NPS100

Dead Wood and a Giant Crack

Left New Mexico for Arizona via a drive through the Petrified Forest National Park, an apocalyptic looking place containing giant deposits of petrified wood, which is basically wood that has turned completely to stone. Worth a drive through, but since there’s very little camping done here, I moved on to the Grand Canyon, where I was joined by the boyfriend Ben! It’s been a long stretch alone, and while I make great company, I was tiring of myself. We camped in the park with lots of elk and giant ravens, eventually making our way through the crowds to do a pretty intense hike down the canyon. Of course the intense part came on the way back up when the temperature had climbed to sauna level. But what an enormous crack it is, so much so that it almost looked fake. Quite an amazing thing to see, I’d love to get back for a rafting trip someday. The pictures do a better job of summing up this impressive park.

August 15, 2016 0

Do You Know the Way to Santa Fe?

Or maybe it’s San Jose, but I did find my way to Santa Fe. Finally made it to the southwest, goodbye humidity, hello heat and that is just fine with me! I camped in the Santa Fe National Forest, a great spot up a mountain. I just happened to be there during the International Folk Arts Festival, a really neat art fest that featured artists from small towns and villages all over the world. I also got a chance to spend a lot of time in Santa Fe and a bit of time in Albuquerque. The natural landscape, the people, the art, and the food made me fall in love with these two little towns. My mouth was on fire basically the whole time I was there due to hot chiles covering every morsel of food, and it was fantastic.

I really enjoyed my time in New Mexico, and a lot of that was due to the people. There is a strong focus on art and also Native American culture and history. I was able to talk to an artist at length about environmental issues that occur in on some of the reservations due mostly to mining companies that only do enough to meet the lowest level of environmental regulations and standards. Interesting to hear about, yet also frustrating.

Oh, and I took a hike up the mountain and assumed I was following the trail. It started getting so steep, I had to essentially bear crawl to make it up. After an exhausting climb, I started heading back down and eventually got to where the trail actually went. Turns out I was on some sort of rogue trail, probably made by more hardcore people than I. Oops.

August 4, 2016 0

Bourbon, bluegrass, and a giant cave system, welcome to Kentucky! The first thing I usually do when I get somewhere new is head to the campsite, set up my tent, and figure out a loose game plan for my current location. Well, when I got to the tent portion in Mammoth Cave National Park Campground, my routine came to a halt. One of my tent poles had cracked and wouldn’t stay in its designated home. I tried all my engineering skills to fix it, and actually had the whole tent up with a stick brace, until I put the last little hook on and it all came crashing down. The end of the pole had actually cracked off. Luckily, I had decided to throw my old, crappy tent into my car. I set it up and hoped any rain would lay off for the next couple nights, which it did! And, thanks to REI’s return policies, I was able to pick up a brand new tent for no charge at my next stop. Crisis averted.

Anyway, Mammoth Cave National Park, very neat. The cave system is the longest in the world, at 405 total miles. It gets its name from the humongous “rooms” within the system. You have to take one of the number of tours in order to enter the caves so I did the historic one (on recommendation from a friend, thanks Haley!). It was really quite a spectacle to see and the tour guide actually had a lot of interesting information about how the cave was formed, how it was discovered, and the activities that used to take place inside. There are extremely narrow and tight areas you have to crawl your way through and again, giant areas that seem to go on forever. Unfortunately, white nose syndrome has wiped out a majority of the once thriving bat population in the caves and the national park is taking measures to stop the spread of the fungus, but they are admittedly losing the battle. Outside of the caves, the above ground portions of the park are also beautiful, I took a few hikes both inside and out of the caves and really enjoyed both. I would definitely recommend this park for a weekend trip, or even a day trip down from Louisville.

On a side note for all you Mentor Cardinals reading this, Senor Bolton, an old Mentor High Spanish teacher, works at the national park visitor center. I recognized him right away and asked if he was the same guy. He responded that he was, said he retired, and then turned his back to me. Apparently, he’s still kind of an ass!

Boiler Up!

Note: I am way behind on these posts due to lack of cell service which leads to lack of internet. My bad.

Chi-town! One of my most favorite places! The trip was filled with some dear friends from Purdue, who put me up and showed me a fantastic time. I started in the burbs with my old college roomie and amazing friend Cass and her family and then moved on to the city at my equally amazing friend Matt’s house, which he shares with his lovely girlfriend Haley. All of the above people, plus some other old Purdue pals, met for dinner and shot the shit. It was great to catch up and reminisce on days spent making questionable, but hardly ever regrettable decisions. Matt and I, along with some of his buds, also saw a really awesome Phish show. One of the better ones out of the handful or so that I’ve attended. We ended the weekend with dim sum, an arts fest, and homemade pasta! Matt, your culinary skills are impressive, thanks for the lesson.

On my way out of Chicago, I had to stop at Purdue. It’s been 10 years since I’ve been, TEN YEARS. I can’t believe it. At first glance, everything seemed different. There were so many establishments I didn’t recognize, but the deeper in I went, the more familiar it felt. I guess a lot of things end up that way, different on the periphery, but the meat always stays the same. Campus looked great, Boiler Up!

Oh, almost forgot, had my best dog of the trip so far in Chicago, no surprise there!