Got back from my road trip a night ago.
Saguaro was ok. I got there in the middle of the night, and it was raining. It is an extremely strange thing to be driving along twisting roads at night in the desert with cacti all around you and they're dripping wet. In the morning there was a fog everywhere in the distance and it seemed like I was standing on top of the clouds, with mountain tops poking out of the fog.
During the day I went to the Desert Museum just outside the park. Absolutely excellent and highly, highly recommended. The thing about this is that it's practically a zoo of local wildlife, but in a very natural setting. Almost all the exhibits are very natural looking. They also have a hummingbird aviary... got some pretty good shots there methinks.
I only went into the actual park for sunset. Did a short hike to a valley overlook, but noticed that a nearby mountain was blocking the sunset. So I climbed the mountain covered in cacti of all sizes to get my picture. I drove back on over 10 miles of unpaved roads in the middle of the night. It was pitch dark, and almost as freaky as my night hike in Zion. The bumps were 100x worse than speed strips on the highway. It was so bumpy I thought my car was about to vibrate apart.
White Sands was amazing. I elected to camp in the backcountry in the middle of the dunes. The sunset that I saw that evening was absolutely unfair. Easily one of the most beautiful and spectacular sunsets I have ever seen in my life (and as a photographer, I get to see a lot). The winds were around 45mph on the dunes, and my tripod became a kite at one time, and another time the whole thing got knocked over with my camera and telephoto lens on it. My tent also got ripped from the ground and blew halfway up a dune WITH STUFF IN IT. The wind was blowing sand onto my legs, stinging them. That night I had nightmares in my tent I heard growling outside my tent and heard things trying to bite through my bear bag. In the morning I saw a stealth fighter flying overhead from the nearby Air Force base - I thought these were retired?
Bosque del Apache was really rough to photograph. My 30D + Sigma 50-500mm were completely outclassed by all the other photographers with $5000+ telephoto lenses. My lens is also rather "dark" and had a hard time getting a fast enough shutter speed to freeze birds in flight. The 30D is also pretty close to being a complete POS for tracking moving objects because there just aren't enough focus points, and if it mistracks you lose the entire shot because it takes too much time to refocus. I tried my 50-500mm with a 1.4x TC, but I have to manually focus with this combination, and I just couldn't do it precisely enough. What I thought was in focus just wasn't tack sharp. I really wished I had a brighter viewfinder or a split screen.
There were SO many birds, especially snow geese. They literally carpet the ground the size of football fields. Sometimes they fly up all at once, and this is a sight to behold. All of a sudden there is a completely solid WALL of birds the length of a football field flying toward you, and then they fly overhead and it's an entire solid ceiling of birds. You can actually feel the wind beneath their wings as they go overhead. It is so large that it's tough to photograph and successfully convey the enormous scale of the event. I don't think I was successful.
Birders seem like geeky people They walk around with big binoculars strapped to their chests and carry a bird ID book with them. Along the road they will sometimes stomp on the brake if they see a bird they like. Then they just sorta stare through their binoculars, gaining some sort of pleasure from identifying them. "OMG this one has red tips on its wings and turquoise crest. It must me a XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXX." They do this in the middle of the day and then leave for dinner before sunset. I have to admit though, looking through a quality pair of binoculars is a LOT nicer than looking through the lens of a camera.
Reflections
Strange, life is. To have been on the road for such a long time, going and living in places I have NO familiarity with, and then suddenly coming back home and recognizing roads and streets that you've always driven on. The world is so big, and now you're about to resume your normal life, in the familiar but tiny, tiny microcosm that you call your home. Routine. Familiarity. Shielded from the outside. The feeling of safety. Being at one's own computer again and in one's familiar chair and bed. And the thing is, you get used to your old life again in a single day, and the trip is now only a memory. All the sights you've seen, all the food you've eaten, all the people you've met. Now just memories. Life and time is so bittersweet.
Along the lines of being in your own microcosm, the outside world is just so massive, so varied. So many places to explore. So many lives taking place at the same time, so many events, so many THINGS. I drove through a city and looked at one of the high rise apartment buildings. In one window I saw a guy in a suit get home from work, throw his suitcase on the couch, and sit down in front of the TV after I assume was a long day's work. I couldn't help wondering what his story was. How did he get to this point in his life? What was he like as a kid? What does he like to do? Who does he love? What is his life story? If I had the guts, I could drive off the highway, go to the building, figure out where he lives, knock on his door, and talk to him. To get to know him as a REAL person. But I didn't, and the man continued to sit on his couch, completely oblivious that someone along the highway was observing him and wondering what his life story was. And then I looked around and saw the thousands of other homes passing me by, each with a million stories to tell. Unfathomable variety. Impossible to fully comprehend. Strange, life is.
