A nice start in Santa Monica California

Yesterday I braved the drive from San Diego to Santa Monica to visit my aunt, uncle, and cousin. Today I had the time of my life.

My cousin had events going on all day so my uncle and I decided to set off to find some adventure. The alternative being hanging out at a grade school fundraiser. Earlier I had put google to work finding the nearest Tesla Motors store. My uncle had never heard of the company but it turned out that these amazing all-electric super-cars were being sold not 3 miles from his front door.

We found parking in a side alley and hoped that at least one of the rare beauties would be on display. It may or may not be important to note, at this point, that upon getting out of the car my uncle found not one but two pennies on the curb. They had not one but about 10 or 11 of the Roadsters laying about.

We where looking over a particularly nice copper red specimen when a salesman came out and inquired as to whether or not we had any questions. We did. He gushed on about the car at length even though is was fairly obvious we were not about to drop 109 grand on an afternoon's whim. fourty-five minutes or so later he had shown us under the bonnet and given us a tour of the facilities.

On the way out we thanked him and exchanged a few further pleasantries, which exposed my Michigan origin. Since I had come all that way, the nice man inquired as to whether I would like a ride.

I almost fell over. I stammered. I agreed because I am nice...... So yes Tom, I have gone zero to sixty in four seconds on a side road in a white electric super car. (Tom is the guy I know who will probably experience the most envy while reading this. Alex is a close second and any other guy with red blood in his veins will be in a tight race for third) At first the acceleration feels hohum, then exhilirating, then alarming, then downright frightening. It just does not quit. Pretty soon one is almost wishing that they had not told the salesman "sure go for it". Almost. It's ok to die happy.

I am not the proper person to review the vehicle. There just arn't many comparisons that I can draw between the Tesla and my Escort. I do know that my car can't make a hard right hand turn at 40 mph and survive without even a bit of squeal in the tires. Although I can fit my bike in my trunk. That would never happen in the Tesla without the cooperation of a hacksaw and I would never do that to my bike.

My uncle got a ride as well. I actually have to give him alot of credit. I probably would not have gotten anywhere near that narrow seat with out his sincere interest and people skills.

Here he is, with the nice saleman. I think if you click on the image you get the full effect. Keep a napkin handy to wipe the corners of you mouth.
Sam's Summary

• Boo-
• Yah
• !!!!

The Vista Experience

No this post is not about a Microsoft product. It is about my past week in Vista, California. At last look I was about to go Kayaking in the pacific ocean. It turns out that I actually did Kayak in the pacific. We started in the little town of La Jolla. Apparently "La Jolla" is pronounced "La Hoya" as in Oscar De.

After we had paid our $23 and selected the blue personal flotation device (or PFD or Life jacket if you are a normal person) we headed to the beach. Getting out on to the water is great fun. You pull your kayak out into a foot of water, get in, and then.... the water disappears and you are on dry land again. All you have to do is wait until the next big wave and you are free. Free to try to get through the breakers dry.

I failed in this regard. I got quite wet getting through the breakers. I blame it on the silly open kayaks they gave us. Eskimos would never approve. Once out on the waves it was pretty easy going. Sure the ocean rollers are huge, but they are far apart and not very steep. Lake Michigan is actually much scarier. We paddled about and saw seaweed, sharks, and the famous La Jolla "sea caves". These caves are not at all impressive and I can recommend that anyone waste a neuron thinking about visiting them. They certainly are not worth the $50 for a tour.

The Sea lions were cool though, if a bit smelly. They were piled up on the rocks sunning themselves. Don't they know the dangers of over exposure to the sun's harmful UV rays?

The highlights of the trip were, my sister's friend falling in, and riding the waves back into the beach.

Other fun stuff? My nephew turned one. It was a great party. There was basketball, volleyball, a beanbag toss, a tiny pool, and cake.

For Vetrans day I left my phone where a sprinkler could get it. It no longer works in any capacity other than a chew toy. A new one is in the mail. That does mean that, whoever you are, I no longer have your phone number. Feel free to call me at random over the next week or so.

Sam's Summary

• I went Kayaking
• 'twas great fun
• I visited an old friend
• I ate cake
• My volleyball team won.. most of the time.
• My phone is no longer a phone.
• More like a perfect skipping stone really. Too bad I have to send it back.
• I hiked Torrey pines
• I am headed up the coast this weekend.
  

Back in the Saddle

Wednesday brought me back. Back to California and ,more importantly, back to my car. It was good to go home. I did, however, sleep too much when I was there. Thus it is good to be back to work. Work being the act of employing the U. S. of A as a play ground.

I did not get any exit row seats on my flights back out. The planes were chock-a-block full of travelers. At least no one tried reclining their seat into me.

