So, a couple weeks ago for my spring break I decided to go to Vegas, Arizona, and California. Things kinda worked out to where I was able to stay gone for two weeks and I didn't hardly miss any school at all.
We flew into Vegas on Thursday night because it was cheaper than going to Phoenix. We stayed at the Stratosphere, which was neat. However I must say that now that I've been back I am somewhat meh on Vegas. I don't have the money to gamble, partly because I'm cheap. I haven't really ever partied there either, so my view may be partly biased. Anyway. I was going to meet up with a friend but that kinda fell through and it was late so I went to bed. The next day we went to the top of the stratosphere. It's like 1200 feet tall and supposedly is the "tallest free-standing structure" west of the Mississippi.
This ride was kinda freaky. It was like a seesaw except it was over the side of the building. It leans down 50 degrees towards the ground and the car rushes forward. I wanted to ride it but didn't want to be onboard for its first ever malfunction.
Here you can see the strip. The huge hotels don't look so huge from that height.
After this we didn't really hang around, and left to drive towards the Grand Canyon. Along the way was Lake Mead, which is rather big (and it backs up to Hoover Dam, but I could be wrong.)
Hoover Dam, you say? Yes, I went there too because it was on the way. It's one of the 7 engineering wonders of the world and with good reason because it is massive and awe-inspiring. This is looking down at the wall from the road.
The building that houses the generators is below. To the right of that are the floodgates which are opened twice yearly.
Behind the dam(n) wall are the collection towers which intake water into the system.
Note the power line structures which are coming out of the mountain at a 45 degree angle. They were built that way because if the wires touch anything they will short out. This would be a bad thing since they are carrying more than 200,000 volts.
Being a geek I really wanted to see the inside of this place. I've been interested in this kind of stuff since I was a kid. So, we took a tour because I really wanted to see the generators. We took an elevator ride down to the bottom and walked through a cave to get to them.
This is a set of 8 generators, and there are 24 total (I think). Each one makes enough power to serve 3 million homes. Combined, if memory serves they produce more than 2300 megawatts. Hydroelectric plants are neat.
So, then we left and continued on our journey towards the Grand Canyon. The scenery on the way was pretty so I tried to take a picture out the window, although it didn't really work. My attempt is here.
By the time we made it to the Grand Canyon dusk was upon us so we didn't go. There's absolutely NOTHING in the town by the park, which is somewhat surprising since it's such a big attraction. Anyway, we woke up the next morning to go. It didn't bode well when it was snowing when we got up, which later turned into rain. Later the rain stopped and a cloud descended upon us so it was really foggy. We decided to try the Grand Canyon anyway, however it wasn't a good sign when driving in on the access road you could barely see 50 feet in front of you. I was getting worried by this point.
Finally we arrived and I walked up to the cliff edge hoping to see an awe-inspiring vista, and what did I see?
One. Big. CLOUD.
That's right, you couldn't hardly see anything and I was very displeased. 3000 miles away from home to see one of the most beautiful places in the world and there is a big damn cloud in the way.
That was looking almost straight down. So, we left and decided to go see the Imax film about the Grand Canyon so I could pretend that I actually had seen it. Then we ate lunch, and by that time the weather had cleared up a good bit so we went back. So, I guess I was lucky. Anyway, pictures really don't do this place justice. It must be seen to be believed.
Note the trail in the middle. The point it goes to is about 10 miles from where I took the picture, and you can take trips down there which last for several days.
More pictures.
And here I am trying to be artsy standing less than a foot from the edge of certain death. Good thing the rock I was standing on didn't collapse or I would've been in the obituaries.
Then we left the Grand Canyon and headed towards Flagstaff on our way to Sedona. There was still snow on the ground in some places.
Flagstaff is a lot smaller than I thought and consequently very uninteresting. We drove on the scenic highway from there to Sedona, through Oak Creek Canyon. This is probably one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen, and pictures definitely don't do it justice.
Note the road running through the valley, which is what we later drove on.
The next day we went on a jeep tour in the desert, which means off-roading and funtimes. The driver was really cool. Although the pictures I took are somewhat uninteresting, I'll post them anyway.
Then we stopped on top of this big rock to walk around and take some pictures. The tour people can bring you to places like this and you can have big cookouts. Who wants to go party in the desert on top of a big rock?
Mom and I, plus someone's finger.
This hill is a lot steeper than it looks, and was pretty fun to ride down.
Then the jeep trip was almost over and I was sad.
Later we went to the town of Jerome. Near Jerome is a ghost town, where there was formerly a copper mining operation and everyone left once it ran out. Although I suspect some of the stuff here wasn't actually as it was 60 years ago when everyone left, it was nonetheless interesting.
That's Big Bertha, a 10,000 cubic inch generator that was used to power the town. The exhaust ports sounded like thunder and was ridiculously loud.
Lots of junk lying around.
I guess they had random billy goats in ghost towns way back in the day.
Then we left. I took this picture from the parking lot because we were pretty high up.
The next day we went horseback riding for two hours. This was part of my view for most of that.
It was fun, but I was somewhat distracted by concentrating on riding correctly rather than looking at all the scenery. However I felt like I was in a western. The guide even commented that I was a good rider. For those of you who wondering, I was not sore afterwards or the next day. Bang. We were lazy the rest of the day. So the next day we hiked to Cathedral Rock.