*sigh* Life is too short I sincerely hope there is life after death, because I can't bear thinking about not being able to keep on exploring, that there will be an end to my exploring.
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Happy New Year!
Found the luggage after much incompetence by US Airways. I have Mousey and Bunny back! Yayayay!!! I'm also working on getting Sprint SERO, but I don't know if the savings@sprintemi.com email will work. ALL of the CSRs that I talk to know about the email and say that it's invalid and will not go through. I did it only and I'm crossing my fingers.
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My flights:
Phoenix to Chicago, Chicago to Greensboro, Greensboro to Charlotte. I checked in my backpacking backpack containing all my clothes including a $150 backpacking jacket, a $300 backpacking mummy sleeping bag, and two stuffed animals that have extremely high sentimental value.
Chicago to Greensboro was bad. Takeoff was delayed by an hour because the weather in Greensboro was really bad and they didn't think they could land when they got there. But they flew anyway. We flew out of Chicago, but after an hour in the air the pilot told us that we were heading back to Chicago because the weather was too bad to land in Greensboro. After doing a U in the air we flew for half an hour before the pilot told us that there was something wrong with the plane. The air brake wasn't working, which meant we were going to have to land on the runway at a faster than average speed. He then told us not to worry, because there would be emergency crews waiting at the runway.
By this time I thought that this was all jolly good fun, and remembered how the safest I've ever felt on an airplane was when I was about to jump OUT of it (skydiving).
We approached the runway pretty fast. Lined all along the runway were emergency vehicles, firetrucks, ambulances, etc. Not a single plane was on it. We hit the runway and it got a little bit squirrely, but eventually we came to a stop and taxied to a nearby terminal.
I got on another flight, this time directly to Charlotte, and guess what? My checked-in bag didn't make it. This was around 1PM, and I filled a lost luggage report. 7 hours later I call baggage services and they tell me that they couldn't find my report. The guy at Charlotte airport forgot to frickin' enter my report into the computer system, so all this time they weren't even looking for my bag! *??&($&#
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Drove from Williams down scenic AZ-89, as ironwing suggested. I did Williams -> Sedona -> Prescott -> Wickenburg -> Pheonix. All I can say is WOW. The driving was spirited and fun and the scenery was awesome. Because it was in the middle of the day, I didn't really take very many pictures. I just drove drove drove. I did 45mpg.
Sedona is very pretty, and the main street is absolutely packed with tourists, with no parking spots. I stopped at the Red Planet Diner for lunch and it was horrible. I should have ordered regular diner stuff like hamburger, but I felt like having the noodles on the menu. They were the blandest thing I've eaten in a long time.
The drive from Sedona to Prescott was insane. The town of Jerome in-between is awesome - the entire town is situated on a mountainside and the roads are both narrow and steep. It's also very touristy. I would love to see this place opened up for a rally race. The drive from Jerome to Prescott was also very pretty and had a lot of hairpins, but someone was riding my bumper the whole entire time, and I was stuck behind an SUV.
Prescott to Wickenburg was really dramatic - the previous drives were mostly through evergreen-covered mountains and forests, but this was through incredibly harsh, dry, boulder-strewn mountainsides. There are no more trees, just mountains that look like huge piles of rubble. It was Arizona starting to show its desert side.
I'm awed by Phoenix's flatness. It's a very wide city, and I never know where I'm at because I can't see over anything. I'm applying for an internship here, and later on possibly a job. I'm not sure if I want to stay in Phoenix... I'm also not used to seeing so many Mexicans. It's funny; this whole entire trip I've seen more foreigners than white people. The national parks are 90% Asian at this time of year and now Phoenix seems like it's 80% Mexican. I went to South Mountain Park next to Phoenix in the hopes of getting a sunset shot overlooking the city. Not to sound racist, but I felt a little insecure standing around with $5000 worth of camera equipment on my person with all these Mexican teenagers in their hoodies talking in their city slang kind of language.
For dinner I went to A & J Chicago Style BBQ, because I had a hankering for BBQ. The place has won numerous awards, but I wasn't overly impressed. I've had great BBQ in Arkansas and the area (McClard's, Whole Hog Cafe) from last Spring Break, the kind that has that deep, infused, smooth and mellow smoke flavor in the meat. In Ohio the smoke flavor is a little too acrid for my taste. At A & J there wasn't that much smoke flavor, just a lot of flavor from the sauce. It wasn't as tender as I've had it, either (hard, chewy outer on some of the meat pieces). I did talk to one of the co-owners though for a long time, mostly about photography. It's an awesome little family place, the kind where everyone's friendly and social to each other, and there are a number of regulars who just lounge around and socialize.
