Day 13 - From the Strip to the Gorge

Saturday, May 31st, 2008


I slept like a baby at the Best Value Inn, or maybe like an emotionally drained victim of a mugging, either way I was well rested and was ready to go at 8:30. I returned to the MGM one last time for the Grand Buffet’s Breakfast event. I had been anticipating this meal since before I knew the MGM had a buffet, since before I had planned on visiting Vegas; I had been anticipating my turn at the Grand Buffet Breakfast edition since the dawn of the meal itself. Breakfast is my banquet of choice, and most often the only down side to the meal is having to chose from so many good options. At the buffet the choice was simple: Everything. Round two at the Grand Buffet confirmed that the MGM’s restaurant was one of the great Vegas highlights, and a sure fire selling point for a return visit to the city that never sleeps.

I was torn about my midday departure from Sin City; on the one hand I will miss the magic of the Bellagio fountain, the meet-and-greets at a Black Jack table, the edge-of-your-seat adrenaline that fills the MGM Sports Lounge, and the colourful atmosphere that makes up the Strip night after night, but at the same time I was feeling that itch to get back on the road and see what was around the next bend. Plus I really believe that a change was necessary; I just couldn’t shake the uncomfortable feeling that yesterday’s dark hour had left with me. I kept playing it over and over again in my head, and felt that there was a shadow clouding my enthusiasm.

Distraction number one: the Hoover Dam. Although I just drove over the dam, it was an up close and personal encounter. I’d love to talk about how amazing the engineering is behind the massive structure, but not even my Structural Engineering Enthusiast brother wants me to comment on that. I will say this though, the Dam is an amazing sight, especially since in the end all it is doing is blocking some water (which is not an easy task to glorify… well done Hover Dam, well done). As I crossed the dam and left Nevada behind, Arizona brought the beginning of a new leg of the trip to the forefront of my mind; it was time to explore the National Parks of the Southwest.



Highway 93 brought me to Williams where I turned north onto HWY 64 and started to reel in the Grand Canyon. As I moved across Arizona the small shrubs and weak little trees started to gather strength and size leading me into the Kaibab National Forest. It was nice to find the woods again after so many travel days of barren desert. The forest was however still a stretch of trees in the middle of a hot desert state; they were doing there best impression of the California Redwoods, but were struggling reach their potential.

I snagged one of the last sites at the Mather Campground in the Grand Canyon Village. It was 4:30pm, and by 5 o’clock my tent was set up and I was approaching the South Rim of the Grand Canyon for the first time. I couldn’t say anything. No words entered my mind as I let my eyes get lost in the depth of the canyon. It’s almost impossible to accept the size of the thing. It was beautiful and overwhelming and surreal, and I just stood there and starred over the end of the ridge for a solid five minutes (which is a long time to just stand in one spot and stare at rock, unless of course you’re zonked out on horse tranquilizers… or are a geologist). It was a great time to be arriving at the South Rim; the sun was starting to dip down out of the sky causing the Canyon to change every five to ten minutes. Over the course of the next two and a half hours the colour of the rock would shift from a light sandy hue to a dark red, while the shape of the valley seemed to transform as well with the growing shadows that crept across the canyon. I wandered around the rim trail near Mather point taking in the phenomenal views. Then at about quarter seven I caught the Kaibab Trail Shuttle and took in the final hour of the sunset at Yaki Point. I ate up some serious Megabytes on my Camera’s memory card, and after looking at the results I still can’t believe that this place exists. Like most of the ‘Amazing’ scenes I’ve witnessed on My Great American Adventure, the Grand Canyon has to been seen first hand. The first time you walk through the trees and reach the rim of the canyon… that is something that everyone should experience.

Day Thirteen: The Grand Canyon and I have been introduced, and I think this could be the start of a beautiful friendship.

Day 12 - The Dark Shadows cast by Vegas' Neon Lights

Friday, May 30th, 2008

Did I mention the Fountains at the Bellagio? I was almost giggling when the water first started to dance. I couldn’t get rid of the silly little smile on my face. Even after the fountain performance was over I couldn’t shake the new happiness the show had caused. I immediately knew what my number two priority was for Day Twelve; smile at the magic fountain one more time. This was priority number two, because it was kind of hard to shake the retrieval of the truck from that number one spot.

I had a plan for Day Twelve, and the plan began at the pool. I wanted to grab some sun and test the waters (bahahaha, oh John) of the Tropicana’s outdoor pool before I packed up and left the hotel. It was a nice way to start my day.

