Timos Tales

Memoirs of a Cross Country Adventure

Sun, 30 Sep 2007 22:32:00 GMT

Memoirs of a Cross Country Adventure

by: Timo Schuzzilwenst

Knowing the time constraints of the real world, it is tempting to minimize this document so that more of you will read it. I have decided that I cannot properly document the trip if I do it in an abbreviated version. This trip summary is very LONG. Also, this story has adult content. Sex, poo, that sort of thing.

Day 1:

Leaving Randle was very difficult for me. I kept thinking about all that I was leaving behind, not about all that I was gaining by leaving. I couldn’t seem to press down on the gas pedal after everyone else had left the burger joint. It put a smile on my face to have my last Medlestede memory before our journey be Lara and Dan speeding by us in the big orange van, and both with their middle fingers out the window, uttering some appropriate sound effect that I do not now recall. Usually I consider myself a very reserved person, but in all honesty, I shed more tears during the Autumn War weekend than I should have. This is not an end to our time in Washington, but rather a short break. We will be back.

When we got back into cell phone range, we checked our messages. Three messages. Two were messages from my father that we were aware of, but had not yet heard. Something to the effect of, "by the way, you mother has terminal liver cirrhosis, sorry we didn’t tell you, doesn’t look good". (For those that have not heard, she is doing much better. Although she still has terminal liver cirrhosis, the symptoms she was experiencing were caused by a perfect storm of other issues. She spent about three weeks in the hospital, and she is currently back at home) Third message was from the Farmers Insurance contact in Connecticut, Kurt Edger. He wanted to move the job interview up by two weeks. Seeing as we were not going to be in town that soon, we arranged to have the 1.5 hour interview over the phone on the following Monday. Checked that calendar, we will be in the Grand Canyon next Monday, that works. Listened to the CD that Fechin and Owain provided, it was amazing. Thank you again so much. Only time that I have ever cried listening to the Sir Wilhelm song. Attempted to listen to the CD that Dan and Lara provided, but the truck CD player doesn’t play that format, so that CD was put on the back burner.

We had intended on being in Newport, OR to see my sister, Mary, much earlier. It took longer to say goodbye to all you folks than I thought it would. There was also a good deal of construction on the route we chose, as well as a long dump line for the RV. We made more stops than I can count to chug soda and run laps around the RV, because I kept wanting to fall asleep. As a result, we didn’t arrive in Newport until about 1:00 AM. Long after my sister had gone to bed, (she is a teacher and leaves for work at about 7:00 AM) and long after the Newport Coffee Company had closed (we tried Aine....) It took us a while to get situated due to the narrow streets that my sister lives on, but being next to the ocean for the first night was comforting.

Day 2:

At about 6:30 AM, we got a knock on the RV door. It was my sister Mary. Amy and I were able to spend about 45 minutes with her before she went off to work. I do not envy Mary’s busy life. Three children, five grandchildren and five more foster children.....and everything that goes along with that. Mary left for work, so we spent some time with Mary’s husband Ron, and my niece Stephanie. (Stephanie is about 6' 2" and has mens size 13 feet, same size as me- Easily could have been Owain’s Spawn) Stephanie’s life is busy and about what I would expect from someone who has not made the best life decisions. Stephanie is 23 years old, unmarried and has two children. She works seven days a week as a waitress at a local restaurant. Her most recent child was fathered by a 39 year old man when she was 20 years old. I love her dearly, hopefully she will come around soon. We left Newport at about 9:30 AM, too late considering the long drive we had ahead of us. We headed back to I-5 and down south to the Oregon Vortex, near the California border.

Amy was thoroughly impressed by the wild and crazy nature of the Vortex. The theory is that the magnetic fields within a two hundred foot diameter of a certain point were out of whack, and consequently gravity was reversed in some spots, and the closer you got to the middle of the vortex, the taller you became. We took lots of pictures, which we will post soon. Amy says you can tell in the pictures that we each grew a couple of inches. I don’t know. The golf ball rolling up hill was an optical illusion in my opinion. What can I say? I am a skeptic. We then headed out for the California Coast in Redwoods National parks. We opted to skip the Oregon Caves because we got such a late start and we wanted to arrive at the campground while there was still daylight. Driving through the redwood forest to get to the coast was very cool. I have never seen trees that are 15 feet in diameter before. Also, as a side note, I recommend against driving a twenty foot truck towing a twenty-six foot trailer through the red wood forest. Narrow lanes and sharp curves. Trees leaning into the roadway that had large chunks torn out of them due to vehicles getting a little to close. In fact, when we stopped to get gas outside of the forest, I found a piece of tree wedged in the wheel well on the RV, indicating that I had gotten a little to close myself. A little crack in the plastic was the only damage to the RV though. We arrived in the Campground at dusk. The place was nearly deserted, with no employees to be found. We drove around the campground until we found a good place and parked. Didn’t even unhook the trailer because we were getting an early start on the following day. Had a bit of salad and went to bed.