This is one of the things that I love about my roads trips; the people. So far I've handed out my business card and exchanged contact info with perhaps 8 people. I've sat down to dinner with someone I'd met only a couple of hours beforehand. I've arranged to meet people at sunrise. I've seen the same group of people randomly at two separate parks. I've talked for hours with a bunch of photographers. And now I've whiled away the time with a restaurant owner, telling him to email me if he wants to get back into photography and offering him my Chicago panoramas for his restaurant. These are things that I feel like I couldn't do if I were with a partner or with a group, because we would mostly be socializing with ourselves. When you're alone, by default you have to socialize with other people, and I find that strangely, I'm my most gregarious when I'm on these road trips. I think that on these trips, the people that I meet are just as important as the sights and photos I get to take.
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The Grand Canyon is nothing special, at least this time of year. There are a lot of people and lines everywhere. A line getting into the park, cars parked on the side of the road because there's not enough room in the parking lots, tourists crowding the viewpoints, etc.
It's also very expensive here. $25 to get in (luckily I have a Annual National Parks Pass, which is now $85, up from $50 just one or two years ago), it's $15-18 (cash only) to camp in the miserable cold (other parks are $10), the food is expensive, and all the hotels in the area are over $80 a night (I'm shooting for around $40 because it's winter). The park is also very developed... the in-park general store is just like your regular grocery store - selling everything from a full line of frozen foods to fresh meat like 10lb rib roasts. There's even a well-stocked camping supplies store with a lot of your typical *real* backpacking stuff like Jetboils, Granite Gear packs, crampons, etc. Lodges are everywhere and there's a well-developed shuttle system for the crowds.
The sunsets and sunrises are unspectacular, maybe because of the weird angle of the sun (it's incredibly southwest/southeast in the winter). People crowd the viewpoints and it's hard to set up your tripod in a good location. Not to mention the places are all photographed to death by now and that there's really nothing new to look at. Just light brown canyons. Most of the viewpoints have pretty much the same view, just like in Bryce. In the middle of the day the canyons are absolutely boring and washed out. The park rangers also look tired and mobbed by the crowds. Tourists shooting the canyon viewpoints with flash.
I've been really under the weather lately. Ever since that damned restaurant at Bryce... every time I eat I feel like I want to throw up afterwards. In the tent I want to throw up. Photographing I want to throw up. I'm also feeling kinda weak because of the lack of food intake (because I don't want to throw up) and the messed-up hours (forcing myself out of my tent and into 15 degree weather at 4-6AM every single day). Just last night I drove to a viewpoint an hour before sunset and I had to pass out in the car for a while because I was feeling really tired and vomit-y. I had originally planned on hiking the rim, from south rim to the river and back to the south rim, but now there's no chance in my condition. Oh well. Doesn't look like there's much to see anyway.
I met a photographer with a Nikon D3. It's amazing. I held it. In my hands. I held a camera in my hands that is worth more than my entire car. I am seriously contemplating switching over to Nikon (Nikon SLRs are outnumbering Canon SLRs about 6 to 1 here, BTW). Nikons are just so much more ergonomic and user-friendly, and now that they've moved to CMOS sensors, their image quality and shooting speed can absolutely rival Canon's.
My car makes no sense. On the highway doing 75mph I get 40mpg. In the mountains, going up and down, constantly revving high in 3rd gear to make it up the inclines, I get 42mpg. Because it's so light, it handles like a dream in snow and the curves. I only wish it could handle deep snow/sand/mud and not get stuck. I love my car (Toyota Echo standard with 105K miles).
I'm in the town of Williams, AZ right now. Gonna go get me some $9 Prime Rib at Kitty's
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12/25/07
Merry Christmas!
I originally said that I was going on a morning hike in the dark to Observation Point in Zion, but this changed. The night before I got a mild case of food poisoning from eating restaurant food the night before. I checked into a hotel and was completely drained of energy and felt like I was going to throw up. I went to bed at 6PM, woke up at 3AM Christmas day, and REALLY didn't feel like doing the hike at 4AM and hiking in the dark, reaching the point at 7AM.
So I decided to do the hike for sunset. I set out at noon carrying my XT, 30D, 100-300mm, 17-50mm, 10-20mm, full tripod, 2 liters of water, a headlamp, Yaktrax, trail mix, and warm clothes. I made it up there at 3:15 and stayed there for the sunset, which sucked. The park ranger I spoke to beforehand said that Observation Point would be good for sunset, but it was mostly all front-lit, meaning I was shooting into the sun and getting killed by my camera's limited dynamic range. At 5:30PM I left the point and started my way down. There was no one around except a guy who had left 15 minutes earlier. It was really dark.
Let me tell ya, a 4 mile hike in complete darkness in canyon country with only a little headlamp is scary.
1. The trails were icy. My Yaktrax and hiking poles helped, but I fell one time and slid down the trail a bit. On these narrow canyon-side trails, it's easy to fall, slide ten feet or so, and slide completely OFF the trail and free-fall to your death. Falling with $3K worth of camera equipment strapped to you isn't fun either.