I had a reservation at the Motel 6 (my new favourite hide out), a block away from the Tropicana, just off the strip. However, even at $75 a night, I wasn’t totally sure it was the most economically sound situation for me. Currently I am cheating on my new lodging companion with the girl-next-door, the America’s Best Value Inn (class, class, class…). It was under 60 bucks and was actually located within the same lot as the Motel 6. And it’s a motel, same as all the motels, the perfect fit for my luxury tramping needs.

It was eleven o’clock, the truck wasn’t suppose to be ready for anther few hours, so I grabbed the Nikon for the first time since I’d landed in Las Vegas, and I set out to freeze the strip with my shutter. I headed south and explored Mandalay Bay with its amazing beach-style resort. I took the Excalibur Express Tram passed the Luxor and got some shots of the medieval-themed casino before crossing the walkways and shooting the MGM and New York New York. Note to travelers hiding out in the Nevada Oasis, Manhattan themed streets of the NY NY’s interior décor is a must see attraction, so schedule your meandering accordingly. Going North down Las Vegas Boulevard I crossed paths with the Monte Carlo, Planet Hollywood, Paris, the Bellagio, Caesar’s Palace and finally the Flamingo. I was happy with the work I had done. After two days of wandering down Casino Alley I felt like I was getting to know the big hotels and was ready to try and tell their story with my photos.

It was the perfect day for taking pictures, swimming in pools, and getting sunburns (because all your sunscreen is in your truck which is in the shop…). It was also the perfect day for me to look like a valuable commodity as the ‘weekend workers’ were on duty. I was wondering the Strip with my SLR, not my little spy-cam, but my big old hand-cannon of a camera. I was the prime target, I was the tourist from central casting, I was about to wish my Vegas trip had remained a two night affair. Welcome to the Oscar-worthy performance of the visitor-who-needs-your-help. He was good, his story was well planned out, and his character was strong. He wasn’t aggressive, he ‘didn’t want to impose’, and he wanted very little of me. The red flag went up from the moment he approached me, but after I had given him my ‘no thank yous’ and all those ‘I’m sorrys’, and he unwound his story, I felt there was no risk on my part. But it’s Vegas, there is always a risk, nothing is a sure thing. So the fact that he was going to give me money to donate to charity when I returned to Canada, because it was going to be confiscated from him by his corrupt government the moment he returned to his civil-war rot West African country, seemed odd and highly irregular, but with no clear resulting jeopardy for me to be worried about. His tall tale had details like a dead relative and a monetary settlement, he had signed papers confirming the situation, he had answers to all the hard questions. I wasn’t planning on getting anymore involved in this scene then to chat with the man as we both walked amongst the crowd along Vegas Blvd, but then he gave me the money. He said that after talking to me, that I seemed like a trust worthy individual and he felt good about leaving the money with me. At this point none of these lies matter, and the fact that I went along with it also doesn’t matter, because all my new friend wanted was the name of the hotel I was staying at. It came up during the conversation. I didn’t give out a room number, or say how long I was staying, but that also didn’t matter. It didn’t even matter that a few hours later, when I had returned to the motel with my new and improved travel-partner, that it was still the middle of the day, because part two of the scam was as well crafted as part one.

A new shady character, put together like a classic tourist, rushed by me as I walked from my truck to my room with some supplies I hopped to keep in the safety of the motel (just being extra careful of course, who knows, the truck could get broken into… yeah, sure). He frantically asked if I knew where the Luxor was, I told him it was up along the strip just a block or so south. He was out of breath, a bit of an overweight mess, and my reverse 20/20 tells me he was way too hurried. He asked if I could just point it out to him, that he needed to catch a shuttle to the airport that he had missed at his hotel that he was pretty sure it stopped at the Luxor and Blah Blah Blah. I was feeling good about life, what with my good deed for the day taken care of and the Dakota as spry as ever, so I though ‘Why not, this poor bastard has had a treacherous day, plus I love the strip, so yeah I’ll walk with ya’… Before I knew it I was a block down the street and just like that Mr.-I’m-such-a-mess turned into Jeckle’s Hyde and was suddenly the type of guy you’d need to steer clear of in a Max Security Prison. I was ‘guided’ around a corner into a sort of abandon-lot type of alleyway that provided a surprising amount of coverage from the busy streets that surrounded it. My old buddy with the tragic story and the need for a helping hand stood with three other rather intimidating fellow. A real who’s-who of the shady Vegas underground. He asked if I was still carrying his monopoly money (sooo, counterfeit bills do look a lot like the real deal), that he needed it back. They pushed me around a bit to remind me how real the whole thing was, and then asked me to hand over the bag. It wasn’t like the movies, there were no knives or guns, there didn’t need to be, they knew that I knew that they had control of the situation. They didn’t need to remind me after they took all the cash I had not to follow them. They didn’t want my passport, or my MP3 player, they wanted to keep it simple I guess and just nab the cash and leave me with nothing but my broken spirits and crushed humanity.