Day 3:

Got up at 6:00 AM and hit the road. Stopped at a local attraction called "Trees of Mystery" on the California coast. Very cool. Had all sorts of stunted and mutant trees. My favorite was the largest family tree in the world. A family tree is a tree that has other trees growing off of it’s branches. This tree was so large that it had 12 other trees growing from it’s branches. The ‘baby trees’ were up to2 feet in diameter, so you can imagine how large the main tree was. Nothing else really eventful, except that driving through California sucks ass. Winding roads, steep hills and narrow bridges were very commonplace. Amy drove the truck pulling the trailer for the first time and did a fantastic job. Spent twelve hours on the road. Also of note, the roads around Lake Tahoe were hellish. When we finally got there, we had bounced around so much on the road that it took us about half an hour to clean up everything that had bounced onto the floor. Got to Tahoe well after dark, set up, went to bed.

Day 4:

Got a late start. Left Tahoe at maybe 9:00 AM. Destination: Yosemite. This is where I first realized that driving against the wind SUCKS. Truck just wouldn’t do above 50 MPH, even on the flat. Got about 4 mpg for almost 100 miles. Highest gas prices we paid during the whole trip, $4.49 gallon. Came into the backside of Yosemite. I recommend against trying to tow a trailer up the backside. Gained 8k in elevation in about 12 miles. Truck was struggling the whole way. Went over the top of Yosemite Pass, 9974 feet. We had heard over and over again about the bears in the park, but never did see one. Arrived at the Crane Flats campground at about 4:00 PM, at least an hour ahead of schedule. The campsite they gave us was far too small for our giant RV, so it took us a while to find another one. Set up, and went scavenging for some firewood. Had a bit of salad and sat by the campfire singing with my wife until midnight and went to bed. Tomorrow is a full day of sightseeing in the Park!

Day5:

Got up at 8:00 AM and headed the 17 miles into the Yosemite Valley. It was a little foggy and we didn’t see anything until Half Dome. Beautiful. The park has a great bus system that takes you to all of the different sights, and its free. I had been to Yosemite with an ex in 1996. Went to the Happy Isles, and it wasn’t at all what I remembered. The Happy Isles was a series of giant boulders in a stream near the east side of the valley. The boulders were all connected by a series of bridges. Found out that the reason that the Happy Isles were different is that about six months after I was last here, there was a giant rockslide that buried the creek at the bottom of Half Dome. They rebuilt the Happy Isles, but did a crappy job. Visited the visitor center and signed up for the Valley Floor Tour. I enjoyed the tour a lot. About 50 people boarded an open air tram up at Yosemite Lodge. Amy and I sat next to a bunch of Amish people. They were very talkative with each other, but didn’t engage anyone else. It was odd listening to them. They speak two dialects of English, one of which I easily understood, but the other I could only pick up about every fifth word or so. Saw El Capitan, the Spires, Bridal Veil Falls, North Dome, Half Dome, Lost Arrow, etc etc etc. Well worth the hellish drive towing the trailer. I found out that people from all over the world come to climb El Capitan. Different routes to climb the wall take anywhere from 4 days to 7 days. People start climbing the wall, and when it gets dark, the strap up real good and sleep hanging 1000 feet off of the ground. The can’t relieve themselves on the wall, so they all carry canisters filled with kitty litter that they pee and poop in. They then carry all their waste until the get back to the bottom. I would have trouble carrying ONE of my dumps around, much less a weeks worth. The oldest person to ever climb the wall was 81 years old. The youngest, just 8 years old. Borders on child abuse in my opinion.

We then visited a few more sites after the tour, picked up some souvenirs, ate dinner at the famous Awanhee Hotel and headed back to camp. I was surprised by the many different languages I heard while in the valley. I didnt hear English very much, but German, Japanese and French were very common. The next day was a long drive, so we prepared for an early departure.

Day 6:

This was our first long day drive, 570 miles. Coming down out of Yosemite was a challenge, but by leaving the campground at 6:00 AM, we avoided most of the traffic on the narrow, winding road that bisects the park. Again, the brakes were smoking pretty bad on the backside of the park. We made pretty good time that day. I enjoyed driving through Death Valley. Kept waiting for a sign that said, "If you break down, you WILL die!" , but never saw one. This was a day of extremes. Went from 9974 feet above sea level in Yosemite to 23 feet below sea level in death valley. 48 degrees in Yosemite to 104 in Death Valley. We stopped at the Nevada border and took a few pictures. The border crossing was in a location that you could see vehicles coming in either direction for 15+ miles. Amy got a great picture of me taking a piss on the, "WELCOME TO NEVADA" sign. Saw Rhyolite Ghost Town not far from the border crossing, we were not very impressed. They sure picked a crappy place for a town, right on the edge of Death Valley. Long drive that day, finally arrived at Las Vegas about 5:00 PM. Las Vegas has some of the crappiest rush hour drivers I had ever seen. We explored our options for what to do with our evening and decided to see ‘BITE’, an erotic, topless Vampire show at the Stratosphere. Nice. Though it wasn’t top ten shows I have ever seen, it was entertaining (and erotic!) and worth the $35 ticket price. There was a girl in the show named ‘Fire’ that could have been Tessa’s (Stacy’s) twin sister. Nice again. You’re a lucky man Joel. Went back to the RV and.........bow chika wow wow!