2. Ice is black at night. It's sometimes freaky to round a corner and the entire canyon wall and trail is black. And it's a very "liquid" black, both in color and shape.
3. Canyon hiking is one of the darkest experiences of all. You are surrounded on all sides by sheer vertical walls hundreds of feet high. The darkness is completely engulfing. In front, on your sides, behind, above, and even under you if there is ice is completely and utterly black. You are the only sound you hear and the only light you see. If your light goes out, you're hunkering down for the night in complete darkness because there's no way you're going to make it out. When the sun rises 10 hours later, the canyons are the last places to get light, and the first to go dark.
4. Hiking with a headlamp is like tunnel vision. The light projected is not very wide or far, and that is all you see. SOMETHING could be standing two feet to the side of the trail and you wouldn't even know it.
5. All the dead, leafless trees can look menacing. There are even trees here that are black in color.
6. There's always the thought in the back of my mind of what if during the process of shining my light around it lands on a pair of eyes staring back at me from the darkness. Or a black shape. Or a person, just standing there with absolutely no fathomable reason to be out here, about to kill me.
7. I momentarily lost the trail once. I was following footsteps in the snow when they suddenly ended at a cliff. I backtracked, looking around in my tunnel vision, and seriously contemplated having to spend the night. I finally found the trail again, which I had passed because it was literally just a pile of rocks that went downwards about ten feet.
8. It took a lot of willpower to keep my mind in check. I tend to have an imagination, and it took a lot to just concentrate on the lit path in front of me and not think about all the what-ifs and things that may lie in the darkness immediately outside my cone of light.
9. I couldn't afford to stay at the Zion campground tonight, because they charge $16, cash or check only, and I only have $15 cash on me. No ATMs. So I'm staying at the same motel as I did the night before, which accepts credit card.
10. All in all, A+++++ will hike again. I am REALLY glad I didn't do the hike in the morning, as originally planned. A dark morning hike through terrain that I'm unfamiliar with would have been very unnerving. No sense of distances, not sure if I missed a turnoff, not sure how much longer or further it is to the destination, etc. Switchback after switchback after switchback.
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I just got to Zion and all I have to say is holy cow. It's so amazing I don't even know how to start photographing this place. It's just too big.
Anyway, I'm thinking about going on a hike tomorrow morning to Observation Point to catch the sunrise. The problem with this is that it is 4 miles to the point, and if I want to catch the sunrise at the point I'll be hiking these 4 miles in complete darkness. Alone. With nothing but my headlamp and photo stuff. Bunny scared
Anyway, some highlights of the trip so far:
I got stuck in the snow while making a U-turn and had to get pulled out by an SUV (tow rope supplied by me just for these situations)
I had to get a jump from someone in Vail, CO (jumper cables supplied by me, again). My negative terminal turned out to be loose and needed tightening.
One morning it was so cold that my water bottle had frozen solid, my cranberry juice was slush, my toothpaste was close to being a solid, and my contacts were frozen in the contact lens solution.
The Dixie highway is amazing. One part of it has you driving along a mountain crest that is literally as thin as the road is wide. With no rails on the road. If you slide off you're literally in for solid minutes of rolling, then free-fall, then more rolling, then death.
There are a TON of Asians around Zion, Bryce, and I'm assuming Grand Canyon. Literally about 90% of the visitors are Asian.
Got some good photos
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I'm stopping in Boulder to check out the Montbell Store. I need to get to Capitol Reef NP by tonight, probably after midnight.
Last night I camped at Milford State Park in Kansas, and I slept outside with no tent, just my sleeping bag and sleeping pad. The temperate was 32F. Today I called my dad and said that yesterday was fine and that I even slept without a sleeping bag. His voice get REALLY worried like I had just committed some sort of ultimate sin and said that I should never ever do such a thing again. If I do it cold chi will penetrate my body and build up, and when I am old I will be wracked by pains as a result of this cold chi being released. Never mind that I wasn't even cold... apparently having cold air blow over your body and breathing it in will do it.
Before I left I was going out to the car for literally half a minute to put something in the trunk. Because it was so short, I didn't bother putting on my jacket. My dad stopped me at the door and ordered me to put on my jacket because it was cold. I said I was only going out for half a minute and he started screaming at me about this chi crap. Before I left on the trip he gave me a very stern lecture about this chi, and how there are so many studies that have proven this stuff. Yeah, right. Oh, I'm 60 and wracked with pains. I know! It was because cold air blew over me when I was young! Of course!
Basically from now on I'm only going to tell my parents warm happy things about my trip, even if it means I have to lie to them. I just don't feel like dealing with this crap during what is supposed to be a relaxing vacation. So what if I'm kind of roughing it? It's what I enjoy.
