Day 7

Well... the storm wasn't all that bad after all. We only really got a total of two inches at most but it snowed pretty much all night and up until we left the park. This morning we got up, and after enjoying the luxury of being able to walk down the street to get a cup of coffee at the general store, we went back over to the rim to check out the canyon again. On the half a mile walk over we noticed that it was getting more and more foggy and when we reached the canyon we looked out to behold (once again!) the magnificent view... only to see white. The only thing that was visible was the canyon wall dropping down into nothingness below us. Undeterred, we decided to go ahead with our plan of continuing yesterday's walk down the rim trail and took the opportunity to go into a bunch of the shops, observatory points, galleries, and the Bright Angel Lodge. We reached the end of the main drag and continued a little ways down the unpaved path that doesn't have rails to block the view and is far less visited. We found a place to sit and were rewarded with a break in the fog which allowed us to get an elusive glimpse into the canyon. We sat until the fog rolled back in again and decided that we'd hit the road again instead of spending more time walking the rim when we'd probably just gotten the best view we'd see.



We headed out with plans for an extremely easy afternoon of driving an estimated 1.5 hours to spend the night in Flagstaff. Arriving there (after driving through another snowstorm and near whiteout conditions) we decided to just get the drive to the Petrified Forest out of the way today so we'd have more time to explore tomorrow. We enjoyed the views a lot along the drive. There were scattered rain and snow showers hovering above the desert while at the same time you could look out and see the sun shining out in patches. The landscape was so flat and the view so unobstructed that we could see for miles and miles and miles (and miles and miles). Along the way we stopped (or maybe attempted to stop) at a couple of roadside attractions/trading posts, but being that it's Sunday most were closed (and really creepy when deserted...) We DID find an awesome place here in the tiny city of Holbrook, Jim Gray's Petrified Wood Co., where we got our first glimpse of the trees that time has turned to stone. Now we're settling into our hotel room for the night anxiously looking forward to what tomorrow will bring, so stay tuned!

Day 6

Neither Mike nor I realized there might be snow at the Grand Canyon. In fact, we didn't really even know that it snowed in Arizona at all. So on the drive over this morning, from our night's stay in Williams over to the park, we were amazed when the little patches of snow we'd been seeing turned into one big blanket.
As we write this it is lightly snowing with an estimated accumulation of 3-5 inches overnight. In the morning another wave of the storm is supposed to dump another inch or two on top. This being the first snow we've seen this year we're enjoying ourselves, hunkered down in our tent, at the only campground open here. There's a handful of other people camping here we must be as crazy as us, so that's reassuring, and we also have the advantage of having our truck which contains anything we could possibly need.
We're excited to have our first snow-camping experience together and also for the opportunity to test out our cold weather gear that we will be using next month on the trail. So far so good!
Anyway, we got to spend a couple of hours walking around here today and the scale of the canyon is almost incomprehensible.
We are on the South rim and from where we were today the distance to the other side was 8.5 miles. 8.5 miles!!! At it's widest it's something like 18 miles across. It is almost too big for it to even feel like it's real, more like a big fantastic backdrop that gets lowered each morning when the visitors arrive. We're lucky to be able to see the canyon in an unconventional way- during winter. Now back at our tent, snow is falling, and we're looking forward to a possible crazy night of snow and maybe more tomorrow....

Updates + Photos

Hey everyone! We're finishing up at our hotel room (with wi-fi!) here in Williams before taking off for the Grand Canyon. As you've noticed, we have changed the format of the blog so it is easier to read and doesn't hurt the eyeballs as much. We've also added some pictures to our posts and did a long updated entry for our 3rd day. Tonight we plan on getting Day 4 on there as well as today's post. So check past posts for new pics and entries and we'll be updating soon!