Day 7:

Got up, went swimming, did some laundry and bought tickets to the topless variety show at Bally’s called ‘Jubilee’. Roamed around Vegas and lost $2 at the slots. Bah. Spent a good amount of time at Caesar’s Palace seeing the shops and buying souvenirs. The hotel was nice. I can’t imagine how much money they put into that place. Ate at Planet Hollywood, where Amy picked up a nasty case of food poisoning from some shrimp there.

We ended up at Bally’s for the show, Jubilee. That was a terrific name for the show, because that was exactly the emotion I was experiencing. There were probably 100 topless girls on stage, as well as some dudes running around in G-strings. In the first ten minutes of the show, I saw more boobies than I had during the rest of my life. The awesome thing was that every single set was REAL! I guess they don’t want girls with gigantic fake boobies trying to run and jump around on stage, because all the girls would have black eyes. After the show, roamed around a few more hotels and ended up at the Mirage. We wandered into one of the shops that specialized in ancient antiques. This little shop had relics from every corner of the earth, some of which were nearly 3000 years old. Coins, necklaces, rings, armor and weapons were in every nook and cranny. As you can imagine, the prices on these artifacts were crazy. We did find a bunch of Roman bronze rings that dated from about the first century that you could buy for like $50. My mind is boggled by the history of something like that. Who made the ring? Who wore it? Was it passed down from parent to child? I regret not buying one. Eventually got back to the RV and got ready for the next days long drive.

Day 8:

Another long driving day. Got up and went into the office of the RV park to ask directions to Hoover Dam. Found out that the search every RV that crosses the dam. Dammit. Had to ditch everything. EVERYTHING. Drove for hours and hours and got to the campground at Grand Canyon at about 4:30 PM. Used the restroom and when I came out, there was an enormous girl moose standing in front of me. I immediately thought of Dan, but couldn’t get back to the RV

quick enough to get the camera. The moose wandered off, and I didn’t feel like trying to follow it through the bushes. We finished setting up the RV and decided to go get some dinner at the local Deli. After we ate, we headed out to see the Grand Canyon. They have very poor maps and signs in Grand Canyon Village. It took us about an hour to find the biggest canyon in the world and we were only a couple of hundred yards away from it. Of course, the view was incredible. There were not too many people there, and again I didn’t hear very much English. We hiked along the Canyon for an hour or so until we reached a nice viewpoint. Took some pictures and headed back. To be sure, the Grand Canyon is a magnificent example of what nature can do. After seeing the same view mile after mile however, it really is just a big hole in the ground. If you plan on ever seeing the Grand Canyon, don’t make it the highlight of you trip, but rather one of the stops on the way to the highlight of your trip. It just isn’t enough to be the main event, unless you’re gonna hike down to the bottom, or do something that involves mules.

Had a nice big campfire that evening, but no salad. :(

Day 9:

Got a late start. Readied the camper and headed into Grand Canyon Village so that I had cell phone reception from my phone interview. Called in and was interviewed by Cindy, Kurt and Lisa. I was previously told that the interview should last about 1 hour and would consist of seven questions. After 28 minutes on the phone however (I was REALLY on for this interview, it felt like home run after home run), the head manager Cindy said that she had another meeting that she had to be at in two minutes. Further, although we were only on question 4 out of 7, she told me that she didn’t have time for the remainder of the interview and ended the call. Surprise-surprise, I didn’t get the job. It turned out that one of the other applicants had been in that office for twenty-five years and recently left. He wanted to come back, and because Cindy liked the guy, she gave him the job. I never really had a chance to get that job. Both interviews I had with Cindy were just a waste of my time. If she had the courtesy to let me complete the interview at least I would have felt like I was given a fair shot at the position. Bah. Drove on, saw some pretty cool Pueblo Indian ruins, took lots of pictures, and eventually ended up at Arches National Park in New Mexico.

Up until this point, I was pretty much along for the ride. Seeing all the scenery on the drive into Arches changed my point of view. I have never seen anything this incredible before. I had no idea that anything like this existed on the planet. I felt naive and inexperienced that I had never ventured out to see more of this beautiful world. I was happy spending my life in Washington, and I never really had the drive to take a trip and see what else was out there. Out of anything on out trip, if you ever have the chance to go to Arches National Park, please DO IT.

Millions of years ago, southern Utah was in the middle of a great ocean. The ocean dried up, leaving hundreds of feet of salt and sand behind. The weight of the sand was immense, and under the pressure, the salt liquified and drained away, leaving giant ‘fins’ of sandstone throughout the area. Some parts of the sandstone were more dense than others, and the less dense areas were eaten away by wind and water. The result was thousands of natural arches all over the park. We took a lot of pictures, which are in the gallery.