One odd thing was that while I was most certainly wedged into coach class seating the guy next to me was enjoying first class amenities. He was laying back with his feet up, elbows out, and reading a novel. Ah to be five foot nothing again! He was a Vietnamese transplant. We had hours of terrific discuss wherein I pretended to understand his accent and even replied at appropriate times using context clues to guess roughly what he was talking about.

I did learn that in Vietnam the fish live on top of the trees, at least that is what I think he said.

Anyway I am back and the plan is to go kayaking in the pacific this afternoon. Should be fun. I will attempt to take my camera, but that could be inviting disaster.

Sam's Summary

• I am back in California
• The flight was good
• One pilot did, however, enjoy turning the plane on it's ear.
  
• I think he confused a flight to Minneapolis with the Le Mans
• "If you look out of the left side of the plane you can see Minneapolis and to your right is the Orion nebula"
• I am going Kyaking
  

Of airplane seats and greener grass

It was a Wednesday afternoon. The pain in my knees was becoming a blessed numbness. Having rammed into the seat in front of my for the past two and a half hours I was beginning to wonder if I would need to amputate.

Please understand that I am not too tall for coach class seats. In fact when I sit up straight my knees only lightly brush the seat in front of me. As long as I don't demand comfort I am fine.

I am fine, that is, until the bozo in front of me wants to recline his seat by that whopping 2 degrees. At this point one or the other of Newtons various laws states that I will not be moving an eyelash until the captain demands over the PA that everyone return their seat to a more upright and humanitarian position. How the over large fellow, who sits in front of me on every single flight, finds comfort in having my knees boring into his spine is beyond me.

Fortunately a couple hours and a big burrito later, I found myself on a plane that was half empty. ("Half empty" is the optimistic view for tall airline passengers) I was able to talk my way into an empty exit row. I had no idea flying could be so wonderful. I could have been happily on that flight for days. Legs stretched out to full length, slouching in my seat with elbows out as far as I liked, Wonderful!

At any rate, I am back home for a few days. It took me all of five minutes to rectify the situation that brought me here. It was even cheaper than I thought it would be. I felt just a little like I should have to do some kind of heroics to get my license. They had me come all the way back in person so I could what? sign my name on a little piece of paper and frown at a camera? I suppose they did do a five and one half second check of my eyes. It turns out that they are still in my head.

On the bright side. My new picture is better than any I have ever had before. That alone is worth every penny I am sure. I also got to see my niece Ava, who can walk now even though she does not admit it. I also got to win at Catch Phrase. This can be difficult with you little brother trying to embarrass you at every chance.

Since the title of this post says something about green grass I should mention something on that. Michigan does not simply have greener grass than most places I have been. It actually has grass. I am looking at you Aridzona. It is amazing to see so much green and so little brown and tan. Water, what a concept.

Sam's Summary

• I got stuck in an airplane seat
• The captian demanded my release
• I ate a Burrito
• I got to Luxuriate in an exit row seat
• Turbulance
• I have my eyes
• I have my license
• I do not, however, have the $25 they charged me
• I visited the above mentioned "Sam"
  

Arizona

In case anyone was wondering I did make it to the Grand Canyon. I suppose that it is called "Grand" simply because it is huge.

My initial plan was to drive out Tuesday evening, camp at the rim of the canyon and then hike down in the morning. It is a mile deep so I wanted to give myself plenty of time. My car had other plans. As can be seen from the previous issue of V.V. my car broke down. This forced me to have a good time at Zion on Tuesday then drive down early Wednesday morning.

I needed to be at the bottom of the canyon by 5:00 P.M. for dinner. The drive was slated to take five and a half hours and the hike down, four to six hours. Needless to say I left early and in a bit of a rush. I need not have worried. Arizona, it turns out, aside from being a desert, is one of those rare and wonderful states that don't use daylight savings time. As such I had an hour extra when I showed up.

The extra hour was quite nice, which you may know if you have ever tried to find parking at the grand canyon at 10:00 am on a Wednesday morning. I would hate to try a Saturday in the summer. Anyway they have a nice slow set of "free" buses (it costs $25 to get into the park). By noon I was on my way down.

The trail just falls into the canyon. The path I took in is about 7.5 miles long. It descends 4600 ft. I really should not have worried about getting to dinner on time. As some of you may know, I am tall. What this means in practical hiking-down-a-canyon terms is that I can use the ties across the path as steps. They are about three feet apart and are placed to keep the path from washing out. Assuming it ever rains. It takes most folks two or three steps per tie. That means I can go at a leisurely pace that is about twice as fast as your average bear. I arrived at Phantom ranch at about 2:30.

