It seems prudent to put in some time solidifying a webpage format for collecting this vacation's thoughts prior to the actual vacation itself; this way, I will ostensibly be able to spend more time recording anecdotes and less time reordering markup. Last year's corresponding treatment of Alaska seemed to be well received, so I will leave the format roughly the same. At the very least, I can hope and assume that my immediate family will appreciate my ramblings.

The time immediately preceding the vacation this year feels markedly different than last year, a perception that is directly attributable to having a job. Where as last year there was ample time to prepare, to premeditate, to preview potential surroundings and activities, this year there is instead a corollary flurry of effort and concern for those tasks for which I am professionally responsible. Last year's idle daydreams are substituted by this year's deadlines, with the impending date of vacation commencement at once seemingly looming large and nigh-impossibly distant.

Though I have already been to Utah, I only faintly remember the experience. At fourteen, the memories of Salt Lake City that stick out most vividly are the potent odor, a flat tire, and a largely empty nearby mall. Utah was, for that trip, merely part of our pathing between Glacier National Park and fairer destinations admist the Rockies of Colorado. Any remnant shreds of other memories are likely colored by those ramshackle stereotypes that seep across the country, be it of lakes of salt or latter day saints.

With travel, there is no substitute for presence. I can scarcely wait to experience the national parks within Utah; recollections of the grandeur of Grand Canyon far overshadowing any expectation that photographic representation may have spurred give me hope that on this trip as well I will connect with some sublime substrate of reality. Within the past five years, Lea has been to many of the locations to which we are traveling; I take it as quite a positive sign that she is willing to revisit them. Perhaps it is better to say that I have heretofore only been through Utah, and, following the coming weeks, I will have been to it.

This year, just as last, there is much to be eagerly anticipated.

One of the many luxuries of having no set deadlines or reservations for a vacation is that you can wake up as late as you want. We did not get off and on to the road until about ten. On the one hand, this gave us less time to get as far out west as we could today; on the other hand, we started our first big traveling day well rested.

When traversing such large portions of the country, one has to decide which of the branching major transport arteries to take. In our case, the choice was between I-80 through Des Moines, or I-90 through Mitchell. Where as Des Moines has only some monks, Mitchell has the world's only corn palace. If I had been to the corn palace previously, I do not remember it; nor did Lea recall her early-life Corn Palace experience. I-90 seemed the clear and easy choice, despite its slightly longer predicted travel time.

The Corn Palace is approximately what one would expect it to be, other than the inexplicable minnarets. What exactly Pierre has that Mitchell does not, I know not; it seems difficult to fathom what could possibly stack up against the 275,000 externally fixed cobs.

I clearly enjoyed the Corn Palace significantly more than Cornelius the Corn Mascot, who shuffled around the structure with a body language best described as sullen.

Seth and Cornelius

Our palatial corn appetite thus sated, we climbed back in to our mid-90s degree car and continued west. I would not necessarily even bring up the particularly hot weather, it being a "dry" heat and therefore clearly more tolerable than comparable moist heat, but we were rather surprised to notice the outside temperature plummet down to just below 70 as we entered into Nebraska. As it grew dark we discussed our options for camping, which were rather regrettably few and far between. As raindrops began to idly splat on the windshield, we discussed hotel and motel options. As the rhythmic patter thickened to an uneven splatter, conversation ceased, as we focused on the road, and the safe navigation thereof.

Cresting a hill, we were harshly confronted by brakelights, too close. Jackknifed across the oncoming lane and creeping out into ours was a small trailer, and clustered around it several more vehicles, people passing about in and amongst the cars and trucks, eyes to the sky. We hit our brakes as well, and rubbernecking the throng as we passed it, came to a confused realization that no accident had occurred. The rain had come to a stop, but it was still dark, the sky overhead a mottled bruised color, blue and purple and black. The horizon ahead of us still beckoned a thin line of the pale blue of late afternoon. Coming again to speed, we began to notice gizmo-laden pickups and long white vans zipping past us in the oncoming lanes.

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In twos and fours we passed these storm chasers, stationary on hilltops and speeding through the valleys in the opposite direction, into the heart of the low pressure cell we had already passed through. At first I was amused by it all, imagining the faces of Helen Hunt and Philip Seymour Hoffman peering out of the beat-up pickups, festooned as they were with PVC framework and duct tape and spinners. As we continued to pass these groups, however, time after time and from organization after organization, I started to wonder just what exactly it was that we had driven through. Even as the sky around us grew lighter and lighter, the false night melting back into the reality of day, I looked back over our shoulders, back into the fading inkiness, searching for the funnel clouds aroud which I could only assume these "severe weather researchers" were congregating. I never saw any. I can only assume that we skirted the eastern edge of the storm cell.

With all the rain and wind apparently severe weather in the area, we opted for a hotel rather than a campsite. The winnning city with regards to our presence is Ogallala, which, according to the AAA TourBook, was once known as the "Gomorrah of the Plains." Working on the assumption that it would last another night at least before being smitten, we went to bed.

