Tuesday March, 11
This
morning I woke up too late for the breakfast at the hotel. But they still had coffee
and oatmeal sitting out. So I grabbed a few packets and cooked it up in the
parking lot. Today is my dad’s birthday so I called him to see how his day is
going. From Bishop I drove north along the east side of the beautiful Sierra Mountains
to a town called Gardnerville. When I stopped to get some gas another kid my
age asked me about my snow board. We started talking and he was telling me
about the snow conditions in the mountains. My plan was to go to Heavenly Mountain,
but there’s no snow there. He was suggesting going to Kirkwood. I didn’t have
enough time to get any snowboarding in today, so I decided to stay in town and
watch my computer for most of the night.
Wednesday March, 12
Of
course I hit a hotel for breakfast, and then it was off to the mountain. This
part of country didn’t get much snow this year. So it was really icy for the
morning but slowly warmed up. It would have been nice to experience this
mountain with fresh snow, but it was still a good time. At about noon I stopped
for a bloody merry, then more boarding until 2. From here I drove 8 hours east
to Baker, NV. This is the town just outside Great Basin National Park. I made
some food then off to bed.
Thursday March, 13
First
thing in the morning I drove into the national park. Most of the park is still
closed off for winter, but there was a cave tour going on. I signed up and
waited around the visitor center. The cave was incredible. I really wasn’t
expecting much, but I was very surprised. The tour guide knew a ton about the
cave and surrounding park. The cave itself had some great formations. There are
some called “shields” they are large disk shaped growing stone. The crazy thing
is that no one knows how they are formed. The cave used to be used for all
sorts of things. They held fancy balls and weddings, with everyone having to
belly crawl at one point or another. It was sad to see the amount of destruction
that went on. It used to cost one dollar to get in, and you could take anything
you could carry. So people would bring sledge hammers in and clear down paths of
stalagmites throughout the cave. After the tour I drove around the parts of the
park that were open, and then drove to Salt Lake City, UT. I had to start
organizing my car to be able to fit 2 people. My little brother, Elliot is
flying out tomorrow. So I did all my laundry and put everything away. From
there I found a nice hot tub to soak in. while I was in there a mom and her 3
kids came in. we started talking and she is actually the daughter in law of the
woman who owns the hotel. Glad I didn’t share too much info right away. After
that I grabbed some food and called it a night.
Friday March, 14
I was
up early and grabbed breakfast. There was some sort of convention going on and
lots of kids were up. I think it was sort of like a battle bots thing. It was
about an hour drive away from Park City. My Epic Pass was good at Canyon Mountain,
so I parked in the free lot nearby. Then rode the gondola up to the village.
Turns out I was an hour early, so I sat around and waited. Again not a lot of
snow over here, icy windy and very cold all day. The sun was out but this
didn’t seem to help out too much. The snow was crusty on top with some softer
snow underneath. This was my last day snowboarding for the year and I knew I had
to go back to work soon. So I stuck to the groomers and didn’t try anything to
crazy. I grabbed a beer at the bottom and did some more boarding. Around 2 I
called it quits and drove back into Salt Lake City. For lunch I stopped at an Irish
pub for a Rubin and a Guinness. My little brother Elliot is flying out today
and he text me saying he would be in early. I picked him up and we starting
driving. I wanted to get as far as we could while the sun was still up. I was
really excited that Elliot flew out and I could show him a few of my favorite
places in Utah. The four and a half hour drive seemed to fly by with us
catching up and joking around. The schedule for the next few days was pretty
tight. So we drove all the way to Mesa Arch in Canyonlands that night. And
after rearranging the entire car, we went to sleep.
Saturday March, 15
We were
up before the sun rise and shoved everything back in the car. Turns out it was
a cloudy morning. Still a lot of people here, waiting for what? I’m still not
sure. We took off right away and drove into Moab. I couldn’t believe the
difference in the town. When I’m usually here in winter the place is a ghost
town. Now every place was open and every hotel filled. People walking around
everywhere and venders outside. Elliot and I went to my usually breakfast spot,
Best Western. Each grabbed a plate of food and ate outside. Then filled a plate
to go, for lunch. For the entire trip there has been a whistling coming from my
roof rack. I would just ignore it or turn up the radio, but now with another
person in the car we decided to try to stop it. A glove and some duct tape took
care of that. When we started the drive south to Needles, I got a video message
from my older brother Adam. He and his friends were shot gunning beers on a
beach in Florida. Elliot and I figured we could out do that so we picked up
some beers for the hike. We stopped at
the visitor center and looked around awhile but I already knew where we were
hiking. We picked a 10 mile loop that went through Big Spring Canyon into Squaw
Canyon and comes out at Lost Canyon. It was a nice hike winding up through and
around the mid level of the canyons. We found a few funny spots to stop and
shot gun our beers to send the video to Adam. We hiked a few off shoots and
ended up making it back to the car around 3 pm. Then drove back to Moab and
hopped in the hot tub. After about an hour we headed to McDonalds to use the internet.