This was taken from about a third of the way up. You can see part of Sedona off in the distance.
Getting ever higher. This was near the point where mom didn't want to go any further because she is afraid of heights. Since when did a little climbing ever hurt anyone? Eh, what can ya do. I continued alone.
Closer and closer.
Physical activity at high elevations is harder than you might think, due to the thinner air. I got pretty winded a few times and had to stop and rest for a moment. It was kinda hot too (mainly because of the sunlight, but the the temperature was quite pleasant.)
Finally I made it to the top. Except that the top isn't really the top, as the walls of cathedral rock are pretty much vertical. Lame.
Since I was alone, it was slightly harder to take artsyish pictures of myself. But I made do.
On the way down I saw some curiously colored lichen on the rocks. I think this stuff is hallucinogenic, if memory serves from what the jeep driver told us two days prior ("Have you been licking the lichen?")
Still continuing down. Note the basket of rocks to give you an idea of where the trail is.
Later that day we went to Montezuma's Castle. It was neat seeing the stuff in person that we learned about in textbooks as children.
However there wasn't really much to see, so we were there only about half an hour. Driving back we went past Bell Rock which looked like a neat place to go hiking. So, that's what we did.
I climbed up here really high, perhaps higher than was safe. But it was fun. Can you spot my mother down below? When I yelled down to her she got all scared, and it was funny.
This was behind me as I was climbing.
I called a friend from home and talked for a bit from my splendid view. Too bad none of the pictures I took from there came out. So then I carefully made my way back down. The second outcropping from the left is what I was on top of.
And that's pretty much it for Sedona. The next day I flew into San Diego from Phoenix. I was glad that I decided to do this because I really wasn't ready to go home yet at all. The first day I didn't do anything worth taking pictures of, and it turns out that I was actually in the car most of the day. However I went and met my friend Kimberly that night and stayed at her place. We were going to go to the zoo the next morning but we woke up too late. So, we went to Lake Poway instead.
We rented a paddle boat, which I haven't done in quite awhile. Aren't we both fucking hot? (Her moreso than me.)
We had the boat for an hour, and after that we walked on the trail around the lake. Behind the lake were a bunch of rocks and a waterfall.
By this time late afternoon was upon us so we began to head back.
And here's me with Kimberly and her friend Amanda.
That night I stayed with some other people. We didn't really do a whole lot that day because everyone was lazy, but we did at least make it to the beach for a bit. It was kinda cold there.
Has anyone else never seen artificial surfing machines? I was fascinated by this, mainly because I've never seen water flow up.
That night we went to Soma to see a show, and there are no pictures of this. The bands were decent. The next day I hitched a ride to lovely Burbank. When I arrived at my friends' house there were a million people there due to the 'workday' in their backyard with their church. To get out of real work, one of them decided to wash the dog with coconut shampoo.
There was all sorts of randomness going on inside.
My friend Kenzie even grew a mustache (yes that really is her hair which was chopped off earlier in the day.)
That evening some of us went to dinner in Pasadena. Random photographs in the car were taken.
The next day was kind of a wash since it looked rainy all day so we just kinda hung out and then ate dinner in Hollywood. No pictures from this day. However we randomly decided to go to Zuma beach in Malibu.
It got really windy at times, and the sand would blow around which was slightly painful because it apparently is thicker than sand here on the east coast. Yay for tiny pieces of glass hitting you all over! So we took random pictures.
Later that day we decided to climb up the hill next to the friends’ house. It was slightly scary starting out: as soon as we jumped the fence to start on the way up a huge dog came out and was looking at us-a German shepherd I believe (Rin Tin Tin, K9 cop.) I commented that it was a good thing that we had just jumped the fence since we didn't know if this dog would be friendly or not. So we started walking and here comes this dog headed straight for us after going around the fence. Thankfully it turned out to be friendly, and actually went all the way up the hill with us and in some places made our path. The hill was a lot harder than we expected, and rather overgrown.
Here you can see Buddy (that was the name on his collar) frolicking in the grass.
More random pictures. It took us awhile to negotiate our way back down as it was rather steep. We all got a little cut up from the thickets, though my and Greg's legs were somewhat better off since we don't shave them. I really wish I'd have worn jeans up there.
Finally we made it back down. It was here than our RinTinTin K9 cop decided to leave us and follow some other random people around. They asked us if it was our dog, and we said no.
That's all the pictures I have. The next day we went to Zuma again. There is no reason to post those pictures because they are essentially the same as the others. We were going to go hiking but didn't get the chance, I was somewhat disappointed but I have been hiking up there before anyway so I suppose it's not too bad.
Wednesday morning I went home. My shuttle was supposed to arrive around 3.30AM but it was late and didn't show up until almost 4.30, which suited me just fine since my flight wasn't until 6.30. If you ever fly anywhere, fly Frontier if you can because all the seatbacks have TV screens in them and you can watch 24 channels of DirectTV for only 5 bucks. You have no idea how excited I was about this, and made the flights a lot more bearable.
And that's two weeks of my life condensed into a nutshell. Hope you guys enjoyed reading about it.