There is a pleasure in waking up in a bed, in taking a shower, in hot breakfast of flapjack and syrup and peanut butter. Perhaps it is a less authentic camping experience (indeed, there is no question of this) and yet it is at times quite pleasant to partake in it. Though our hotel had nothing more to do with its namesake stagecoaches than the chintzy model out front, it was none the less a nice way to wake, certainly preferable to waking in a soaking tent and needing immediately subsequently to pack it in.

Startling as the fact may be to some, western Nebraska was not our final destination, and we thus embarked on another long day of travel. Audiobooks and the rising tectonic plates kept our attention in the mean time.

Pulling eventually into Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, we scouted out a campsite, set up camp, and ate a quick dinner, so that we could spend some of the remaining daylight on the trail. Not having taken it before, we followed the Chasm View trail out of the campground. I mentioned earlier the problem of describing grandeur -- the problem remains. Perhaps it is the knowledge that, however unreal whatever sight before you seems, it is indeed and in fact real. Perhaps it is the brain reeling to reconcile it understanding of the world around us that is taking our breath away in that instant.

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Arrving back at the campground we realized we had yet more light to savor. Revisiting the North Rim road brought back memories of five years past; the Kneeling Camel and all the other pullouts along the rim drive.

One of the downsides of camping, such as it is, is waking up in the middle of the night. When waking such as this, many variables must be weighed before any action is taken. Foremost is the question: is it worth the hassle of putting on clothes/footwear to venture outside the tent and relieve one's self? If you have to go, you have to go, but much more often, this sensation is more of a faint tingling, the sort of thing that you might well be able to ignore until morning. Ignoring it, though, only pays if you make it until morning; otherwise, you sleep uneasily if at all, and end up having to leave the tent anyway.

Eventually rising, we packed away the site and set off on our planned hike -- that of the North Rim / Exclamation Point.

When planning any long hike, there is much merit in departing early in the day. The sun's touch is soft, not yet harsh and burning. The air has a cool freshness to it yet. There is much shade from even the slightest roll of the land.

The vegetation along the hike is beautiful and stark. Scrubby sage and spiny yucca set up sparse sentry across the ground. Juniper twists and splinters up as far as it is able before it allows its branches to flower. Pinyon pine stands in the spaces between, squat and armored. Delicate yellow flowers peek around the corners of the sage.

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The overlooks on the way out offered views impressive enough, but not to the extent of Exclamation Point. Sharply falling cliff faces, ragged edges and interminably small trees seemed almost to surround us. The river, farther below than the far side of the canyon was distant, offered up its slow, sibilant, steady roar.

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The canyon is beautiful, but we departed it to make our way towards Moab, and thereby Arches.

The road between Cisco and Moab, Utah SR-128, though listed as a scenic byway, started out rather bland. While nothing is truly drab in this part of the country, this portion of the road seemed if anything to be less interesting than the I-70 we had just vacated. Ere long, however, we descended into the canyons cradling the Colorado, and all was markedly beautiful: tall smooth faces streaked with desert varnish, red strata towering against a blue sky, the muddy Colorado churning beside us. The principle irritation, as is painfully frequently the case, were drivers who seem completely ignorant of both how to drive at a reasonable pace and proper mountain driving etiquette -- to wit, if you are going slower than the person immediately behind you, use a pullout to let them pass. Nevertheless, the scenic byway turned out to be just that, and was a good choice.

To be fleshed out: Entering Arches. The crowds. The Embittered Old Man / Old Man Who Volunteers His Time Because Nobody Will Pay Him To Spend Time Anywhere Near Them. Park Avenue arches / the trail between / cathedrals vis-a-vis nature. Scolding offroaders. The Lady Who Would Not Step Out Of The Frame. Blessed Silence / the nicest place in the park. Moab. Moab Brewery / dinner. KOA.

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Though there is some difficulty in drifting to sleep while a campsite is noisily erected next to you, we managed. I would have worked later on the webpage, but a combination of stifling darkness and frustratingly inconsistent wi-fi prompted me to turn in early.

If six o'clock seemed an early waking, it is primarily because my throat hurt like hell. Whether it was dust coursing through the tent, or some hitherto undiscovered allergy, I suspect I hosted a nasal drip for the duration of the night. This is the price of doing business (or taking vacation or what have you) in the desert.

We did not reach the parking lot for our hike up to Delicate Arch until about quarter of eight; we were therefore not surprised to see a handful of cars already scattered vacant across it. The mile and a half hike is by no means unmanageable, but it is sufficiently strenuous to weed out at least some of the auto-bound chaff (or so we thought). Regardless, at this time of morning, it is highly likely that those hikers ahead of us would at least be respectful and mindful of "Arch Etiquette" (namely, Don't Be An Arch Hog, and get out of other people's photos).