Day 5

This morning we peeked out of our tent to be greeted with the full grandeur of the Mojave. We managed to make it through the night without freezing our butts off thanks to our extra down blanket we had stashed in the truck. Waking up wasn't a chore at all and we set about making an awesome breakfast of coffee, bacon, and eggs (car camping rocks!). While Mike was tending the frying of the bacon, Laura wandered around and took photos of all the different types of cactus while gathering together all the trash (not too much, just your standard beer cans and bottles, cig butts, etc) to be disposed of at the next rest stop. Mike and I believe strongly in the principles of Leave No Trace (link: http://www.outdoors.org/education/lnt/lnt-principles.cfm) so we always try to pick up what trash we can at the places we stay so it'll be as nice as possible for the next people.
Anyway, I digress. While I was walking around picking things up I happened across one lizard under a rock and a tiny scorpion(!) under a can. Mike and I then spent a good while after breakfast looking for critters under rocks but had no further luck. Mike'll just have to believe me that there really were scorpions.


After packing up we made our way past the incredible Mojave sand dunes (which were formed from wind blowing the sand from a nearby dry lake) to the Kelso Depot Visitor's Center which serves as the main visitor's center for the park. The building was built in 1924 by the Union Pacific Railroad to serve as a transfer point and water station for the steam locomotives. The area had a boom during World War II due to, in part, the mining opportunities in the area and the need for an outpost on the way to Los Angeles. Nowadays the town is pretty run-down with the exception of the Depot building itself which was renovated and re-opened in 2004, 10 years after the Mojave was declared a National Preserve. After a quick informational video about the park and a nice chat with one of the park rangers we headed out to the largest and densest grove of joshua trees in the world (even more impressive than Joshua Tree National Park 60 miles south of the Mojave!). We took another ~4 mile hike to a vantage point on Teutonia Peak (5,755 ft.) while working on our tans, then headed back to the truck to set out towards Arizona. Four and a half hours later, and another 3,000 ft. of elevation gain, we found ourselves out of the high desert. We were once again surrounded by snow and conifers as we passed through the Kaibab National Forest on I-40. We decided to call it a day and pulled into Williams, AZ (6,800 ft.) where we found a cheap room with wi-fi so we could update our blog. Tomorrow morning we're off to the Grand Canyon.

(Note: Wow! It's awesome to know that there are people out there actually looking at our blog... once again, thank you guys for reading along and keeping us motivated to record all this. The comments are fun to read but we've been having problems deciphering who's who. If you would like to help lessen our confusion, please end a comment with your name or some sort of clue as to who you are... Unless of course you'd like to remain anonymous and keep us guessing whether we know you or if you are an obsessive internet stalker... THANK YOU GUYS!)

Day 3/4 (placeholder)

Right now we're sitting around a campfire in the high desert of california (4,000 ft.).... Sorry we didn't post an update yesterday (or today really) but we're hoping to find a place to charge my phone tomorrow afternoon, and we'll tell you about our last 2 days then. Thanks to everybody for your support and we will post photos as soon as we hit a place with wifi. 'Til then-  mike and laura

Day 3 (updated)

We started the day off with a continental breakfast at our motel and got on the road right away. We continued down 101 to the Redwoods National Park where, in addition to crazy-big trees, there are crazy amounts of elk. We drove by one person's yard where there were a few just laying around in the lawn like dogs would. All in all we probably saw 60-70 elk, two herds of which were pretty large.
We checked out the visitor's center before heading into the park. Neat place, but almost bordering on creepy with all the taxidermy... what was really cool was a great big chunk of a redwood tree that had the antlers of an elk embedded in it. Apparently a looong time ago some unfortunate elk must have gotten his antlers caught in a knot in the wood or something, died, and over the next while (hundreds of years?.. it didn't say) the wood grew around the antlers. Awesome! I imagine the hiker who eventually discovered walked by and happened to notice it must have been pretty surprised.
Anyway, at the park we planned on doing a 1 mile hike in, 1 mile hike out - short, I know, but we also planned on making it to a KOA campground south of Sacramento in a town named Lodi so we had to stay on track. We set off on our hike and were immediately dumbfounded by the sheer scale of everything. We took our time and seemed to only be able to walk from tree to tree examining each one, taking photos, and discussing how amazing they were... so we were completely surprised when we happened upon a sign with a mile mark that said we had gone 2.4 miles. Oops!