I had been expecting them to turn around and rough me up, make sure the message was loud and clear, but they just disappeared. I was so shocked at what had happened that I don’t even really remember walking back to the motel. I was lost. I was trapped in my head. I just kept replaying the whole complex scam, and realized how simple it was. I figured they could have been doing that to three or four people a day. Should I call the cops? And tell them what, ‘five guys took cash from me and then walked away’? They probably call it the Five-Card-Flush or the Foreign-Bank-Withdrawal. It probably happened everyday. These Characters were good. They were really good.


I needed to talk it out with the Command Centre back home. I needed some help getting over the situation, and I’m lucky (not only for a guy who was just mugged) because I have a killer family that is ready to drop everything to help out. In fact I had several people ready to fly down and get me. I felt like such a smuck. I like to see myself as pretty observant, as able to read people, as relatively caution, with a good foundation of common knowledge, and overall, smarter then your average bear, or in this case naïve-foreign-tourist-wielding-a-camera. It was tough to come to terms with the fact that I’d be had, taken advantage of, dooped. I was the sucker, and I was out a significant chunk of change because of it.


So the remedy; the Bellagio fountain of course. I watched the end of the Celtics big win over the Pistons at the MGM sports area, I stopped in at a Chinese food buffet for dinner, and then I returned to the fountains and tried to enjoy my last night in Sin City. I took it as a sign to move on when my fortune cookie told me that ‘Time heals all wounds, keep your chin up.’ Plus the fountain was singing and dancing for me, so I was ready to smile again. In the end, the reality of my Vegas Mugging was that I paid for an interactive Las Vegas Experience, a show, a performance. I traded money for a cold-shot of adrenaline. It was better then the tables, and the big hotel lights, it was Authentic and Real. It wasn’t a classic Sin City experience, it wasn’t even the usual Disaster Tales of the ‘Lost-Fortune’ or the old ‘Drunken-Hooker-Mistake’, it was something that reminded me I was alive and that life was not only unscripted, but absolutely unpredictable. Mind you with that said, it’s easier to categorize something as serious as a Mugging as a Life Experience, when you can walk away from it having only lost a stack of bills and a bucket of sweat. I was lucky today, and in Vegas that’s always a good story.

Day Twelve: I may have overstayed my welcome in Las Vegas… but check ‘Get Mugged’ off the Bucket List.

Day 11 - Tramping it in The Vegas

Thursday, May 29th, 2008


From Death Valley you take Nevada’s highway 160 south. It’s a quick drive through flat and open desert prairie covered in small Joshua Trees. Within 50 miles of crossing the state border you reach another set of mountains, a final set of mountain. And then you are there. I rounded a corner in the highway and started my downward descent within a small valley and just like that, Vegas appeared. I had Elvis singing to me, and my heart was racing. The Stratosphere was stretching out above the skyline, and the rest of the strip’s giants were lining up ready to welcome my arrival.

I brought the truck into the Tropicana parking lot in a blaze of glory, or a smoking mess, either or, and for the time being tried not to be overcome by the anxiety that my travel companion may be down and out. The check in was painless, my room was perfect, and when I finally gathered up some fresh clothes and a civilian’s costume, I hit the shower and washed the desert out of my being. Las Vegas was truly my Oasis.

Day ten ended late. I was tired and ready to pack it in around 10:30pm, but realized that chasing the pillow before midnight in Sin City was, well, a sin (and not the kind accepted as currency in Vegas… yikes, too edgy?). So I pushed on, and realized that it wasn’t hard to get lost in the Vegas, both figuratively speaking and literally. While I forgot all about my bedridden Dakota, and easily disregarded my fatigue, I also got lost in over half a dozen large hotel casinos. And that was exactly the path I wanted to follow. I just let it all wash over me. The lights, the sounds, the people; it was all so… ‘Vegas’. It was two o’clock when I made it back to my room, and the strange thing was I still felt like I was bailing out early. Crazy place is running on a gazillion energizer batteries.