Ugg, later.
Saguaro was ok. I got there in the middle of the night, and it was raining. It is an extremely strange thing to be driving along twisting roads at night in the desert with cacti all around you and they're dripping wet. In the morning there was a fog everywhere in the distance and it seemed like I was standing on top of the clouds, with mountain tops poking out of the fog.
During the day I went to the Desert Museum just outside the park. Absolutely excellent and highly, highly recommended. The thing about this is that it's practically a zoo of local wildlife, but in a very natural setting. Almost all the exhibits are very natural looking. They also have a hummingbird aviary... got some pretty good shots there methinks.
I only went into the actual park for sunset. Did a short hike to a valley overlook, but noticed that a nearby mountain was blocking the sunset. So I climbed the mountain covered in cacti of all sizes to get my picture. I drove back on over 10 miles of unpaved roads in the middle of the night. It was pitch dark, and almost as freaky as my night hike in Zion. The bumps were 100x worse than speed strips on the highway. It was so bumpy I thought my car was about to vibrate apart.
White Sands was amazing. I elected to camp in the backcountry in the middle of the dunes. The sunset that I saw that evening was absolutely unfair. Easily one of the most beautiful and spectacular sunsets I have ever seen in my life (and as a photographer, I get to see a lot). The winds were around 45mph on the dunes, and my tripod became a kite at one time, and another time the whole thing got knocked over with my camera and telephoto lens on it. My tent also got ripped from the ground and blew halfway up a dune WITH STUFF IN IT. The wind was blowing sand onto my legs, stinging them. That night I had nightmares in my tent I heard growling outside my tent and heard things trying to bite through my bear bag. In the morning I saw a stealth fighter flying overhead from the nearby Air Force base - I thought these were retired?
Bosque del Apache was really rough to photograph. My 30D + Sigma 50-500mm were completely outclassed by all the other photographers with $5000+ telephoto lenses. My lens is also rather "dark" and had a hard time getting a fast enough shutter speed to freeze birds in flight. The 30D is also pretty close to being a complete POS for tracking moving objects because there just aren't enough focus points, and if it mistracks you lose the entire shot because it takes too much time to refocus. I tried my 50-500mm with a 1.4x TC, but I have to manually focus with this combination, and I just couldn't do it precisely enough. What I thought was in focus just wasn't tack sharp. I really wished I had a brighter viewfinder or a split screen.
There were SO many birds, especially snow geese. They literally carpet the ground the size of football fields. Sometimes they fly up all at once, and this is a sight to behold. All of a sudden there is a completely solid WALL of birds the length of a football field flying toward you, and then they fly overhead and it's an entire solid ceiling of birds. You can actually feel the wind beneath their wings as they go overhead. It is so large that it's tough to photograph and successfully convey the enormous scale of the event. I don't think I was successful.
Birders seem like geeky people They walk around with big binoculars strapped to their chests and carry a bird ID book with them. Along the road they will sometimes stomp on the brake if they see a bird they like. Then they just sorta stare through their binoculars, gaining some sort of pleasure from identifying them. "OMG this one has red tips on its wings and turquoise crest. It must me a XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXX." They do this in the middle of the day and then leave for dinner before sunset. I have to admit though, looking through a quality pair of binoculars is a LOT nicer than looking through the lens of a camera.
Reflections
Strange, life is. To have been on the road for such a long time, going and living in places I have NO familiarity with, and then suddenly coming back home and recognizing roads and streets that you've always driven on. The world is so big, and now you're about to resume your normal life, in the familiar but tiny, tiny microcosm that you call your home. Routine. Familiarity. Shielded from the outside. The feeling of safety. Being at one's own computer again and in one's familiar chair and bed. And the thing is, you get used to your old life again in a single day, and the trip is now only a memory. All the sights you've seen, all the food you've eaten, all the people you've met. Now just memories. Life and time is so bittersweet.
Along the lines of being in your own microcosm, the outside world is just so massive, so varied. So many places to explore. So many lives taking place at the same time, so many events, so many THINGS. I drove through a city and looked at one of the high rise apartment buildings. In one window I saw a guy in a suit get home from work, throw his suitcase on the couch, and sit down in front of the TV after I assume was a long day's work. I couldn't help wondering what his story was. How did he get to this point in his life? What was he like as a kid? What does he like to do? Who does he love? What is his life story? If I had the guts, I could drive off the highway, go to the building, figure out where he lives, knock on his door, and talk to him. To get to know him as a REAL person. But I didn't, and the man continued to sit on his couch, completely oblivious that someone along the highway was observing him and wondering what his life story was. And then I looked around and saw the thousands of other homes passing me by, each with a million stories to tell. Unfathomable variety. Impossible to fully comprehend. Strange, life is.