Rounding the corner to see the arch was yet again a stunning moment. Rather, I should say semi-stunning, or quasi-stunning; square in the center of my otherwise ideal initial impression was a yammering woman. None the less, the few people scattered around the periphery are nowhere near sufficient to derail or even markedly detract from the experience.

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Early in the morning as we were, there was time and opportunity for me to be selfish, to be an Arch Hog: to take whatever photo, stand wherever, just behave however I wanted, without worrying about besmirching photographs.

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Returning to Lea and the small group of others milling around the far side of the rim, we lazily observed the ascending horde. This is very much a case of the early bird getting the worm; we passed at least twenty times as many people descending the trail as we had ascending it. One of the women sitting with us up top watching the crowds climbing remarked that there were at least a hundred people up around the Arch on Monday, and on Sunday there had been a line stretching all the way around the rim, of people waiting for a brief chance at a "personalized" Arch shot.

Second on our list of must-see sights in Arches was Landscape Arch; thinning as it is due to the forces of erosion, it is a sight which may not be available five years from now. This motivated us to hike out to see it, but a combination of obnoxious crowds and my out-of-shape body grinding and struggling to walk back and forth ended up being what motivated me to hobble back to the car for rest and cooled air.

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Following a luxuriously air conditioned lunch in Moab, we struck out on the road again, this time up to the Island In The Sky section of Canyonlands National Park. Campsites in most national parks are first-come, first-served, so our first point of action was scoping out the campground. We were fortunate enough to not only find a vacant site, but even one with a shade tree providing solar protection for our picnic table, an amenity not shared by many if any of the other eleven sites in the ring. On top of and near the edge of the mesa as it is, it was quite windy. Setting up the tent required staking it out before raising the poles, and even after needing to drive the stakes with the hatchet we were slightly apprehensive about their ability to hold in the gusts. The situation was not so dire as to keep us in the site, however, and we departed to appreciate the numerous vistas around the canyon rim.

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On returning to the campground, we found our picnic table infested by teenage boys. Even as I slowly backed the car into the site's drive, and we stepped out of the car, they just sat there and stared at us with a mixture of boredom and surliness. It was easy to see why they had chosen to play cards at our table, shaded as it was, rather than at their own; it was more difficult to discern why they were not already vacating it, knowing as they clearly must that it belonged to our campsite. Determining that they were not in any process of leaving the table, I politely but firmly requested that they wrap up their hand posthaste. This apparently triggered some modicum of sense in at least one among their miscreant number, and he took the opportunity to display some leadership to his exceptionally slow brethren, reminding them that "yeah, this is their campsite, guys." Coming as it did from one of their own, this utterance seemed to have more effect than mine had, and they finally began to pick up the few cards on the table, and shuffle back to their site, next to ours.

For the short remainder of that afternoon we sat at our shaded table: Lea reading and I writing this. The boys continued to play cards, polluting the aural spectrum with their jostling and their buffoonery. It was not sufficiently bad to warrant a complaint directly to them, but it tainted the afternoon with emotions like frustration and irritation, where otherwise there would have been a peaceful ease.

Our neighbors to the other side made themselves known around this time as well: a young couple with young children. They were not much more conducive to "the nature experience." Frustrated and irritated as I was, I started to merely record those events that best encapsulated the experience. And so, I present the following to you all.

Willow Flat Vignettes

A Texan loudly and distinctly complains of a lack of shade at their picnic table. I smile.

The Young Children amuse themselves by bodily hurling themselves against the side of the family Coleman tent. Pitched as it is abutting but not in the lea of a stand of rocks and trees, the poles collide noisily against these natural obstacles. The Young Mother calls absently out of the open window of the Toyota Tundra in which she and the Father sit for the children to cease. They do not.

A shirtless Texan walks directly through our campsite on his way to the pit toilets, rather than traveling the extra ten feet required to make use of his site's drive and the public road. He brazenly offers us a "what's up" as he passes, ignoring a wind-swept piece of garbage preceding him out of his site.

The Texans argue over the lyrics of "Ms. Jackson" by Outkast. Some are convinced that the word "daughter" does not appear at any point during the song.

The Young Girl jumps rope with pronounced vigor. Her record for consecutive made jumps in somewhere in the neighborhood of three.

The Young Girl mysteriously has a bandage on her knee, where half an hour earlier there was none.

Two of the Texans, overcome by boredom, decide to alleviate it by climbing to the top of a large nearby rock, and throwing small rocks off.

The Texans discuss whether being "a doon" is a good thing or a bad thing. One of the more scholarly among them advises the necessity of "context clues" in determining its meaning in any given conversation. "Doonskie" is apparently always an insult.