We turned around at that point and hurried (as much as possible for us in the land of giant trees) back to our truck to get back on the road. We ended up being an hour behind schedule but we figured the loss of time was well worth it for the experience.
Back in the truck, we set off again down the coast to Arcata where we caught the CA-299 towards Redding through the Trinity National Forest. Thankfully this has been a mild winter in that part of the state, so we managed to avoid snow covered passes and could focus on enjoying the scenery. As we were making our way out of the mountains and towards the valley, we noticed an older lady attempting to flag down a passing car. She had gotten a flat tire and had been trying to get a passing car to stop for sometime, so we gave her a ride to the next town (if you could even call it that). On the way, she told us a little bit about the area (and the unusually mild winter they were having) and wished us luck on our travels. Once we left the mountains we began to notice the changing landscape (i.e. Palm trees and shrubs) and we felt like we had definitely left the northwest. We caught I-5 in Redding, CA, and 4.5 hours later (and a total of 600 miles for the day) we were south of Sacramento in a small town named Lodi searching for a place to stay for the night. Our hopes of camping for cheap at a KOA Campground quickly faded when we learned that the tent sites were closed due to mud (and flooding?) so we bit the bullet and spent the extra money to get an actual hotel room. On Thursday we're heading to SW California to spend the night in the Mojave Desert, so hopefully we don't get eaten by coyotes or stung by too many scorpions before we can finally make it out of California and head to Arizona!

Day 2

Day 2
Woke up this morning to the pitter-patter of rain drops on our rainfly. I'm happy to say we had no raccoon attacks and all in all it was a good night's rest. 
Last night we had schemed a little bit about our plan of attack and thought, among other things, that we'd shower, take a walk down the pathway to the beach, and drive to the next town to grab breakfast. Once we actually woke up our plans changed to "let's just brush our teeth and get out of dodge". We took care of our business and were almost ready to leave when mike went to make one last pit stop at the bathroom and I piddled around with some stuff in the back. I was at the front of the truck when mike came running back with a story about his experience in the public restroom... anyway, distractedly, we hopped in the truck and slowly made our way out of the campgrounds. About to turn onto the highway, mike at the last moment suggested that we catch a glipse of the view at the beach parking lot across the road. After making a loop thru, we were just about to the highway again when we saw a van parked in the road ahead of us. A (kinda scary lookin) local guy came walking up to our truck and as we cautiously rolled down the window a bit he shouted "Hey! You know your back door's open?"
Woops...
We checked everything out and it all miraculously still in there. Whew! Disaster avoided! Anyway, needless to say we will be obsessive about the status of the back door from here on out.
From there we continued south on 101 as the rain and wind gradually increased. We stopped a couple of times to take in some awesome views of the coastline (most notably the seastacks) and decided to skip lunch anticipating that we would be in Crescent City (CA) by early afternoon. About 50 miles north of the OR-CA border the rain was pelting down and the wind was shaking our truck... Mike turned the wipers on to full blast and after a bit of clunking the two blades collided with each other and parts came flying off. Without the wipers, visibility was next to nothing, not to mention the logging trucks that were barrelling down the road spraying us and causing the truck to shake even more. Luckily there was a safe spot to pull off where we called the truck company for road-side assistance (which took 2 hours to arrive). By the time we got back on the road again it was nearing dark, so we decided to spend the night in Crescent City, ensuring a good (dry) night's sleep.
Tomorrow we're planning on actually getting to the redwoods, and hopefully somewhere south of Sacramento. Wish us luck and we'll keep you posted. 