*sigh* Life is too short I sincerely hope there is life after death, because I can't bear thinking about not being able to keep on exploring, that there will be an end to my exploring.
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Happy New Year!
Found the luggage after much incompetence by US Airways. I have Mousey and Bunny back! Yayayay!!! I'm also working on getting Sprint SERO, but I don't know if the savings@sprintemi.com email will work. ALL of the CSRs that I talk to know about the email and say that it's invalid and will not go through. I did it only and I'm crossing my fingers.
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My flights:
Phoenix to Chicago, Chicago to Greensboro, Greensboro to Charlotte. I checked in my backpacking backpack containing all my clothes including a $150 backpacking jacket, a $300 backpacking mummy sleeping bag, and two stuffed animals that have extremely high sentimental value.
Chicago to Greensboro was bad. Takeoff was delayed by an hour because the weather in Greensboro was really bad and they didn't think they could land when they got there. But they flew anyway. We flew out of Chicago, but after an hour in the air the pilot told us that we were heading back to Chicago because the weather was too bad to land in Greensboro. After doing a U in the air we flew for half an hour before the pilot told us that there was something wrong with the plane. The air brake wasn't working, which meant we were going to have to land on the runway at a faster than average speed. He then told us not to worry, because there would be emergency crews waiting at the runway.
By this time I thought that this was all jolly good fun, and remembered how the safest I've ever felt on an airplane was when I was about to jump OUT of it (skydiving).
We approached the runway pretty fast. Lined all along the runway were emergency vehicles, firetrucks, ambulances, etc. Not a single plane was on it. We hit the runway and it got a little bit squirrely, but eventually we came to a stop and taxied to a nearby terminal.
I got on another flight, this time directly to Charlotte, and guess what? My checked-in bag didn't make it. This was around 1PM, and I filled a lost luggage report. 7 hours later I call baggage services and they tell me that they couldn't find my report. The guy at Charlotte airport forgot to frickin' enter my report into the computer system, so all this time they weren't even looking for my bag! *??&($&#
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Drove from Williams down scenic AZ-89, as ironwing suggested. I did Williams -> Sedona -> Prescott -> Wickenburg -> Pheonix. All I can say is WOW. The driving was spirited and fun and the scenery was awesome. Because it was in the middle of the day, I didn't really take very many pictures. I just drove drove drove. I did 45mpg.
Sedona is very pretty, and the main street is absolutely packed with tourists, with no parking spots. I stopped at the Red Planet Diner for lunch and it was horrible. I should have ordered regular diner stuff like hamburger, but I felt like having the noodles on the menu. They were the blandest thing I've eaten in a long time.
The drive from Sedona to Prescott was insane. The town of Jerome in-between is awesome - the entire town is situated on a mountainside and the roads are both narrow and steep. It's also very touristy. I would love to see this place opened up for a rally race. The drive from Jerome to Prescott was also very pretty and had a lot of hairpins, but someone was riding my bumper the whole entire time, and I was stuck behind an SUV.
Prescott to Wickenburg was really dramatic - the previous drives were mostly through evergreen-covered mountains and forests, but this was through incredibly harsh, dry, boulder-strewn mountainsides. There are no more trees, just mountains that look like huge piles of rubble. It was Arizona starting to show its desert side.
I'm awed by Phoenix's flatness. It's a very wide city, and I never know where I'm at because I can't see over anything. I'm applying for an internship here, and later on possibly a job. I'm not sure if I want to stay in Phoenix... I'm also not used to seeing so many Mexicans. It's funny; this whole entire trip I've seen more foreigners than white people. The national parks are 90% Asian at this time of year and now Phoenix seems like it's 80% Mexican. I went to South Mountain Park next to Phoenix in the hopes of getting a sunset shot overlooking the city. Not to sound racist, but I felt a little insecure standing around with $5000 worth of camera equipment on my person with all these Mexican teenagers in their hoodies talking in their city slang kind of language.
For dinner I went to A & J Chicago Style BBQ, because I had a hankering for BBQ. The place has won numerous awards, but I wasn't overly impressed. I've had great BBQ in Arkansas and the area (McClard's, Whole Hog Cafe) from last Spring Break, the kind that has that deep, infused, smooth and mellow smoke flavor in the meat. In Ohio the smoke flavor is a little too acrid for my taste. At A & J there wasn't that much smoke flavor, just a lot of flavor from the sauce. It wasn't as tender as I've had it, either (hard, chewy outer on some of the meat pieces). I did talk to one of the co-owners though for a long time, mostly about photography. It's an awesome little family place, the kind where everyone's friendly and social to each other, and there are a number of regulars who just lounge around and socialize.