The Young Father prepares a fire for his campsite. While he is fetching some supply from the Tundra, the Young Daughter tests her balance by standing adjacent to the fire grate and leaning as far over it as she can. Losing her balance, she falls face first into the unlit

To escape our neighbors, we travel to nearby Green River Overlook. There, a pair of young Russian couples take great delight in striking poses for the camera by aggressively straddling a pair of rocks. One of the young men takes it up a notch by ripping off his shirt and waving it wilding over his head, an action which also accentuates his sickly, doughy pale torso.

One of the Texans comes up with a particularly harsh and throaty pronunciation of the phrase "ice cream." There is an ensuing argument over whether the pronunciation sounds stereotypically Israeli, Russian, or German. It sounds like none of these.

The Young Father tends his campfire absently, staring darkly across our campsite at the braying Texans.

One of the Texans loudly announces to nobody in particular (and thus to the entire campground) that their group is loud and obnoxious because it is from Texas. (QED. --Ed)

The Young Children, now in pajamas, continue to climb trees and roll around in the dirt, far out of the sightlines of the Parents.

The Texans relive the glory moments of prom, only a few weeks prior.

A Texan walks through both the Young Family's campsite and our campsite en route to his own. As he does, he makes eye contact with me, and his expression is one of taunting.

Note that I do not hold animosity towards all Texans; I merely find that the majority of Texans I run into in national parks are rude, careless, and completely uninterested in such concepts as "conservation."

We woke early, but not early enough to thwart the Texans. My alarm was set for 6, but I found myself suddenly awake at 5:53, greeted by shouts and laughs from our neighbors. Making as much noise as they did, I assumed that they were moving on to greener pastures; to my surprise, I saw when getting out of our tent that their tents were still pitched. Suggesting strongly as it does that they were staying another night, I checked their site-post ticket, and found indeed that Willow Flat would be blessed by their presence for another evening. I am glad that we were not, and I hope for their own sake that the Young Family was not either.

Once on the road, we traveled down to The Needles section of Canyonlands National Park, stopping only momentarily in Moab for my nigh-on necessary morning Red Eye / Shot in the Dark. Finding an open campsite here was pleasantly trivial, and with all the sites tucked up against a small butte, there was plenty of shade. Finding the trailhead for the hike we wanted to take, on the other hand, was not so simple. The too-small map seemed to indicate that there would be a trail bridging the two branches of the campground, a trail headed out into the canyons, and corresponding trailheads for each. Though the intra-campground trailhead was readily visible, the other trailhead was nowhere to be seen. At about this time, I managed to sweat some suncreen down into my eye, and we opted to drive back to the visitor center near the park entrance for the dual reasons of a) asking directions, and b) getting access to some running water so I could flush my eye, retain my eyesight, and obviate any necessity to wear a pirate eye-patch. It turns out the "hidden" trailhead is directly across the road from the intra-campground trail; however, where as the short, generally useless trail is clearly marked, with a trailhead sign, the trail that most people actually want to use is indicated by nothing more than a faint dirt path. In the distance, if you look carefully, you can see a "trailhead" sign a way down the trail.

In my mind's eye, I had forseen the trail as a winding thing, weaving around and over narrow, steep-sided canyons, all the while loomed over by tall, Arches-style fins. The trail we took, the Squaw Canyon / Big Spring Canyon loop, is not that -- rather, much of the trail is on open flats, and the surrounding heights when present are winding buttes rather than knifelike fins. The hike is unlike any I had done before, and except for the heat, was fantastic.

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A rest day, much looked forward to. Sleeping in, sleeping during the day, going to sleep early. Drinking good beer. Etc, etc.

Polygamy Porter

After enjoying a nice breakfast of biscuits and gravy (Lea opted for the somewhat less unhealthy chile verde omelet), we continued on to Capitol Reef National Park. After staking out a campsite for both nights of the busy weekend, we stopped in to the visitor center to find a suitable hike for the morning. We settled on Burro Wash, a hike up a wash to a slot canyon.

One of the bummers about a lot of the hikes out here is that you have to hike through two miles of boring stuff to get to a mile (or so) of good stuff. Another bummer is unclearly marked trails -- we followed the wash itself because the little trail that seemed to be heading in our direction would sometimes disappear entirely, and was not indicated by cairns or any other marker. We probably ended up walking an extra mile following the curves and bends of the wash.

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Once in the slot canyon, however, the hike became much more interesting.

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Capping off the hike was a narrows section, which eventually came to a pool deeper than ankle-height (a.k.a. something that would make my feet uncomfortable and stinky) and a rather nasty chock stone impeding further progress. What narrows we could traverse, however, was fun to play around in.

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Lea catches me at my hippest, jammed in between the narrows walls, trying not to get my feet wet.

