Catching up...

Ok,it's been a while, but I'd still like to tell you all a few more road trip stories. After hanging out with some of our incredible HKS friends in Moab, Jaime and I took off on our own Southwest adventure. We thought we had seen some rural areas in Kansas and Colorado, but nothing compared to the emptiness we saw in Utah, northern Arizona and Nevada. Long stretches of land without people, but marked by deep canyons, crazy rock formations, and the occasional sprawling military base.

The communities that live on the Colorado Plateau are pretty interesting. Jaime and I really enjoyed driving through the Navajo Nation, and were totally fascinated by our brief glimpse into the world of fundamentalist Mormons. I wish we had taken a photo of a small FLDS church we saw in southern Utah. The church building, which couldn't have supported a congregation larger than 40 or 50 people, was completely locked down. Gates, padlocks, the whole bit. We left town pretty quickly.

In other news, I am proud to report that Jaime and I managed to visit three national parks, complete a couple of beautiful hikes, and stay out all night on the Las Vegas Strip within 48 hours. Here's how you do it.

Step 1: Wake up at the Grand Canyon. Ooh and aah for a bit before heading the road. Gawk at the tourists, if you'd like.

Step 2: Drive north into Utah in time for a sunset hike at Bryce.

 Step 3: Drive to Zion after dark to camp. Wake up early to hike Angel's Landing. It's preferable to do this before coffee so you don't think too hard about how high how up you are, how certain death might be if you fall, etc. 

Step 4: Drive to Vegas. Stay up all night and watch the sun rise. Take a blurry photo. Fall asleep happy (and in a real bed).

We made it!!

Unfortunately Laine and I are still a little backed up on blog posts, but we've finished up what turned out to be an epic road trip and are now back in Seattle!

In the end we ended up driving just under 6000 miles between the two of us, or roughly the distance from Boston to Seattle and back.  Over the last 21 days we've visited 14 states, 6 National Parks, a handful of diners in the middle of nowhere and at least five toy stores (the best two of which were in Chicago).

Now I'm off on the next phase of my trip, a month of backpacking through Southeast Asia before heading to London for the 2012 Olympics.  I've added Laine as an administrator so she can jump in and do more posts from the road trip in the meantime.

Until then, thanks for reading and we'll post more updates soon!

-Jaime

UTAAAHHH

After a week straight on the road we finally got a chance to rest, recuperate and relax in Southern Utah with a bunch of our HKS friends.  Thanks to David Dodge, we all got to hang out at David's family house outside of Moab and we spent about five days hiking around Arches National Park, driving ATVs, rafting on the Colorado river and mountain biking around Dead Horse Valley (featured in the final scene of Thelma and Louise, in case you were wondering).  

There was way too much activity to recount here, but the week was a total blast and it was hard to say goodbye to everyone at the end.  Here are some pics, there are tons more where they came from. 

Mountains, Canyons and Mesas...

So we only got to spend one night in RMNP, Colorado, and Laine came down with altitude sickness so pretty much had to just lay low in the tent, but the views were spectacular and the drive down from the Rockies into Southern Utah was absolutely gorgeous as we followed the Colorado River.  Here are some pics from the drive!

Ah, Abilene...

We went.  It was just kinda eh.

Kansas = ____________

Here's Laine and Alex getting ready to eat tons of ribs

After staying in Kansas City for a night with Laine's friend Alex we got back on the road for our longest drive of the trip, a 695-mile haul across Kansas and Colorado, ending in Rocky Mountain National Park outside of Boulder, CO.

The drive itself was pretty much what we expected, very flat and pretty boring.  Highlights included lunch at a cute diner in Hays, Kansas, being close to the geographic center of the USA, and seeing a bunch of tumbleweeds towards the end of the drive, when we were both getting pretty delirious.

Kansas, pretty much what you would expect

None of that really compared to seeing actual mountains once we finally crossed over into Colorado.  Such a nice change!

The Rockies!  Finally!

From Ashes to Immortality… And the Cutest Dog on Earth

[Note: By now we're actually on the last phase of our trip in Sun Valley, Idaho, but since we're so backed up on blog posts we're going to do a quick recap of our trip to date first.  Enjoy!] 

So before landing in Kansas City we decided to take a quick detour and spend the afternoon in Lawrence, Kansas, after hearing about it from two of our Kansas-an (Kansai?) friends.  

It turns out that Lawrence is awesome!  It has a surprisingly bloody history, having been sacked by pro-slavery settlers in 1846, setting off what would be known as “Bleeding Kansas” which would lead to the Civil War.  It’s the reason their motto is From Ashes To Immortality. 

Anyway, Laine and I stopped there on our way to Kansas City (we had to backtrack a bit), stopped in at a cute antique store (where Laine had to restrain herself from buying several tiny cast-iron skillets, and had mediocre sushi for lunch. 

Then we ran into Waffles, the cutest dog on earth.  Here are two pictures.  They don’t do Waffles justice.

Not much else happened, though I did find a cool Zelda storefront.