We found our campsite, and set up. There was a giant boulder behind our camp, maybe 100 feet tall and 200 feet long that Amy and I scaled. We then went to a presentation in the campground

by the local park ranger on the mating habits of the local animals. My favorite was the porcupine. If a boy porcupine likes a girl porcupine, he waddles up to her and does a little dance. If the girl likes him back, she continues to give him her undivided attention. The boy porcupine then moves

onto step two, which is VERY romantic. He lifts his leg and empties his bladder on the girl porcupines head. If she is still interested, she just sits there until the boy porcupine gets up the nerve to mount, which often takes awhile. They do their thing, and go their separate ways. They might meet again next year, they might not. All this talk of mating got me a little worked up, so we went back to the RV for a little more bow chika wow wow. I did not however, empty my bladder on Amy’s head.

Day 10:

This was our full day in Arches National Park. Realizing that the temperatures would soon be in the upper 90's, we headed out early for the Double O arches hike, the longest hike in the park. This is a four mile desert hike, much of which is scaling and jumping boulders. We saw so many arches, that I soon lost track of their names. We took many pictures and I am sure that Amy remembers all the arch names. We saw the largest arch in the park, Landscape Arch. It is nearly a football field wide at it’s base, and 163 feet high. Portions of this arch have fallen away recently and weakened it greatly. It is not expected to be around very much longer. My other favorite arch was Double O Arch. It is one arch that sits on top of another.

Our hike out was very strenuous. We took plenty of water with us, and ended up drinking every drop. Once we got to Double O Arch, we looked around and saw that there were no out of shape people around. That made us happy. It took us about five hours to get out there and back, with several side trips to see other arches. By the time we got back we were pretty pooped out, so we took a nap and prepared to go on a couple of shorter hikes later in the evening.

Later we saw Windows Arch, which is actually two arches side by side that looks like two windows. We saw Double Arch which was another of my favorites. I cant describe it, other than it looks like a giant hollow toilet. Check out the pictures. Which we were at an arch called Turret Arch, we encountered something depressing. There were hundreds of tourists around, and as we were posing for a picture, we heard a lady scream, ‘Fuck....NOOOOOO!’. We then heard a loud THUD, and realized that someone had fallen off of an arch into a ravine. We saw people running towards one of the arches, that was about half a mile away. We chose not to go help because there was already many people who were running towards the fallen person. Then the moaning started. With all the arches, stone formations and ravines around, we could hear the persons moans of pain echoing during our entire afternoon hike. About an hour later, we finally heard the

sirens of the ambulance. We saw a few more sites, and headed back to camp. On the way back, we saw an unusual rock formation, named it "Old Man Balls on Pedestal" and took a picture of it. I couldn’t resist, so I am in the process of writing a mythology about the rock formations which I will post soon.

That night was truly incredible. We scaled a large rock formation near our camp, and watched the sunset. Very romantic. We got back to camp, had dinner and started a fire. The moon rose, the stars came out and there was not a cloud in the sky. We scaled the same big rock behind our camp that we had scaled the previous night and made whoopee under the stars in the middle of the campground. Nice. Amy was a little on edge because anyone could have looked up and seen us against the background of the starry sky. I didn’t much care if anyone saw us. Also, a bus full of middle school kids had claimed the camping spot right across from us.

Day 11:

We set out early, driving towards Albuquerque, NM. We stopped at Four Corners at about noon. Just prior to arriving at Four Corners, our AC crapped out. It mysteriously came back on a short time later. Four Corners. Where else can you be in four states at once? Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado. I had envisioned something very different about the actual site however. Four Corners is on Navajo property, so they charge $5 per person to be there. Also, the site is surrounded by broken down trailers and huts, which the local Indians sell Indian type goods from. I do say ‘Indian type goods’ because the vast majority of what the Indians sell is manufactured at a factory in Oklahoma and shipped to Four Corners to be sold. We saw very little made by the local Indian population. Amy got some ‘Traditional Indian Fry bread’, which was an elephant ear with powdered sugar.

Our next stop that day was Roswell, NM. I was very excited about this stop. The first thing I realized was that the city of Roswell is enormous. After watching movies about Aliens and Roswell for years, I was envisioning a dusty little town with a deserted gas station/mini-mart. Roswell is about the size of Bellingham. We stopped at the International UFO Museum and I was very disappointed. $8 each to get in, and all they had were newspaper clippings and signed affidavits from people who claimed to be in Roswell in 1947. Where was the alien spacecraft? How about the hollowed out corpse of E.T.? Bah. NEXT. The coolest thing that happened in Roswell was the ‘curtain of rain’. As we were driving, we looked ahead literally saw a line in the pavement, one side of which was dry, and the other side was a river. We drove through the

curtain and immediately had to slow down to 5 MPH, because even on the fastest setting, the

wipers in the truck could not keep up. I have never seen weather like that before, must have had something to do with the Aliens.