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Back in the campsite, we watched as our neighbors pulled in and made themselves known. One group made use of subterfuge to essentially reserve three sites for three RVs, two of which did not show up until dinner time. Another group spanned two sites, complete with two popups and two giant pickups to tow them, all of which seemed to belong to one very large family. Said family had about eight kids ranging in age from kindergarten to high school. One particularly tense moment came when the one of the kids, who had been playing baseball in a space clearly not big enough to ensure a lack of property damage, took a line drive to the forehead. He was out of commission for several hours, and we surmise he probably had a concussion. It's interesting -- when the kids started tossing and hitting the ball around, we both gave them the evil eye, and surmised to each other how long it would be until somebody lost a windshield. As soon as somebody is injured, though, we could not help but feel concern. Karma's a bitch, but then, so is wishing for it.

Early to rise is the motto for those who want to hike in the desert. The sun's rays are not so mercilessly direct, and the air has not yet heated up to its later boiling temperatures. Our plan this morning was a little 6 mile hike; up onto the reef via the Cohab Canyon trail, then up to the summit along the Frying Pan trail. With a trail name like Frying Pan, you can imagine that an early start is especially important.

With yet another night out in the dust, I woke up to a worsening in my cough. On the one hand, it's kind of fun and amusing to have a voice half an octave lower and full of gravel and texture, but on the other hand, it's not so great to feel like you're hacking out your throat a square inch at a time once every three or four minutes. I was not about to let a cough stop me from doing the hike, however, and we set out up the Cohab.

About fiften minutes later, I was done. It felt like I couldn't breathe, despite the fact that I was sucking down air like a beached smallmouth. The cough was coming more often and lasting longer, and as nice as it is to rid your throat of a little phlegm, the sensation that accompanies the hard, wet, percussive report is no more pleasant than the noise. Asking Lea if we were halfway up, a look of pity and concern flitted across her face to accompany her simple response of "-ish." I knew then that it was best to turn around and rest in camp. Lea soldiered on and followed the Cohab Canyon trail to its conclusion.

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Giving up sucks. Even if it is the "right choice," and it is more intelligent to turn than to continue, it is difficult to perceive it as anything other than surrender. I feel better about the choice now, but it was a near thing deciding to turn around when I did, and I could well have forced myself to continue. Were I not looking forward to several hikes in Zion in the coming days, I would be more likely to push myself harder, at the risk of growing sicker, and being unable to do much any sort of physical exertion the following days. Also, one of the best things about hiking with Lea is that we can keep check on each other; we encourage each other, but we also know enough to hit the brakes from time to time, for ourselves and for each other.

Since we are weaklings (a.k.a. I was sick) we hit up a motel outside Bryce for the evening. Checking in was great, because the eighty year old couple behind the counter stopped their bickering only long enough to give me pertinent information (and not a second longer).

Waking up to lessened pain may still involve pain, but, put simply, at least there is less of it. Less yet afflicted me once I bombarded the sickness with western medicine. None the less, it is still humbling to reside within such a weakened shell, to not be able to exert yourself to your fullest. Sleeping in helps, so we slept in.

After entering the park, scoping out the visitor shop and lusting over the WPA posters, and watching the twenty minute park-intro video, we evaluated our options for the day. A combination of the relative lateness (nearing midday) and my relative weakness led us to opt for a minimally strenuous day. A bus tour runs out to the farthest point twice a day, and being the environmentally conscious types that we at least try to be, we signed up for a spot on the afternoon edition (rather than driving our own car out all the way). Having time to kill, we figured we'd grab lunch before it started.

Our server in the Bryce Canyon Lodge Restaurant was a quite tall, rather jittery woman with long brown frizzed hair. She flit from table to table with the energy of a hummingbird. When delivering the table our drinks, she placed two diets in front of Lea, explaining that she figured Lea would drink them. Observing her serve the room, we noticed she afforded the same courtesy to all her customers. The kicker came when the woman at the table next to us received her dessert, an orange-chocolate mousse. The waittress, delivering it, proclaimed that she tried some back in the kitchen and did not like it, but she figured the patron might, so she brought it out anyway. "It just doesn't have much of an orange flavor." The woman looked at the waittress incredulously, and, trying the mousse, agreed that she did not much care for it. The waittress happily buzzed away with the dessert, as the woman shared a look of confusion with us.

After killing half an hour waiting for the tour bus by conversing with a retired Nova Scotian couple, we boarded Spike's bus. Spike explains that though his Christian name is not Spike, that is what people have called him for sixty years, and he is too old to learn to answer to another name. Spike is good at the ranger trivia game (did you know that Ponderosa pines can survive after losing two thirds of their branches to fire?), and the drive out to the farthest point, Rainbow, goes quickly enough. It would have gone even quicker if there were not two kids conducting the most inane conversation imaginable in the seats immediately behind us, but so it goes. Spike informs us that the park's unique geology is largely attributable to the fact that it freezes and thaws in Bryce about two hundred times a year. At many of the bus stops (from the second on through the end), many people stay sitting on the hot bus, rather than walking out to see the scenic overview for which we have stopped. I fail to comprehend why they came on the tour in the first place.

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Following a quick dinner in camp, we head over to the General store, where we discover that we can purchase single bottles of beer. Kicking back in the cool shade, we drank our beer and watched people. More on that tomorrow.

