Whelan's Travels

Saturday, August 12, 2006

Mesa Verde

We ain't had enough of canyons and natural beauty, plus this friendly park ranger gave us a deal at the Grand Canyon if we go to some place called "Mesa Verde," which is Spanish for "Table Verde". Also, there was something creepy in our Lonely Planet about "seeing ghosts at Mesa Verde" and Matt is into flighty crap like archeology, so we had to go.

But it turns out it was worth it, because of one thing, and that thing is the kiva, pictured below.

Now the kiva is a big hole that was dug/built by these dudes called the "Ancestral Puebloans," which is the new hot name for "Old Navajos," or in some cases, "Filthy Anasazis". Matt and I came to Mesa Verde hoping that the Ancestral Puebloan elders would teach us the secret of the ultimate high and that we would all smoke a mystical holy peace pipe together in the kiva. Turns out the Ancestral Puebloans haven't been around since about 1300 A.D., but the kiva IS where they used to drink snake blood and get wild. So seeing them was kind of sweet.

The kivas are located inside the pueblo dwellings, which are underneath overhanging cliffs and look like this...

and this...

We got to go inside one of the cliff dwellings because we posed as professional archaelogists, and because we paid $3, and it looked like this...

Our awesome tourguide showed us how water can drip through sandstone, which is AMAZING.

We climbred around on ladders and stuff.

And the Ancestral Puebloan dudes were really small, judging from their windows...

But, in addition to knowing the secret to the mystical path to enlightenment, they also know how to "corbel" wood, as Matty described it...

And build sweet walls...

This is me, right in front the kiva, realizing that simplicity is the key to the Ancestral guru way...

And our ranger guide with the kiva, explaining how the Anasazis would drink snake blood and get wild down in the hole.

Also, we crawled through this tiny Injun tunnell...

up a cliff...

and we even went down into the kiva, where we drank snake blood and wiled out...

Canyons, Cliffs, & Corners

So Matt and I headed to the Grand Canyon just 'cause we thought we should, and man, is that one big hole! Note by my gesture the scale of the canyon. Grandiose.

This was the north rim of the canyon, which we were told was the less touristy side. It was cool, but we couldn't see the Colorado River, which was disappointing.

It was underwhelming, truth be told. Seemed like more of a honeymoon destination, with nice cabins and a nice lodge and stuff. Matty and I played dominoes in the lodge, which was extremely cozy...

Some more scenery:

After the Canyon, we drove past what I thought was some of the best scenery of the whole trip so far, the Vermillion Cliffs, which were a much deeper red than this picture indicates...

The cliffs swept down from a plateau. Plateau means "flat as a middle school cheerleader" in Portuguese, and Matty is demonstrating here...

Afterwards, we saw these creepy enormous skull rocks, under which hobos sometimes live. Well, not just hobos, but polygamists sometimes, too. You know how Northern Arizona is. And Southern Utah.

Road trip photo op...

And after that, we drove through Monument Valley, which is where Wile E. Coyote and John Wayne (he's not dead, just retired) live a happy life with an adopted daughter in a cute little walk-up furnished entirely in pink.

The coolest monument is by far the "Mexican Hat," seen here...

And from there, we checked out this sweet swap-meet type thing in the middle of the Navajo Reservation, which is where the Monument Valley is... I tried Navajo Frybread, which is basically just funnel cake, only not as good. I'm trying to convey how ethnic it tasted in this picture...

And to finish up the day, Matt stood on four different states at the same time. I forget which ones.

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

Iron, Like a Lion, in Zion National Park

When all of author Bill McKibben's global warming temperature rise-predictions in his book The End of Nature came true, he decided he needed to write a hopeful book because he was so damn depressed. So he wrote this awesome book called Hope, Human and Wild. That's how Matt and I were feeling. After Vegas made us feel like kids who had just witnessed the primal scene, we needed some quiet respite, so we headed to Canyon Country in Southwestern Utah, otherwise known as Zion National Park.

However, we didn't find that peace and quiet, mostly because we shared a campsite with these hicks from Las Vegas who arrived drunk and blasted that "Even when I'm with my boo, all I think about is you..." song until like 11:30 and woke us up in the middle of the night by yelling all kinds of loud stuff such as "How you gonna come in here at f***ing 2 am and grab my f***ing neck??". Their 5 year old son, "Trey", also tried to set out tent on fire. Repeatedly.

On an unrelated note, there was another burger showdown, this time the Carl's Jr. $6 Burger versus Fatburger. Fatburger still won, but here's me eating the CJ$6B:

What we did find at Zion was this silly hat for Matt, which he wore on our beautiful, yet abortive 7-mile hike up the West Rim of the canyon. What follows are pictures...

Full geez...

Strugglin'...

teeterin', totterin'...

Cacti...

Lizards...

Oh, and we passed through this really creepy area on the trail where a wildfire was literally still burning...

just some scenery, i guess...

Granitetown...

And finally Matt, enveloped by the stony, vermillion womb of the land...

Coming up, more CANYONS.

Sunday, August 06, 2006

Sin City

"This old town's filled with sin; it'll swallow you in     
If you've got some money to burn.
Take it home right away, you've got three years to pay
But Satan is waiting his turn..."

-Gram Parsons "Sin City"

So our next stop was Vegas, baby, Vegas, which was not quite what we thought it would be. For example, I thought it was going to be a place where winning money is like stealing Dentyne from the elderly, but that it was not.

We hit some quick slots at the Gold Coast, expecting millions. Turns out we only wasted about $3. What gives?

Shortly thereafter, we realized that we couldn't afford to stay at the Gold Coast, which Lonely Planet told us was a "cheap, off-the-strip destination", and that we furthermore couldn't afford any of the big hotels because it was Friday and weekend rates had started. Instead, we had to stay here:

It wasnt as bad as it looks. There was no Gideon's Bible, which bummed Matt out, but there was sweet stationary, 6 channels of high-quality analog cable (showing Anaconda, with Ice Cube and J-Lo, SWEET), and only a few blocks from the Strip.

Lured by the promise of $1 roulette tables at the Westin, we made our way for Las Vegas Blvd. (turns out $1 roulette happy hour was over, actually). On the way there, we noticed the elegant Siren calling cards of Vegas's finest mature escorts, wedged gracefully in the fences...

Here they are, the beauties...

And here is where we ended up, the casino that destroyed us, left our souls vacant. A fiendish hellhole known as BALLY's... (*note: full quantity of Vegas monetary losses will not be mentioned in this post, or ever, because certain worryworts we call "mom" and "dad" are reading this.)

On a side trip from Bally's we saw Paris, the tackiest casino in the city... actual French streets and blue skies were replicated...

On the floor at Bally's. God bless the free drinks.

But the long and short of it, without going into too much detail, is that Las Vegas is an evil place, its denizens hell-bent boozehounds, and its owners greedy fiendish capitalists. This, we must admit, is our opinion only after failing, twice in one night, to get back to the black on our bets. So goodbye Vegas. Goodbye pimps on the casino floor...