FMC 3.0

So there were some things I left out of the gallery because they’d have made no sense to anyone outside of context. There may be more I didn’t think of, but hopefully they’ll make a little sense if you read the post about the weekend.

First off, blue. I mean real blue, bright blue, the kind of blue you don’t see on the east coast:

You just can’t see a sky like that here.

Next up, the only picture taken of me on my camera (I’m not sure if Christina got me in any on hers, I don’t think so though) It’s pretty run of the mill:

Now, that’s a pretty run of the mill picture. Nice little opening in the rock, cool contrast in distance and all. The real interesting bit of that picture, is the next one:

That was taken for what was at my backside - quite a drop. Was worth the risk.

Last up, the story of the Moth. So as we were coming down a trail at Zion, we noticed a moth walking across the ground towards the path. It was a well traveled path, and Christina didn’t want to get squashed by a tourist that wasn’t paying attention. So she stuck out her foot, and tried to block it from the path and have it turn around. Instead, it latched itself onto her shoe, and tried to make itself comfy:

So gentle prodding and other things didn’t get the thing off, and so it was time for a plan b - a stick:

Even that wasn’t working too well, as the moth really liked her shoe:

But at last, with patience and perseverance, the moth let go, and attached to the stick, which we put safely off the path:

It took a good 5-8 minutes to get the thing to detach from her shoe. At one point, someone going by noticing the attention being paid to her foot asked Christina “You didn’t get injured did you?” I was laughing most of the time, making sure it was well documented, though I’m not sure Christina enjoyed it that much.

I think that covers most of the oddities in the pictures I took. As always, feel free to browse through the pictures in the Gallery, but there are a lot of them. If any leave you scratching your head, let me know.

So I finally sanitized my pictures from last weekend (removed the blurry ones, took out the ones my traveling companion wouldn’t want on the Internet, etc.) and have them up in the Gallery. I’ve rearranged things a bit in there, so hopefully it won’t get too disorganized. Basically, go to the Vacation section, and look at California, Nevada, Arizona, and Utah. California now has all the pics from January in it, and some from this past weekend (I wasn’t in the state long, for sure) and the others are from the states as we passed through them. I hope that removing the chronological stuff won’t make things too confusing, but state seemed a logical breakdown. The bulk of the pictures from last weekend are in Utah, from Zion and Bryce canyon national parks.

So here’s the brief rundown of the weekend:

Flew from Philly to Phoenix, where I had a layover extended because it was raining. It was at that point I started to wonder if I had a superpower, and that power was making it precipitate in the desert. From there it was onto LAX, where there were further delays, and onto my host’s apartment.

Bright and early (though the days would get earlier) out to door and headed to Zion. Drove most of the way on I-15 - stopped in at the Mad Greek for Lunch in Baker, and continued through Nevada (and Vegas) through a tiny part of Arizona, into Utah, to Springvale. That’s the little town outside Zion. Had dinner and Bumbleberry pie at the restaurant next to the motel.

Predawn - awoke to find that there was a giant mountain on the other side of the road from the motel we’d completely missed in the dark. Tried to get pictures of the moon and Venus (there is one in the gallery from later, but the early shots were all cleared out.) Then into Zion National Park. Quite possibly the most with it national park I’ve ever been in, running a shuttle service through the park instead of letting thousands of cars through. Lots of pictures from there. Some hiking, including up some really steep switchbacks, but they always proved to be worth it. Got the best picture of Christina ever taken up there, but she’ll never let me post it on the Internet. Saw my first slot canyon, and some beautiful vistas. Even ended up learning some things. We spend the majority of daylight in the park, then hoped back into the car for the trip to Panguitch. Got to Foster’s Motel and Steakhouse, where they seemed to be completely overwhelmed with people. Mostly European tourists, from the sounds of the languages coming through the room. Got checked in, had dinner, went to the room (which turned out to be pretty lousy, and couldn’t complain, cause the office closed just as we got to our room. But we made do, and persevered.) Went outside at one point to look at the sky - quite possibly the most impressive Star field I’ve ever seen, or at least since Philmont 10 years ago. Zero light pollution.

Predawn the next day we headed into Bryce Canyon, where the temperature outside was 24 degrees. There’s a picture of the car covered in frost in the Gallery. Got pictures of Sunrise, and all the beautiful things there. It’s more of a drive through park, which was fine with us after the previous day’s hiking, bad beds, and cold showers. Found I started having altitude problems around 9000 feet or so, which I thought would have been higher (The only place I can recall having problems at altitude before this was Pike’s Peak.) but it wasn’t too bad. I also found that my acrophobia seemed to be gone, or at least off for the weekend. Anyway, lots of pictures of beautiful things, bigger vistas, and so on. Then it was back to LA. It was a longer drive than the one out, but saw some more pretty things on the way, and actually came down the Strip in Vegas. I drove part of the way back, mostly through the Virgin River Gorge in AZ, which is one of the most fun stretches of road I’ve ever driven. Then, back in LA, mostly just crashed.

Then it was up before dawn, to the air port to wait, and flew home. Had a layover in Chicago at midway I had to rush from the end of one concourse to another for, because the plane in from LA was late. In fact, the only plane I had last weekend on Time was my one into Philly, and it was early. Stayed in Newark that night, to cut down on my driving, and then it was to work the next day, and back to the real world.

All in all, it was a beautiful trip. Highly recommend those national parks to anyone, if nothing else than to see it with your own eyes and not through my mediocre photographs. The weekend even lent itself to some interesting philosophical debates, and even the career moves of some politicians (about Ron Paul, Christina said “Wait, I thought that guy was a crossdresser.”) It also served as a pretty good test run for the road trip in December. That should prove to be an interesting trip.

So yeah, I still hate commercial air travel. I just love the feeling of being a head of cattle. That, and apparently with all of our amazing modern technology, air travel can still be slowed down by a little rain. Granted, it was Phoenix, so I guess they’re just not used to the weather. I did get some pictures of the most interesting rain cloud I’ve seen in a while though, so watch the gallery.

Actually, that’s pretty good advice in general. I’ve been quite the shutterbug with my new toy. That, and the drive through California, into Nevada, a bit through Arizona, and into Utah makes for a really beautiful drive. Even passed right by Vegas, though didn’t stop to take a look around. I’ve got a lot of pictures of deserts, mountains (some of it will look familiar to what I took in Joshua Tree in January), and local color. Lots of nice shots, but I’m gonna wait till I’m on a really fast connection before uploading those. So you’re just gonna have to wait.

Only downside to today was the lack of dinosaur tracks. A slight navigational error on my part, as well as some slow downs due to traffic and construction got us to the place a bit after they closed.

Anyway, tomorrow is Zion national park, which I know little about but should be beautiful considering everything I’ve seen so far. I think Utah’s gonna go down as a nice place to visit…

So I mentioned December, but not this weekend. It’s kind of a dry run. To LA this weekend. Then, once again into the car to Utah. Yup, Utah. It’s going to be a weekend of slot canyons and dinosaur tracks. I didn’t plan it, i’m just along for the ride. There may be a quick stop in Vegas too, just to say i’ve seen it. Should be an interesting weekend. Luckily, I got myself a new camera, so I’ll be able to get lots of pictures to put into the Gallery. I’m also ignoring the reports of snow in Utah this weekend. There’s no way I can travel to a desert for a second time and hit snow. It just won’t happen.