Then, we were off to Carlsbad Caverns. Carlsbad Caverns are about 25 miles south of the City of Carlsbad. We elected to camp in White’s City, because it was much closer to the caverns than Carlsbad is. We arrived in White’s City at about 5:00 PM. Do you remember in National Lampoons vacation when Russ and the family arrive at the amazing desert resort that is all run down, deserted and dangerous? It looked like it would have been the coolest place on earth in 1979? This is that place. It’s kinda crappy that this little shithole of a town is named after the guy who actually discovered the most beautiful caverns in the world, Jim White, while the Caverns actually are named after a town miles away called Carlsbad, which is a big shithole of a town.

We walked into the lobby, which had an old west theme. Saw a computer for customer use, unfortunately, because it had rained for about ½ an hour that day, the internet was down. We checked in and pulled the RV into the park. Part of the driveway was a lake about a foot deep. We then pulled into on of the spaces, and when I got out I realized that we couldn’t stay there because someone had left the cap off of the black water drain, and the smell of shit was going to make me vomit. We finally found a space that smelled less like shit and set up. We drove to the touristy gift shop and spoke with the old man proprietor. He told us that the bats would be flying out of the caverns in about an hour, and if we hurried we could make it up there and see the spectacle. We stopped by the little general store, and saw that a little girl that was about ten years old was behind the counter. She told us that he mom was in the bathroom and we would be waited on when she was done. Mom came out a few minutes later. I purchased some fudge, and the old crone cut a chunk off for me. I looked at Amy, who was staring at me with a crinkled nose. Often I breath through my mouth so that I won’t have to endure the noxious odors of other. I took a deep nose whiff and almost threw up. The lady who had served me fudge smelled like moldy dog shit. Still ate the fudge though.

We then started our drive up to the Caverns. We had been told about the tarantulas, rattle snakes, scorpions and bats by the old proprietor guy, but he seemed kind of out of it, so I didn’t pay him much attention. Two minutes into our drive, I saw a small black ball moving across the road. As we got closer, I saw that it was a ball with legs and it was walking across the road. There was the biggest spider I had even seen. It must have been the size of my fist. I swerved to the right in an attempt to avoid it. I can’t decide if I hit it or not. We continued our driver up to the cave mouth.

When we arrived there was a ranger letting people into the amphitheater right in front of the cave mouth. She had a little electronic contraption in her hands that she explained was a lightning detector. There was a storm in the area, and if it got closer than three miles, we would have to evacuate. This was a new policy because two years ago a man was struck by lightning and killed in the parking lot, standing right in front of his wife and new born baby. There were maybe 100 people in the amphitheater and we all sat down and she began to talk. I wasn’t really paying any attention, partly because she was really boring, and partly because I was watching the rain clouds move in. She set up a little speaker, stating that there was a microphone in the ‘bat cave’ and the bats flying out could be heard through the speaker. OK. Eventually we heard some clicking on the speaker, which she said was the bats. We all sat silently as she had instructed (exception for a GODDAMN FRENCH couple who thought the rules didn’t really apply to them) to wait for the bats. About five minutes later I saw the first bat fly out. It looked to be the size of a hummingbird. Within thirty seconds, the cave mouth was completely filled with these little guys, who were swirling together to gain altitude. It was fun to watch 400,000 of these little guys pour out of the cave. It reminded me of the movie ‘From Dusk till Dawn’, and of course, we were pretty near Mexico. After about ten minutes of watching these bats pour out, the Park Ranger stood up while looking at her contraption and yelled ‘Everybody out, staying is not an option!’ I could feel the rain and electricity in the air, but could see anything yet. We walked up to the truck and drove back down to the little crappy town of White’s City.

We stopped at the only restaurant in town for a bite. I sure wish we hadn’t. Paid $14 for an order of onion rings, a soda and a grilled ham and cheese sandwich. It was a pretty nasty meal, about what you would expect from a run down little 70's diner. We watched the lightning from the booth we were sitting in.

Things appeared to have calmed down weather wise, so we headed back to the RV. You could see a lightning bolt here and there in the distance, but nothing was close. We started up a movie. About ½ way through the movie, we could tell that the storm had moved a lot closer. The wind had picked up, and the flashes from the lightning outside had become much closer and MUCH more frequent. I started counting the strikes. We shut off the move and started to watch the storm through the window. Watching that storm was cool........for about ten minutes. We quickly realized that this was an incredibly severe storm, bigger than either of us had seen before, and we started to freak out. I lost count of the lightning strikes somewhere around 80 or 85 about half way through the storm. The strikes got louder, and the trailer started shaking with each one. At this point, we decided that we were in danger from the storm. The city was closed down however, and there was no where to go besides sitting in the truck, which was no better than our current situation. Twice the power went out, but both times came back on within a few minutes. Holy crap. I think that was the longest night of my life. We unplugged all the appliances and laid in the middle of the bed with the covers over our head for three hours. Didn’t sleep much that night.