This is one of the things that I love about my roads trips; the people. So far I've handed out my business card and exchanged contact info with perhaps 8 people. I've sat down to dinner with someone I'd met only a couple of hours beforehand. I've arranged to meet people at sunrise. I've seen the same group of people randomly at two separate parks. I've talked for hours with a bunch of photographers. And now I've whiled away the time with a restaurant owner, telling him to email me if he wants to get back into photography and offering him my Chicago panoramas for his restaurant. These are things that I feel like I couldn't do if I were with a partner or with a group, because we would mostly be socializing with ourselves. When you're alone, by default you have to socialize with other people, and I find that strangely, I'm my most gregarious when I'm on these road trips. I think that on these trips, the people that I meet are just as important as the sights and photos I get to take.
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The Grand Canyon is nothing special, at least this time of year. There are a lot of people and lines everywhere. A line getting into the park, cars parked on the side of the road because there's not enough room in the parking lots, tourists crowding the viewpoints, etc.
It's also very expensive here. $25 to get in (luckily I have a Annual National Parks Pass, which is now $85, up from $50 just one or two years ago), it's $15-18 (cash only) to camp in the miserable cold (other parks are $10), the food is expensive, and all the hotels in the area are over $80 a night (I'm shooting for around $40 because it's winter). The park is also very developed... the in-park general store is just like your regular grocery store - selling everything from a full line of frozen foods to fresh meat like 10lb rib roasts. There's even a well-stocked camping supplies store with a lot of your typical *real* backpacking stuff like Jetboils, Granite Gear packs, crampons, etc. Lodges are everywhere and there's a well-developed shuttle system for the crowds.
The sunsets and sunrises are unspectacular, maybe because of the weird angle of the sun (it's incredibly southwest/southeast in the winter). People crowd the viewpoints and it's hard to set up your tripod in a good location. Not to mention the places are all photographed to death by now and that there's really nothing new to look at. Just light brown canyons. Most of the viewpoints have pretty much the same view, just like in Bryce. In the middle of the day the canyons are absolutely boring and washed out. The park rangers also look tired and mobbed by the crowds. Tourists shooting the canyon viewpoints with flash.
I've been really under the weather lately. Ever since that damned restaurant at Bryce... every time I eat I feel like I want to throw up afterwards. In the tent I want to throw up. Photographing I want to throw up. I'm also feeling kinda weak because of the lack of food intake (because I don't want to throw up) and the messed-up hours (forcing myself out of my tent and into 15 degree weather at 4-6AM every single day). Just last night I drove to a viewpoint an hour before sunset and I had to pass out in the car for a while because I was feeling really tired and vomit-y. I had originally planned on hiking the rim, from south rim to the river and back to the south rim, but now there's no chance in my condition. Oh well. Doesn't look like there's much to see anyway.
I met a photographer with a Nikon D3. It's amazing. I held it. In my hands. I held a camera in my hands that is worth more than my entire car. I am seriously contemplating switching over to Nikon (Nikon SLRs are outnumbering Canon SLRs about 6 to 1 here, BTW). Nikons are just so much more ergonomic and user-friendly, and now that they've moved to CMOS sensors, their image quality and shooting speed can absolutely rival Canon's.
My car makes no sense. On the highway doing 75mph I get 40mpg. In the mountains, going up and down, constantly revving high in 3rd gear to make it up the inclines, I get 42mpg. Because it's so light, it handles like a dream in snow and the curves. I only wish it could handle deep snow/sand/mud and not get stuck. I love my car (Toyota Echo standard with 105K miles).
I'm in the town of Williams, AZ right now. Gonna go get me some $9 Prime Rib at Kitty's
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12/25/07
Merry Christmas!
I originally said that I was going on a morning hike in the dark to Observation Point in Zion, but this changed. The night before I got a mild case of food poisoning from eating restaurant food the night before. I checked into a hotel and was completely drained of energy and felt like I was going to throw up. I went to bed at 6PM, woke up at 3AM Christmas day, and REALLY didn't feel like doing the hike at 4AM and hiking in the dark, reaching the point at 7AM.
So I decided to do the hike for sunset. I set out at noon carrying my XT, 30D, 100-300mm, 17-50mm, 10-20mm, full tripod, 2 liters of water, a headlamp, Yaktrax, trail mix, and warm clothes. I made it up there at 3:15 and stayed there for the sunset, which sucked. The park ranger I spoke to beforehand said that Observation Point would be good for sunset, but it was mostly all front-lit, meaning I was shooting into the sun and getting killed by my camera's limited dynamic range. At 5:30PM I left the point and started my way down. There was no one around except a guy who had left 15 minutes earlier. It was really dark.
Let me tell ya, a 4 mile hike in complete darkness in canyon country with only a little headlamp is scary.
1. The trails were icy. My Yaktrax and hiking poles helped, but I fell one time and slid down the trail a bit. On these narrow canyon-side trails, it's easy to fall, slide ten feet or so, and slide completely OFF the trail and free-fall to your death. Falling with $3K worth of camera equipment strapped to you isn't fun either.