This just so happened to be right next to the Moab Brewery. We walked over for
dinner and a beer. After talking with the bartender about the bars in the area,
she suggested Woody’s. Elliot and I rearranged the car before having a cold one
at the bar. Both of us were pretty tired and knew tomorrow was going to be more
of the same. So we soon crashed back in the car.
Sunday March, 16
This
morning we grabbed breakfast and lunch then drove right to Mesa Arch. It was a
beautiful clear morning and about 25 people were here for the sunrise. There
was an older guy who had a super old school camera. He also had a nice new one,
but he would make the joke “every camera is exactly the same, just a box with a
hole in It.” once the sun started to come up everyone was taking tons of
pictures and moving all around the arch. The peak time is about 15 minutes
after the first time you can see the sun. This is when the sun light reflects
off the back side of the wall up onto the underside of the arch. After seeing
this Elliot and I drove around the Island in the Sky and walked around the
overlooks. There is a main overlook at the end, from where you can see the
Needles and parts of the Maze. Next we left Canyonlands and drove to Arches
National Park. Stopping at the visitor center and looking around at how the
park was formed. From here we drove through the park and decided to do the main
hike out to Double O Arch. This hike takes you to about 8 arches. It is still surprising
to see the park when it’s full of people. The hike was a lot of fun, but what
really made it interesting was when we went off trail. We climbed around a bit
and hiked above the back side of Landscape Arch. From here we could pretty much
see the entire park. We could also see a clear line where the rock formations
just stop. Lots of fun. Next we drove over to Delicate Arch. Here we were just going
to just hike to the over look but ended up hiking all the way up to the arch.
This was well worth it. The arch sits on the edge of this huge shallow bowl.
Lots of people up here just hanging out. We were actual in a bit of a hurry so
we made the hike back to the car. Today is Sunday and I have to be at work at
7:15 am Tuesday, and I’m in Moab UT about 1400 miles away. So it’s time to hit
the road. We took the 128 to 70 east. I had to stop in Grand Junction to drop
off a flash light at Dave’s house. We talked for about 20 minutes about what’s
been going on. Turns out Dave is coming to Milwaukee in May. Then back on the
road. We drove all the way to Boulder back to Taylor and Eric’s apartment. I
got Elliot situated then Taylor was going to visit Kelly and needed a ride. So
we drove over and hung out for about an hour. I dropped Taylor back off at his
place and said bye to Elliot. Now, last but not least, I drove back to Matt P
house in Denver. I borrowed his goggles and needed to get it back to him. Adam
was also coming in to Denver this weekend and wanted to borrow my Epic Pass. So
I left that with Matt P too. It was about 1am now but I wanted to drive out of
the city area to avoid any traffic in the morning. So I went until 4am and
pulled over at a gas station parking lot. It was pretty cool to see everyone
like that on the way home.
Monday March, 17
This is
always a crappy day of my road trips. The entire day is straight driving. When
I was getting closer to Milwaukee I realized I made better time then I though, it
was about 9:30pm and I was still an hour away. But I really felt like having a cold
beer. I called up my cousin Zac, who was just getting off work. I meet him at a
bar in Brookfield called Saloon on Calhoun. It was great to see him to hear
about what been going on back here. I decided to play it safe and stay at my parent’s
house just up the road.
Tuesday March, 18
When I
woke up I got to talk to my mom and dad just a little bit but it was great to
see them. I went to work and got to tell my boss and co worker all about this
amazing trip. Too bad they hate everything about hiking and camping. So they
think I’m crazy and I think they’re delicate little butterflies, still good to
see them. From there it was off to my condo, and to put an end to this year’s
trip.
That’s
a wrap for this year; it was just over 12,000 miles. The fun lasted 81 days
with 33 nights in the car. I was able to see and do so many different things
and have some truly amazing experiences. I am always thankful to everyone I get
the chance to spend time with along the way. Until next year, thanks for
reading
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