Day 12:

We were sure that the Caves would have been closed down after the storm the previous night, either from flooding or power loss. We got up and headed to the caves just to make sure. Found that they were open as usual, but all the guided tours were completely full, so was had to settle for the self guided tours. There are two

ways down into the cave. You can walk, which is about a 1.5 mile trail into the earth. You can also take the new elevator down, which takes you directly to the gift shop/cafeteria at a depth of about 1000 feet. Both the trail and the elevator take you to the same place, which is the cafeteria. We opted to take the trail down because we had heard that there were a lot of things to see on the trail down. There is something not natural about walking that far into the earth. The first cavern you come to is the ‘bat cave’. It smelled pretty funky and there was guano all over the place. We took pictures of all the cool rock formations. Amy and I took the main trail down, which took just over two hours. I was surprised at how strenuous the downhill hike could be. When we got to the bottom, we explored the main area of the cave, called ‘the big room’. This room is big enough to hold 17 football fields. After a two hour hike in the big room, we stopped at the cafeteria and had lunch. It was kinda cool having a meal that far underground. After that we took the elevator back up. It took two hours to walk down, who knows how long it would have taken to go back up.

The Caverns were discovered by a 16 year old ranch hand named James White in 1880 ish. He saw what he thought was smoke, but when he investigated, it turned out to be giant clouds of bats. When he found the cave entrance, he started a big bonfire and dropped a bunch of burning branches into the hole to see how far it went down. When he found the cave, he had been out repairing fences on the ranch, so he had all the item necessary to make ladders to climb into the hole. He explored the caves for nearly 50 years, mapping about 19 of the 31 miles of Carlsbad. He eventually started taking tours into the caves.

After we got back up to the top, we checked out the video arcade in White City. There were three decent size rooms in the arcade, but the vast majority of the video games we either unplugged or didn’t work. I ended up playing the two most recent games. ‘Spy Hunter’ and ‘Ninja Shoot’. In ‘Ninja Shoot’, you use a shotgun to shoot ninja’s off the wall because if they make it to the top, they kill you. Both of those games were from 1989. The change machine didn’t work, so I had to get change from the lady who smelled like moldy dogshit.

We were a little bored after that, so we ended up going into the Carlsbad city to have dinner and see a movie. Had dinner at SONIC, wasn’t bad. We then went to the theater and saw ‘3:10 to Yuma’. Pretty good movie if you get a chance to go see it. It would have been a pretty pleasant experience had it not been for the horde of teenagers waiting for the next movie in the hallway. One of them ran into the theater and threw a full large soda into the room. It missed Amy by ten feet or so but scared the shit out of us. Then others was randomly come in and start screaming obscenities. Nice. This was a strange town. There were billboards all over the place advertising Sunday school and abstinence. They said things like ‘It’s cool to wait until you’re married’ and ‘I hate peer pressure at parties’. Weird. We drove back to our smelly RV site and hit the sack.

Day13:

Got up and on the road early, about 6:30 AM. Drove out of New Mexico and through Texas. Crossed over into Oklahoma, saw the biggest cross in the western hemisphere, and finally got to tired to drive at the Oklahoma - Arkansas border. Long day, pulled over at a truck stop and got to sleep around 11:00 PM.

Day 14:

Again, got an early start. Drove into Arkansas. We felt pretty good about the drive until we got off of the main highways and started seeing toilets and couches in peoples front yards. The theme song from ‘Deliverance’ kept running through my head. Arkansas has more road kill than any other place I have ever seen. Every mile or two there was a smelly pile of bloody mush or deer slop, and flocks of ravens at every one. Then, we saw some small animals in the road and thought they were rabbits, but as we got closer, they ran to the side and we saw they were puppies. We were like ‘Hmmm, I guess people in Arkansas don’t really care about their puppies.’ A little bit later, we saw a little yappy dog running in the street. The car in front of us actually drove OVER the dog without slowing down or swerving. It was OK, and the owner was coming down his driveway like there was no big hurry to get his dog. Geesh. Further on, we saw a giant black and white skunk dead in the middle of the road. We drove past and saw several people sobbing on the side of the road. Upon retrospect, I guess the skunk was a dog, and that one didn’t make it. The whole way after that, every time we saw unidentifiable road kill, we dubbed it a puppy.