With all that extra time before dinner I was able to hike around the canyon floor. Take a nap and eat a snack. The bottom of the canyon is 20 - 30 degrees hotter than the rim. It was about 100 degrees. It was thus a good thing that I packed shorts. It was not, however, a good thing that I packed a long sleeve shirt and a sweat shirt. Completely unnecessary, both of them.

I hear that if you ever visit Phantom Ranch you should order the stew. I wouldn't know, I ordered the steak. It was big and fairly rare. I normally like my steak fully dead and thoroughly brown. When civilization has to be packed in each day by mule, you don't complain about the food and you enjoy it. It really was good. The meal was huge and I needed every calorie for the following day.

Dinner was also delightful for the company. I ate with a Danish couple who envied our not-yet-socialist government and two women from New York who envied Denmark's socialist government. Myself, I am perfectly content to pay less than 50% in taxes.

Hiking back up is supposed to take twice as long as coming down. It didn't but I can see why it should. My legs will be weeks in the healing. I took a longer path out. 11 miles long, 4600 ft up and somewhere between 100 and 80 degrees Fahrenheit. The temperature depends on altitude and where along the path you are.

Most folk left the ranch at 4-5 am. I know because they thought everyone in camp should be awake and made sure that we were. I left at 6:30. Now I know why they left so early. It gets hot. Going up is not bad until you get there.

Once back on the rim.... 4.5 hours later.. I realized I could no longer utilize my calves, my legs were caked a solid 1/8 in thick with the finest red dust you ever did see, and eating french fries was the right thing to do; to replace my lost sodium and depleted energy reserves.

After climbing out and cleaning up I headed to this little place in western Arizona. That's right. The London bridge. It's on lake Havasu. It was a mere 104 degrees there. I took a drink and it came right back out of my forehead. Oh but it's dry heat. I think that means that it is still hot. The bridge was nice though. The little tourist trap of a city around it was kind of hilarious. Texicali with a nice English flavor.





Sam's Summary

• I stepped into the grand canyon.
  
• It was quite a drop
• The heat at the bottom is amazing.
• The deer are spooky friendly
• I ate a rare steak
• I spoke with a Danish
• He was a doctor
• I hiked back up
• It was not a race, but well you know me, I made it into one.
• I passed all the 4 o'clock hikers
• I ate at Wendy's
  
• I saw the London bridge
• I camped in the frying Mojave desert.
• I am at my sister's place in Vista California.
  

Drive to the Grand Canyon

The idea upon leaving Fort Collins, was to work my way to the Grand canyon over the course of a few days. I was hoping that I could find some interesting places to stop for the night. Thankfully things rarely go as planned.

The first night I wanted to simply drive to Grand Junction, CO. I got there well after dark. I was hoping to find any ol' campground for the night. I followed signs for something called Colorado National Monument. It looked promising as there was a little green tent marked on my map.

After a few hours of driving in circles I found the self help booth for late arrivals. I found a nice uneven camp site and set my tent just in time to duck out of the rain. It was 11:00 and I was exhausted.

Since any ol' camp ground would have done just fine you might imagine my surprise to discover that my campground was within a few hundred yards to the edge of ...

...........This!!!

I spent a "Just wow" morning driving about and taking photographs.

In the afternoon I set off accross Utah with a mind to stay Monday night at Zion national park. I expect Utah to be desert and little else. a hundred miles of beautiful desert did little to change my mind. Then I ran into "The Reef"

Please keep in mind that these little boulders are actually over 500 ft tall. There is a chain of these things running north to south for a hundred or more miles. The road had to cut straight through them. Utah kept throwing new surprises at me. Canyons, Mountian ranges and what ever the heck a "reef" is. They even had a bit of green here and there.

I spent this afternoon at Zion and was forced to expose my eyes to wonders such as....



This is just a little taste of Zion which is to date the most awe inspiring place I have been. On a grand scale anyway. It is a green garden set at the bottom of a deep canyon in the southwest desert of Utah. If you want more pictures.. ask. I have plenty.

Tomorrow is the grand Canyon. I am hiking to the bottom so I need to get some sleep. Hopefully it is not anymore awesome than the things I have seen the past two days. My head might actually explode. It's not just a cute metaphor. I really am in danger of overloading my perceptions of what is awesome.

Sam's Summary

• I left Fort Collins
• I admired the Rockies (very nice by the way)
• I got lost in Grand Junction, CO
• I was found by Colorado National monument
• I achieved over 35 miles per gallon driving 80 mph across Utah
• I broke my timing belt
• It cost money to replace.
• It's all better now.
• I spent the day in Zion National Park
• It's very cool so I am posting some Sam's Summary Bonus pictures (don't get used to it)