As the clock approached nine, we headed over to Lodge to catch the nightly ranger presentation. Sitting outside waiting for it to begin, we are adjacent to a large group of retired folks who are assumably traveling together on a tour. One of the women launches into oratory. "Well, a couple stops ago, remember those metal bookmarks, that they had at the store?" Another woman responds that yes, she does remember, and she purchased three of them. The Orator looks annoyed that an answer was given to her rhetorical question, and decides the best way to proceed is by ignoring the response. "Well, at the store today, at this stop, they had those bookmarks." Her voice lowers as she relates the next (stunning) fact. "Well, at the store today, those bookmarks, they cost two dollars more than they did at that store, three stops ago." She looks around in triumph, surveying the effect of her words. There are general murmers of assenting outrage/disbelief in response. "Well, you can imagine." Again, murmured assent -- her peers could indeed apparently imagine. "Well, I told the lady there, that these same bookmarks cost two dollars more here than at the store three stops ago. Well, she said that other people had told her the same thing!" One of her cohorts asked her why she didn't just buy the bookmarks the first time, if she liked them -- I am not able to ascertain if this is suggested by the same woman who earlier noted that she indeed had done just that. "Well, I thought I could buy them wherever! I would never think that they would cost two dollars more, for the same thing! I don't know how they think they can get away with it." As the retirees/tourees discussed the injustice of the situation, Lea looked at me with a smile, and asked if I would be recording the event on this travelogue.

The ranger presentation itself was on slot canyons, and as is fitting to the general quality and timbre of ranger presentations on this trip, it had its personal quirks. The ranger, a woman in her twenties, was speaking on slot canyons, and her two favorite phrases were "You can see that slot canyons are quite beautiful" and "You can see that slot canyons are quite dangerous." Her powerpoint does indeed contain many pleasant photos of slot canyons, which aids her cause tremendously.

Given that our day had a fair amount of structured free time planned into it, we slept in. More accurately, I slept until the screaming/yelling kids woke me up at 7:30, and Lea incredibly managed to sleep for an additional hour and a half.

Once awoken, we traveled down into the canyon. Unfortunately, the "Wall Street" portion of the famed Navajo loop was closed, so we made do with the Thor's Hammer portion.

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Our way winded up and out through Queen's Garden. Even the short(ish) hike took some out of me, but I was generally able to distract myself from that fact by observing the other people on the trail who had no business hiking that much vertical change.

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After several hours kicked back in folding chairs at the campsite reading, we returned to the General Store to hang out, have a beer or two, and recharge our electronics. Reading books on our devices drains batteries, it turns out, and it also turns out there are outlets and an unsecured wifi network to be had at the store. I could not help typing out the following bits and pieces as I was working on this webpage and playing cribbage with Lea.

At the Bryce Canyon General Store

A Japanese family sits near us. Their conversation is in Japanese, until the 10 year old girl suddenly rebuts a point made by her father with the retort: "I'm a ten year old, not nineteen, dude!" About five minutes later, she wanders down to the sidewalk below the deck on which we all sit, and begins singing: "I don't want to be a chicken! I don't want to be a duck!" When she tires of singing, she hoists herself up the side of the deck, begging for food. Receiving an affirmative response to her question to her parents of "Am I a wild girl?" she laughs and proclaims that her parents will have to pay a $100 fine for feeding her.

A teenage girl, her father, and her grandfather sit down to eat some ice cream treats purchased inside. They laugh at their family members, who are out hiking while they sit and eat ice cream. The teenager sights the family members across the parking lot, and attempts to wolf down her snack. She is, however, foiled, by her older sister, who apparently has the eyes of a hawk, and spotted tell-tale wooden sticks from across the parking lot. Her older sister, in her early twenties, has a toddler of her own trailing her, as well as being visibly pregnant. Lea and I feel old.

A ten year old girl explains to her family the principles of economics, saying that the candy cane which her younger brother is eating is worth a dollar because they would be willing to pay a dollar for it, despite the fact that it only cost twenty-five cents to purchase it inside. She ups the ante by explaining next that purchasing her a similar candy cane would be worth even more than a dollar, because it would prevent them from having to listen to her complain about not having one for the rest of the evening. She assures them, in a quick-paced voice, that although she has already had a lot of sugar today, she will not be worse for the wear by consuming more.

A bottle opener is tied to the wall by a length of string, so that non-twistoffs purchased inside may be readily consumed out on the deck. The bottle opener also happens to hang about a foot and a half from Lea's head. A man with his arms full approaches the opener, bumps against Lea, spills several of his items, and still does not manage to open the bottle. Apologizing in a strange, wheezing voice which is clearly not speaking English, he places the remainder of his armloads on our table, and takes the requisite five or six attempts to pry loose the bottlecap.