Queue Day Eleven, and the start of my Las Vegas run. Well, not quite, I just had to take care of the sick one first, then it was on with the experience. YellowPages, the Front Desk, a few calls to the Command Centre, and finally I had tracked down a Dodge Dealership. Now all I had to do on my end was get the truck to the Dealership and let them mend the Dakota’s broken soul (I’ve pushed her too hard. However I do believe that since her fuel cost more then mine she should be able to put up with a little adversity, I mean really, she’s a Freakin Truck, Come On– sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean it, I know the two day desert dash was a lot to ask, I should be grateful to have such a true traveling competitor…). Well mission failed. I reached Caesar’s Palace and pop, or maybe it was snap, hell it could have been that other Rise Crispy character Crackle for all I know, the damn clutch gave out completely and I broke down on the Strip. This was pretty near horrible on a scale of bad to treacherous (treacherous of course being the same broken down mess of a truck stalling out, but in the middle of Death Valley, with the vultures laughing at me as my tears evaporate before they hit the ground). I tried not to make eye contact with anyone as they pulled around me. I could hear the horns and could see them all waving with there special finger. I also enjoyed it when two cops on bicycles pulled up and avoided pleasantries such as ‘are you okay?’ or ‘do you need some help?’ and moved right into the jokes: ‘From out of town and you’re broken down on the Strip, well good luck with that (large laugher)’. I was half expecting Josh Duhmel to rush out as Danny McCoy and ask me if I was auditioning for Ocean’s 14 with my own flavour of Vegas heist. Three hours and fifty seven minutes after I started to hold up traffic, or in real time, fifteen minutes after I made the call to the towing company, a huge rig came and hoisted my Dakota up off the strip and whisked it away to Emerg.
The good news, we got the truck to the Dodge dealership, the bad news it was going to take some time before they could get her in for the hour long inspection. The good news, they had a waiting room, some more good news, I had my Archos Media player full of ‘Flights of the Concords’ episodes, my Chuck Palahniuk novel, and some snacks in the truck, the bad news, the waiting room had some loud woman holding court telling a room full of impatient waiting-room waiters her life story. The good news, after two and a half hours they had inspected the truck, the bad news, the part that needed to be replaced was on back order, everywhere in North America. The good news, they could use another company (other then Chrysler) and get the part into the truck by tomorrow evening, the bad news, I was going to need to get really lucky on the tables to pay for this little operation… so I told them just to put her down, pull the old plug on the Dakota, not to let her suffer, just make it quick and easy… actually I talked to the Command Centre and it looks like I’ll be on the road again by Saturday. The good news, I am stuck in Vegas for one more day, the bad news, yeah right, what’s bad about that.

When all was said and done and I had been Shuttled back to the Tropicana by a two year veteran of Sin City, Frank, who told me much more then I ever needed to know about the dirty world of Las Vegas, it was already closing in on four o’clock. By five I was on the move, and my destination was the MGM’s Grande Buffet. Wow, this was an event. No buffet will ever compare to the operation they are running over there at the MGM. Mexican All-Inclusives forget about it, Luxury Cruise Liners don’t even think about it, Holiday Brunch at the five star hotels not even close. This was the buffet that sent all other buffets in the direction of Death Valley. It was a serious setup and I was ready to take it seriously. Now, I feel I dominated this scene and so with that in mind here was my approach. Keep the plate sizes small; give yourself room to work and don’t get too excited to quickly. You want to be able to eat what you’ve got while it is at its ideal temperature, overloading your plate can leave neglected food time to cool down, or warm up; not good. Take your time; I witnessed many people ‘seeing the food’ and ‘eating the food’ with very few steps between them. It’s excellent food, but it’s important to pace yourself and keep your priorities straight: ‘taste’ before ‘inhale’. Variety; keeping the plate size down is one thing, but you need to also focus on portion sizes. There is way too much out there to fill up on one item, test it out, play the field, and when the time is right, you go back for your hero plate with all the favourites. Feel free to explore the grounds; some people just start dishing up what they see first. You want to wander for a bit, get the lay of the land, and then plan out your courses. If it’s not what you expected just move it to the side; don’t feel you need to finish everything that you plated. The buffet needs to be about experimenting and taking risks, but the beauty is you don’t need to suffer if you chose wrong. Remember the dessert. Some might say to take a break part way through your ‘entrée’ to go for the dessert event, I say just be conscious of the fact that when you are done your ‘dinner’ there is still some more exploring to be done. Sample the desserts; the dessert sizes are usually small, but it’s best to grab everything that looks appealing and then take a bit or two from each before deciding which ones you want to follow through on, or which ones are your front runners that you want to eat first, just in case you fall short on your goal. These are some of my favourite techniques and today it allowed me to run the buffet gauntlet for an hour and a half. The benefit of eating slowly and making several trips up to the counters is that you know before you have over-eaten. Many people leave the buffet without even room for a ‘wafer-thin’ mint, because they just eat and eat and eat and then suddenly realize they ate five plates too many eight plates ago. As you can see, I take my buffets very seriously, and you know what, in Vegas you have to.