Made it to the Arkansas Hot Springs about 12:00 PM. This Hot Springs was very different from the one we went to in Washington. At Goldmeyer in Washington, it was several pools and a cave like pool in the middle of the woods. You just go lounge around in the pool (the place is clothing optional too) until you are water logged and then you get out. The Arkansas hot springs was like a spa resort. Amy and I each paid $54 to go into this resort. There was a men’s side and a women’s side, so we couldn’t hang out together while we were there. I was first led into the men’s locker room by a guy who told me his name was ‘ole Bobby. He helped me strip down, which was kinda weird, and then gave me a big sheet to wear around like a robe. I couldn’t quite figure out how the big sheet worked, so my ass was hanging out for most of the time. Ole Bobby lead me into the main hot springs room and had me sit down in a metal chair. I sat there for a long time, probably 10 minutes. A guy who was wicked flaming came by and told me that the blonde with double D’s who was supposed to wash me didn’t show up to work today, so one of the guys was going to do it. I’m sure he told me that so when a dude started washing all my nooks and crannies, I wouldn’t freak out. A black guy that was over 300 pounds motioned me over to one of the bathtubs. These bathtubs were huge, with what looked like an outboard motor providing the whirlpool effect. I got in the tub, and the large black guy introduced himself as Ricky. He told me to enjoy in the tub for awhile, and he would be back.

I laid back in the tub and attempted to relax. After a few minutes, I realized that the powerful water jet was hitting me right on the sack. It felt kinda good. I laid there for a few more minutes and let me mind continue to wander. Relaxed, I began to think back to a special memory, a fantasy that I shared with some of you on Saturday evening at Autumn war. This fantasy involved my wife and.........well, enough said. The point is, when Ricky came back to my tub, I had gotten myself a little worked up. Not good. In the middle of the men’s hot spring spa, butt naked, in a mineral water whirlpool, about to be scrubbed from head to tow by a overweight black guy named Ricky and now I have a woody. I kinda lucked out. The thought of Ricky scrubbing me sober up instantly. By the time I leaned forward to have Ricky Scrub my back, I was in the clear. Close call. I told Ricky that I could wash all my own junk, and he let me.

After the bath, they put me in a mineral water steam room for five minutes. I laid on a cool down table for ten minutes or so, then a needle shower. The needle shower just has water coming from the sides, not the top. They call it a needle shower because they can adjuste the water to be as fine as a needle, which can pierce skin. No thanks. I was hoping that the massage therapist was a lady, but no luck. Good massage, but there is something unsettling about a dude rubbing my naked ass. When I got back to the locker room, I realized that they had opened the shutters on the front windows. Too late though, a group of women were talking outside the window and casually checked out my naked form, then turned the other way and continued there conversation. Dammit. By the time I got out, Amy was already waiting for me outside.

We left town, exchanged stories of our adventure, and continued on until we found a hotel parking lot to sleep in at about 10:30 PM. I know that Arkansas has a bad rap as the gay-hick-rape state. In all fairness however, I was only ass raped once, and even then the gentleman who ass raped me only managed to get the tip in before I wrestled him off me.

Day 15: (Final Day)

Got up early, but not that early because we had crossed a time zone and not realized it. When we did get up, we were undecided if we were going to try to cannonball run it all the way to Massachusetts. We left Tennessee, and continued north. We decided to skip the Blue Ridge Parkway because it would have added at least three hours to our trip. By the time we got to Pennsylvania, Gettysburg and Amish Country were both closed. I guess we were driving strait through. Amy took a turning driving for awhile in PA. We decided to take the turnpike, which was unnerving at the time, but turned out to be a good decision because it was a strait, high speed highway with few off ramps. Again, Amy did a terrific job of handling the big truck pulling the 26 foot trailer. I took over somewahere in New Jersey and we continued on the turnpike. When we got through New Jersey, we moved onto the New York turnpike. I started to get a little nervous as I had never been to New York before, much less driven through it. What if I took the wrong exit and we ended up in downtown NY city driving this monstrosity? The highways in New York are the worst I have driven on. It felt like we were driving over speed bumps for forty miles. We had to drive under low bridges, narrow lanes and four toll booths. We spent $50 driving on the Highways through NYC. Drivers there are crazy. Driving on the narrow, winding roads in Yosemite was a joyride compared to this. A week after being in Massachusetts, my am still having nightmares about it. Well, despite all my complaining and white knuckle driving, we made it through New York City. The next four hours of driving went pretty uneventfully through Connecticut and Rhode Island. We pulled into the in-laws driveway at about 2:00 AM. Total driving time for the day, 18 hours. Total distance for the day 978 miles. Amy’s mother Patti was still up waiting for us.

During our time on the road, we traveled nearly six thousand miles. We went through 20 states. We spent the night in 7 National Parks. We spent about $2500 on gas. I lost 24 pounds. We did this all in 15 days, arriving two ahead of schedule. I am grateful to Amy for this trip. It has opened my eyes to what exists beyond Washington, Oregon and California.

RAGE

Fri, 23 Jun 2006 22:35:00 GMT

Why are people so stupid? I dont get mad often, but I sure did last night.

I was scheduled to get Lasik on Monday, but not no more. When I arrived home after work yesterday, there was a message from the lasik institute. They wanted to let me know that they had spoken to the surgeon and he had changed my procedure from a standard lasik to a PRK. (Who friken cares. Im getting laser beams in my eyeballs on Monday and then I will never have to wear glasses again. Hmmm....I wonder why they called to let me know that.)Um, why did you call and let me know about the change?