A man with a heavy accent sits at a table near us and stares rather awkwardly at us. I avoid eye contact. Finally, he initiates conversation with us, asking where we are from. Assuming he is from another country, we launch into our "We're from Wisconsin but we understand if you don't know where that is" routine, but he surprises us by replying that he is from New Jersey. He asks if we will look up the extended forecast for Grand Canyon for him, and we oblige, only to reveal that there is a non-insignificant chance of thunderstorms towards the end of the week. We converse further, and upon learning that we work in the field of health software, he proclaims "I am Polish, I come to America thirty years ago, I am the original outsourcing before India." Eventually his wife comes out of the store onto the deck and scolds him for bothering us, and explains that he just misses his three computers at home that he usually sits near.

A few men begin discussing Utah microbreweries. My ears, understandably, perk up. The apricot hefeweizen they are sampling is apparently both "too sour" and "too froo-froo," which leaves me happy that I've stuck with a pleasantly un-froo-froo stout (Squatter's "Captain Bastard's Oatmeal Stout"). We strike up a conversation, and one of them recommends to his friends that they google the student section at the University of Wisconsin participating in the song "Jump Around." Lovely to see what facets of our home state's culture are nationally known. It's still better than "Fargo," I guess.

"To google" is undeniably a verb cemented firmly in the vernacular; "to youtube" cannot be far behind.

Not setting an alarm, we somehow managed to sleep in to a thoroughly startling 9:30. This is doubly surprising considering the continued presence of the young/prone-to-screaming children in the campsite across from us. The group to which these kids belonged is but one of the many we ran into in various Utah campgrounds which we eagerly/spuriously/speciously suppose to be polygamist families. This particular group was composed of eight to ten youngish children, and two olderish women. About half of the children strongly resembled one woman, and yet we heard them refer to the other woman as "Mom."

Following a quick jaunt to the bookstore to purchase a few of the WPA national park poster recreations I lust over, we departed Bryce.

On account of the daily closure of the mile-long tunnel on the eastern road into Zion, we took the northerly route, and stopped by Cedar Breaks National Monument on our way. There's not a lot to do at Cedar Breaks, but what is there (a canyon similar to Bryce in formation, but less dense with hoodoos and significantly larger) is a nice view.

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There was still snow on the ground there, which I with my highly seasonal Weltanschau cannot help but find amusing, especially with us about to descend into hundred degree plus weather. Apparently the park only just opened a few days ago.

Entering Zion, our first priority as per usual was to nail down a campsite. Being well after noon by this point, and the pickings were thin. There is not much privacy/separation between the various campsites, so we just tried to pick a site which we figured would have some modicum of shade. The exterior temperature thermometer on the car already read 93°.

Bad news number one is the fact that the Narrows is closed currently, due to high water flow. Angels Landing shall have to be our consolation prize, and I will have to return to Utah at some later date to hike Zion's slot canyon. So it goes.

Much of Zion is closed to private vehicles, so we hopped onto the shuttle system. Though the cliffs are not quite as towering and immediate as at Capitol Reef, they are still towering and ... immediate. The White Throne, especially, sitting across from tomorrow's hiking venue cuts an impressive face. Weeping Rock, with its scattered dashed rivulets of water, offered both good views and a pleasant coolness during the day's heat.

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Once the sun dipped below the peaks of the encompassing ridges, we figured it would be okay to spend time in camp, sweltering though it might be. After a game of cribbage and some time reading, we were about to turn in when a pair of German girls in a little RV pulled up next to the site and asked if we would mind terribly if they shared the site for us. We didn't, conditionally on them not running a generator during the night, and they ended up being good site-neighbors -- not only totally silent, but also blocking out some light from some nearby bad neighbors who left on some high wattage monstrosity all night.

Today was the day for the big hike. After finding out yesterday that the Narrows were closed, that left just Angels Landing. These were the two hikes for which I was "saving myself," i.e. trying to shake my cough and cold with shorter day hikes and the like. With the Narrows out of the picture, it made this hike somewhat of a summit or bust.

We figured we would give ourselves the best chance of making it up to the top by starting early -- and by early, I mean pre-dawn. We momentarily debated waking early enough to be on top by the time the sun crested the surrounding valley, but decided that waking up at 5 was good enough. Since we had decided the day before to get a room at the Lodge for the night of the 9th, we had a pass that allowed us to drive further up into the park, and to get a little bit of a jump on anybody else coming up on the bus (the first bus starts running from the visitor center at 5:45). Though we did not actually end up getting much of "an advantage" over those bussing in, we were still on the trail at the Lodge by 5:30.

When we rose at 5, it was still dark enough to see most of the stars. Official sunrise is not until about 6:12, but with the valley the way it is it would end up being closer to 8 by the time we actually saw the sun itself. The slow-brightening skies made for a nice hiking atmosphere, though. Not the least of the amenities of this atmosphere is the temperature -- beautifully cool, probably in the mid sixties fahrenheit, as opposed to the predicted high of just over a hundred degrees to follow later in the day.