2. Ice is black at night. It's sometimes freaky to round a corner and the entire canyon wall and trail is black. And it's a very "liquid" black, both in color and shape.
3. Canyon hiking is one of the darkest experiences of all. You are surrounded on all sides by sheer vertical walls hundreds of feet high. The darkness is completely engulfing. In front, on your sides, behind, above, and even under you if there is ice is completely and utterly black. You are the only sound you hear and the only light you see. If your light goes out, you're hunkering down for the night in complete darkness because there's no way you're going to make it out. When the sun rises 10 hours later, the canyons are the last places to get light, and the first to go dark.
4. Hiking with a headlamp is like tunnel vision. The light projected is not very wide or far, and that is all you see. SOMETHING could be standing two feet to the side of the trail and you wouldn't even know it.
5. All the dead, leafless trees can look menacing. There are even trees here that are black in color.
6. There's always the thought in the back of my mind of what if during the process of shining my light around it lands on a pair of eyes staring back at me from the darkness. Or a black shape. Or a person, just standing there with absolutely no fathomable reason to be out here, about to kill me.
7. I momentarily lost the trail once. I was following footsteps in the snow when they suddenly ended at a cliff. I backtracked, looking around in my tunnel vision, and seriously contemplated having to spend the night. I finally found the trail again, which I had passed because it was literally just a pile of rocks that went downwards about ten feet.
8. It took a lot of willpower to keep my mind in check. I tend to have an imagination, and it took a lot to just concentrate on the lit path in front of me and not think about all the what-ifs and things that may lie in the darkness immediately outside my cone of light.
9. I couldn't afford to stay at the Zion campground tonight, because they charge $16, cash or check only, and I only have $15 cash on me. No ATMs. So I'm staying at the same motel as I did the night before, which accepts credit card.
10. All in all, A+++++ will hike again. I am REALLY glad I didn't do the hike in the morning, as originally planned. A dark morning hike through terrain that I'm unfamiliar with would have been very unnerving. No sense of distances, not sure if I missed a turnoff, not sure how much longer or further it is to the destination, etc. Switchback after switchback after switchback.
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I just got to Zion and all I have to say is holy cow. It's so amazing I don't even know how to start photographing this place. It's just too big.
Anyway, I'm thinking about going on a hike tomorrow morning to Observation Point to catch the sunrise. The problem with this is that it is 4 miles to the point, and if I want to catch the sunrise at the point I'll be hiking these 4 miles in complete darkness. Alone. With nothing but my headlamp and photo stuff. Bunny scared
Anyway, some highlights of the trip so far:
I got stuck in the snow while making a U-turn and had to get pulled out by an SUV (tow rope supplied by me just for these situations)
I had to get a jump from someone in Vail, CO (jumper cables supplied by me, again). My negative terminal turned out to be loose and needed tightening.
One morning it was so cold that my water bottle had frozen solid, my cranberry juice was slush, my toothpaste was close to being a solid, and my contacts were frozen in the contact lens solution.
The Dixie highway is amazing. One part of it has you driving along a mountain crest that is literally as thin as the road is wide. With no rails on the road. If you slide off you're literally in for solid minutes of rolling, then free-fall, then more rolling, then death.
There are a TON of Asians around Zion, Bryce, and I'm assuming Grand Canyon. Literally about 90% of the visitors are Asian.
Got some good photos
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I'm stopping in Boulder to check out the Montbell Store. I need to get to Capitol Reef NP by tonight, probably after midnight.
Last night I camped at Milford State Park in Kansas, and I slept outside with no tent, just my sleeping bag and sleeping pad. The temperate was 32F. Today I called my dad and said that yesterday was fine and that I even slept without a sleeping bag. His voice get REALLY worried like I had just committed some sort of ultimate sin and said that I should never ever do such a thing again. If I do it cold chi will penetrate my body and build up, and when I am old I will be wracked by pains as a result of this cold chi being released. Never mind that I wasn't even cold... apparently having cold air blow over your body and breathing it in will do it.
Before I left I was going out to the car for literally half a minute to put something in the trunk. Because it was so short, I didn't bother putting on my jacket. My dad stopped me at the door and ordered me to put on my jacket because it was cold. I said I was only going out for half a minute and he started screaming at me about this chi crap. Before I left on the trip he gave me a very stern lecture about this chi, and how there are so many studies that have proven this stuff. Yeah, right. Oh, I'm 60 and wracked with pains. I know! It was because cold air blew over me when I was young! Of course!
Basically from now on I'm only going to tell my parents warm happy things about my trip, even if it means I have to lie to them. I just don't feel like dealing with this crap during what is supposed to be a relaxing vacation. So what if I'm kind of roughing it? It's what I enjoy.
Ugg, later.