Well, the PRK procedure is a little more......invasive.

DEFINE INVASIVE.

Well, it takes more time to recover from a PRK procedure.

DEFINE MORE TIME.

Some people can go back to work after only 5 to 7 days. Some people need up to two weeks off from work though.

5 to 7 DAYS!?!?!?!? WTF!?!?!?! For the past three months you told me that I would be back at work the next day. And now, three days before you shoot laser beams into my eyeballs you tell me that I wont be able to work for 5 to 14 days? And you think that is OK?

Oh yeah, one other thing........

!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

After the procedure you cant drive until you receive approval from our DR.

!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

She was very upset and confused when I cancelled my appointment for Lasik. A little forethought and consideration. Is that too much to ask? DAMMIT.

Oh crappy day.

Sat, 29 Apr 2006 01:34:00 GMT

On a scale of one to ten, my day was shitty.

So, several days ago I was offered a promotion from another Farmers office. I was on cloud nine. I would have had a team of ten claims adjusters that are doing the job that I am currently doing, and a nice hefty raise as well. It took longer than it should have to get authorization from the district manager for me to have this promotion. I learned today that I did not receive this authorization from the district manager. Appearantly, because I just received a promotion several weeks ago, my district manager gave me an average performance rating in my new job because a few weeks was not enough time to 'prove myself'. Average. WOW. Never mind that I had performed well above average to get the earlier promotion. Never mind that I am fully qualified for this new job. The district manager didnt want to have to find someone else to do the job I currently have, so he rated me average, knowing that I could never get a supervisory position with an average rating. WOW. It just blows me away how people can be so devious.

Also, last night Amy and I were finishing up a batch of mugs we had made. On the last mug that I dipped in wax, an air pocket came out of the mug and drenched the middle three fingers on my right hand, which sent me howling. Enough of the wax had slopped out of the pot that it hit the element on the stove, and it immediately burst into flames. Dam. I shook my hand wildy in an effort to get the molten wax off. Of course, being wax, that was not possible. The flames jumped on the stove and the house filled with smoke. The fire alarm went off. I was screaming. All this should have been overwhelming for Amy, who was sitting in the next room. In a flash Amy jumped up, extinguished the two foot flames on the stove and opened all the doors and windows in the house. She got out a fan and had the alarm off in a matter of about a minute. Of course, I am standing in front of the sink with my hand in icy cold water thinking, "Holy shit. I am screwed." So off to the Hospital I go, screaming and rocking all the way. When I got there, I am told that there are 18 people ahead of me, and I will be waiting awhile. I plead with the 20 year old triage nurse to get me in more quickly, but he asks me to step out of line because someone was behind me. I turn and see a seven year old girl being carried by her father. I cant believe my eyes. She has a scraped knee. I guess they didnt have soap and water at home. She is not even crying. I have pain that I am not capable of describing and I am being asked to step out of line for a scraped knee. Several thoughts ran through my mind like, 'If I start swearing and yelling then I might get arrested, but I will certainly get medical attention quicker', 'If I called an ambulance from the ER they would drive me around to the back and I could be seen right away', 'Could I make the drive from Valley Medical Center to Overlake hospital without passing out?'. Instead I sat and waited.

A full hour later I am seen by the only ER doctor there. Appearantly, two of the three ER doctors called in sick that night. He looks at my finger and said, 'Dam. They should have brought you in right away'. My mind screams 'NO SHIT!!!!!!!!!', but I keep my mouth shut because if I speak, I am gonna start bawling. He tells me there isnt much he can do besides clean it and give me a vicodin. He offers to scrape the hardened wax off my fingers. Hmmmmmmm.......UM NO. So we wraps it in antibiotic cream and gives me that wonderful little pill. I get home, exhausted and still in pain, at midnight. I just unwrapped my fingers 20 hours later and my fingers look like they belong to the elephant man. Swollen and blistering. MORE VICODIN.

So, the moral of this story is never, ever, wax mugs by dipping them upside down in a pot of wax. Do it the Arnorr way, and paint the dam wax on.

Dream

Wed, 26 Apr 2006 21:36:00 GMT

Ok, so I remembered the dream I had last night.

I was a college kid living with my parents. I woke up (in my dream) and realized that I was late for my first day of work at a new job. I dont recall what the job was, but it involved walking through wet grass. Landscaper maybe? So I jumped out of bed and quickly started to dress. As I was leaving the house, my dad called out, 'Arent you gonna put some shoes on?'. I looked down and I was bare footed. I then walked back into the living room and attempted to put my shoes on. I tried for what seemed like forever to put my shoes on, but it just wasnt happening. I eventually realized that I was trying to wrap a Sunday newpaper around each foot and pull a sock over the top of it. I thought 'dam I need new shoes, these arent gonna last too long in the wet grass'. I continued to struggle with the 'shoes' until I looked up at the clock and saw that I was one minute late to work. I woke up.

What the heck does that mean?