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Our only companions for some time were a couple pairs of mule deer, who lazily walked a short distance off the trail as we approached, and gazed at us with general disinterest as we passed.

It does not take long for the trail to start climbing, and it does not take long for that climbing to take the form of switchbacks. There are a lot of switchbacks on this trail. It is probably about half switchbacked. Switchback, switchback, switch...back, switttcchhhback, switch. back. Etc.

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After much switchbacking, there is a switchbackless section for a bit. About this time a group of eight Japanese hikers overtook us. They were setting a good pace, so we fell in behind them for the duration of "Walter's Wiggles," the uppermost section of switchbacks prior to Scout's Lookout (and also the second picture directly above). The view from Scout's Lookout is great, and we made fantastic time getting up there. We were passed only by two single hikers on our way up (excepting the Japanese group), so we still had a reasonably clean trail ahead of us.

From Scout's Lookout on up to the eventual summit, the trail grows much more treacherous. Even with the foot and handholds pickaxed and trodden into the slickrock, and the numerous lengths of chain to act as both security and climbing aid, the trail forward is slow going. At several points during the hike, there is a thousand foot drop to one side, and a multi-thousand foot drop to the other. There are places where a bad stumble, unplanned for and uninsured by a firm grip on a chain, could lead to death. The admonition given by rangers and signs alike that those afraid of heights should not hike past Scout's Lookout is well founded. As such, despite our speed in reaching the Lookout, Lea opted to remain there.

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At one point between the Lookout and the summit, I decided to try and pass the Japanese group. A pair of the men were lagging a ways behind, taking pictures and the like, and I figured I should just move past them all while they rested just to the side of the trail. About five minutes later, sucking air, I decided let the group pass back in front of me. It turns out that they were still setting a good pace, and despite our relative ages (I don't believe any of them were under 50, with many of them probably over 60), I was no more able to move up the mountainside than them. I couldn't help thinking that it would be easier to move up the trail without the extra twenty to thirty pounds of body weight I was carrying in addition to my pack with its water and food, and it has remotivated me to eat more healthily following this vacation.

The view from the top is more impressive without me in the frame to sully it, but for fear that many would doubt my ability to reach it, I present the obligatory explorer/conquerer-of-the-natural shot regardless, courtesy of the Japanese hikers with whom I shared the summit.

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The view from the top is fantastic, to be sure, but as with most hikes, it is sweetened by the effort necessary to reach it. A "better view" may be had from the canyon rim at Bryce for an infinitesimal fraction of expenditure of effort, but at the moment that you stagger to that superlative point, the highest most or furthest or what have you, any view but a dismal one will command your respect, your awe, your relief. Maybe a lack of oxygen to the brain somehow artificially saturates colors and sharpens air and cools water. Perhaps the toil and resultant physiological turmoil evokes some lurking inner poet. Whatever it is, there is for some indeterminant span of time that feeling of transcendence. Such as this cannot be stilled into a photograph, nor boxed in a video, nor even really fully remembered, try as we might. We carry these relics of the experience with us that we may use them to find a way back to its remnant within us, and that we may prostelytize to others so that they go out and create their own.

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When the soul has had its fill, one can return. Though I shared the summit with the Japanese hiking club and their guide, they were gracious in their presence, as I hope I was as well, and my time up there was sublime. When the guide sighted nearing the summit another "busload," as he referred to them (actually another group of eight hikers which he had seen below him on the lower switchbacks), I decided it was time to descend. Getting back down to Scout's Lookout requires just as much concentration to avoid lethally errant footfalls, but I could not help appreciating our early departure, as I passed group after group moving in the opposite direction. Similarly to our prior experience at Delicate Arch, though I only met two people coming down that last stretch of trail as I ascended it I met well over fifty coming up as I descended. After much waiting around in places where the trail is not wide enough for simultaneous bidirectional traversal, I was back down at Scout's Lookout, to relate the experience to Lea, and for us to begin the rest of the hike down off the mountain.

Such an experience seems a fitting capstone for my twenties. While I do not normally put much stock in such arbitrary divisions, I am not above referencing them when it is convenient.

Our hike over, we now began to yearn in earnest for a shower. Having been several days since the last, we were both disgusted by our selves, so we checked to see if a room was yet ready for us (it was not, which was unsurprising, given that it was only ten in the morning). We killed time, ordering coffee (a red eye tastes oh so good after a prolonged absence) and sitting around in the air conditioned lobby. We eventually hit up nearby Springdale for lunch, and I consumed a "Murder Burger" at Oscar's, as well as a liter of Polygamy Porter. Yes, a liter. It was delicious (even if porter probably wasn't the right choice given the quantity).

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Returning to the Lodge, our room was available, and thus a shower for cleansing and a bed for napping and electricity and wifi for self-aggrandizing webposting. Life is lovely.

Hiked: 5.5 miles

Zion