Day 1

As we write this mike and I are sitting in our tent drinking a beer somewhere along the Oregon coastline. We ended up taking more time leaving this morning than we had initially planned. Actually got into the truck and drove away around 1:00pm. I think the shock of leaving seattle and pretty much stepping into the unknown has yet to fully settle in but, after a tear or two leaving town this afternoon, we are livin it up. It was a really strange feeling driving away from what, up until that moment, had been our home and not really knowing  what was going to happen, what our exact route would be, or even where we would sleep tonight. Got to the Oregon coastline after it was already dark and after passing what must have been at least a half dozen campgrounds that were still seemingly closed for the season we pulled into the one we're at now (Carl G. Washburn Memorial Campground) at about 9:30. As we were setting up our tent i was hearing some rustling in the bushes and shined our flashlight in there to find a good sized raccoon looking back. No biggie, he seemed to mind his business while we were doing our thing but is also now perched (in his nest?) in a tree pretty much above our heads.
We plan on going to the redwoods tomorrow and I'm looking forward to seeing more of this coastline... but in the daylight when we can appreciate it more.
Here's hoping that no kamikaze raccoons bombard our tent tonight. More tomorrow on Day 2 of our cross-country adventure.
P.S. Carolene & Jaime - we wish we could call you to let you know we actually DID leave but we have no cell service! We'll call you soon (you too Graham Cracker).
P.P.S. The beer we're sipping on is a crummy one ironically named Hamm's. It's definitely no Rainier (pronounced rain-yay for those of you with class).    

Cats

Mike and I managed to acquire 2 cats (Keys and Ashley) during our time in Seattle and we will be shipping them away from all they've ever known to the other side of the country tomorrow morning. In order for the airline to allow us to ship them we had to get a carrier with enough room "for the animal to sit up and not touch the top of the kennel". They said that for a cat that would be around 15" high. We measured the cat carriers that we already had and they were a mere foot in height. So we went to the pet store and ended up with two new GIANT carriers for the cats. Seriously, these things could fit Mike or I if we could fold ourselves in half. The size seems a little ridiculous if you ask me, but it's apparently what the airline requires and at least we'll know our kitties will have plenty of room to sleep, sit, and dance around in luxury during their 8 hour trip tomorrow. Mike's parents will be picking them up on the other end and taking care of them at their home (thank you thank you thank you!) and we'll try not to miss them too much as we take the next two and a half weeks to make our way back to them in Pennsylvania.
Here's to the beginning of the adventures!!!! (...even though it's just the cats for now)

Urban hiking.

Met up with Beth and David in Ravenna last night to grab some drinks. They will be starting the AT about four days after ourselves. Funny though, Mike met Beth (a barista) at the Starbucks right next to his work. He found out by chance that she was also planning a thru-hike which is pretty incredible since the odds of just running into a fellow 2010 AT classmate is something like 1 in 200,000.. or even more if you figure that a majority of AT hikers are probably living somewhat near the trail. We had a good time hanging out with them and we're looking forward to seeing them on the trail in Georgia next month. We were so pumped about hiking that we walked home from the bar, about 5.5 miles. Laura was wearing her clogs -d'oh!- and developed a couple tiny blisters but it was an awesome walk.

Went to REI today to get the last of our gear for the trip. We finally made ourselves spend the time to make our shoe selection - 2 hours! It was a task that we had been putting off and agonizing over for months. We both walked out of the store with new boots that we were really happy with. Phew! We forewent the bus trip again and tested them out on the 4 mile walk home with pleasing results. We're glad we have all our gear pretty much taken care of now since other things are in need of attention like wedding details and a plan of action for our road trip starting next week.
More about those tomorrow.

Last day of work

Well, well, well... here we are. Whew- even though we felt like we'd never reach this day, here it is. Laura finished her last day at the Henry Art Gallery today, and I said goodbye to sandwiches yesterday (side note: I DO look forward to saying hello to a cheesesteak when I get home). It was hard to say goodbye (for now) to all of our co-workers/friends, and we'd both like to say thanks to all of them for making us feel really special- we'll be in touch.

AAAAHHHHHH! Now for the crazy and extremely stressful tasks of packing, shipping our cats Ashley and Keys, finding enough time to wrap up all of our loose ends, saying more goodbyes, and then finally leaving Seattle (our *gasp* home of 5.5 years)!

7 more days in Seattle.