confirm. She nodded yes, then bent in for a closer look. Thinking it was dead she blew on it lightly. Immediately, the spider retreated backwards into the cave and didn't come back out. Ben and I were pretty pumped about the encounter but Kate first seemed a little upset. "I didn't get to take a picture," she pouted, then, "whatever, I've seen like a million black widows. That was the biggest, but I've seen, like, four. Back in my redneck bar..." and so on.

When we reached the end of the trail we found that there was actually much more to explore onwards but it was all river walking. In our flip-flops and with all of our electronics irresponsibly put in our pockets we stumbled through the rocky water. It was mostly unbearable. Ben and Kate had wisely listened to a nearby guide and grabbed one of the many offered walking sticks, so I did the opposite and went free hand. Ouch. We forged through the river and popped up on the other side, my feet bruised. We went on a little farther and saw that the trail essentially became a river and was unsuitable per our lack of equipment. We stopped there and turned back.

The next day we woke early, so did the French couple. Ben and I sat and watched them. While we ate breakfast, they ate breakfast. When they checked their maps, we checked our maps. And later, on a return trip from the bathroom, I ran into Kate going in the opposite direction, her eyes wide. "Dude, have you seen that chick at that campsite? I just saw her take off her pants. She's hot, man." I informed her that Ben and I had been bonding over it for the past day.

We left the campsite for Angel's Landing, a trail so terrifying that signs remind you of your impending doom every hundred yards or so. The first part of the trail is easy enough. It's all paved, which is strange, not like the root strewn, dirt trails of Glacier or most other national parks I've visited. The views however, are fantastic. Since you spend the first hour walking mostly at a 50 degree angle, your pretty happy when you find a perch to rest and take in the sights. Kate wined a little, but was pretty determined to keep going and Ben, who is terrified of heights, would tremble sporadically for a few moments, then calm down. Onwards we went.

About two hours into the hike we arrived at a chain that hung next to the path. We had been warned about this chain the whole way up. It was a signifier for the terrifying heights we were about to experience. Ben and Kate gripped to the chain for dear life while I nimbly bounced from rock to rock. The sides of the trail quickly fell away. Sweet, I thought, and counted the number of bounces a human body would encounter on the long fall down. Ben noticed that I was muttering "boing, boing, boing," to myself and chuckled. We decided that it would be a good system for deciding the fear factor involved in a climb. Ten boings - a baby could do it, one boing - Be afraid. We passed by some "one boings" on the way up to the precipice. We also got some sweet pictures:






At long last we reached the top. From that vantage we could see quite a ways out. Several huge, white cliffs cradled the valley on both sides. The trees below were tiny as needles, and the clouds broke apart right on top of our heads. We got some great pictures of us up there:





We hung around for a while then gathered ourselves up for the walk down, quicker, but absolutely horrifying since you spend the entire time looking straight down. It pleased me very much.

Day wore on and the sun which had once been masked by the tall peaks all around us, now shined its full force upon us from directly above.

more tomorrow...

Episode 1: The Phantom Menace

I've successfully driven across the USA. No biggie. Actually I've been in San Francisco for about a week now, but more on that later.
The road trip was pretty excellent. We had a caravan of three cars for five people(Ben, Kate, Katharine, Amy, ME) which may seem excessive but when you account for all the feces we brought along with us I think we did a good job compacting it all into the three cars (mostly mine, which is by far the smallest, but best for carrying fecal matter).  Everything from Delaware to Kansas is pretty much a big blur except for the gas stations where we spent a lot of time due to Amy's uncontrollable explosive bowels and some holistic nether-region dealings involving a clove of garlic. We did manage to stop for a brief moment at the St. Louis Arch which looked like some ancient alien artifact rising from the mist. 

Once we hit Colorado we realized that our three car caravan wouldn't last and we said our goodbyes to Amy and Katharine. With Kate and I in one car and Ben in another we blazed the trail to Utah's Arches National Park. I took an ass-load of pictures there and took Kate and Ben on a death march up to Delicate Arch. Kate was crying. She got down on her knees and prayed for passing clouds to rain cigarettes upon her, but with a wag of my finger and my steadfast sweetness I eventually convinced her that all would be well once we reached the arch, the promised land.  

Delicate Arch sits on the edge of the largest, most colorful toilet bowl in existence. I liked this idea very much and found myself getting sucked into the rocky vortex. Ben and Kate thought that I would never return, so they promptly got up and left me to the mercy of the desert. Of course, I did escape and made my way back to the car, but there was no cold water upon my return. This blew chunks, and made me pouty for a brief time. 

Later, we drove further west to the town of Salina and found the worst campsite of the trip. Kate needed some items that would prevent her from attracting bears(not that Salina has bears or anything else of moderate interest), but apparently no women live in the town of Salina and so therefore no items were to be found. We drove fifteen miles to get to the nearest Walmart, a frequent stopping point throughout are trip. I actually have a new found respect for Walmarts. They saved our hungry asses a few times and provided some brief respite from the heavy western sun. Not to mention that Walmart is a great way to observe fashion styles from seven or eight years ago. 

Back to Salina - The next morning we woke up to the sound of about sixty dogs barking somewhere in the vicinity of our tent. I had been having a terrifying dream that these dogs were all attached to a single leash and that occasionally they would become one entity with many heads. Kate had a dream that every bark was being emitted from bubbles. Ben dreamed that he was pissed off about the noise. 

We took down our tent and shuffled out of old Salina. The night before we decided to take a slight detour from route fifty and hit Zion National Park. My parents suggested the park and we had planned to take the trip a little slower, so a multiple night stay in the park seemed like a good idea...

...stay tuned