It’s night two in Las Vegas, but I am just starting my experience. I’ve won a bit at the BlackJack table, I’ve cashed in on the Lakers game 5 win, and I’ve wandered the strip at night with some of the town’s great characters, but there is so much more for me to see and do. So I leave now to return to the lights, and the sounds, and the people, and I hope to continue to soak up the Vegas.

Day Eleven: Sometimes you need to stall out and break down on the Strip before your Vegas fun begins.

Day 10 - the End of the World is in South Eastern California. Death Valley!

Wednesday, May 28th, 2008


From Barstow I still had a two hour drive to reach the gates of hell (fee payment will be required please). Death Valley National Park was an eruption of Earth’s insides. It was as though the desert had taken back anything Mother Nature had given to the area, and was torturing the land and punishing it for the sins of everything that has ever existed. The mountains that surrounded the sinking wasteland were burnt and bent out of shape. It seemed as though the rock had been abused by centuries of heat and wind, and what remained was so grotesque, it was more beautiful than anything I had seen.

Before getting too far into the park I found myself stopping along the side of the road to capture as much of the landscape as my camera would allow. The sad truth however was that the lens just wouldn’t cooperate. I wanted to steal part of the evil that was embedded in the essence of the park. I wanted to take away the supernatural feeling that the Valley’s surroundings forced on me. I wanted to show the world what this planet was capable of doing to itself. I can’t blame it all on the limited nature of a still shot though, the elements were making it difficult on me. It would take about thirteen seconds for the sun to start toasting my skin. All I had to do was open the truck door and a flash of heat would destroy hours of built up A/C. Even the heavy wind that sailed through the Valley channel was a hot, dry belch from the place where they produce ugliness. I spent most of the day with an expiration tagged to my body, knowing that the desert was trying to swallow me up and never let me leave.

The cool part about Death Valley, aside from its accurately descriptive title, was that it displayed all aspects of the way a valley meets its end. I started my day north of Furnace Creek at the Sand Dunes. At this point in the park the shape of the valley changed allowing the winds to slow and deposit small sand particles that are normally used for pelting tourists in the face. The sand collected and formed a sort of frozen sea, locked in time. It was strange to find the golden dunes in the middle of the valley, but then again, it seemed like none of these bizarre perversions of nature should have been there at all. I headed south and joined up with the Badwater highway. The road cut directly through the centre of the park and varied its elevation from sea-level to over two hundred feet below the zero point.

My second stop was at the head of a short hike that lead up one of the many hidden canyons within the mountain range. The trail began as a narrow hallway with towering walls on either side, before finally opening up and giving me some room to breath. It was Star Wars A New Hope all over again; I was waiting for some new Lucas creature to come out from behind a rock and attack me. More then anything I couldn’t help but think that minus the whole atmosphere thing, this could have been Mars. The canyon was basically a concentration of the elements with more heat and higher winds taking their turns at me. I made it a half hour out and back and was happy to get back to the sanctuary of the Dakota.

Artist Drive was a single lane of worn out pavement that crept back into the mountains. These mountains looked old, like they had experienced more then a healthy mountain should. The drive was really fun. They had a warning at the start of the track stating that vehicles over 25feet long were not allowed. I understood why, when the road started twisting and turning so tightly that it almost folded back on top of itself. It was basically the type of trail you would ride a mule down. At this point the mountains showed there wear and tear with a variety of colours ranging from the dried out burnt yellow to a fiery red that faded into a deep black. It was the mixing of these colours with the lighter grey and white rocks that made the whole scene look like a wardrobe malfunction. The colours were folded together into ages of layering that strongly resembled the wrinkles in most of my shirts now after two weeks on the road. When the loop ended I continued south.

The Devil’s Golf course was a huge field of crystallized sand too sharp to walk on. It was yet another booby-trap that the valley had laid out for humans to fall victim to. Like all the aspects of Death Valley, the crystallized structures were a result of the heat, sun, and the erosion from the wind. You could actually hear small cracks and pops as the wind rolled over the Golf course and continued to change the structure of the crystals.

Badwater is the lowest point in North America. There was a sign high up on the rocky cliff, over two hundred and eighty feet above the small pond of bad water that read ‘sea level’. The area was named by a prospector who found that his horse wouldn’t drink the water even as it faced complete thirst. What makes the water bad is the high sodium chloride and sulfate content. The area is one of the hottest places in the world and I can contest to that. Outside the park, at high noon, I would call the temperature of the Death Valley area ‘warm’, by the time I made it to Badwater, the sun had started to dip down but the temperature was definitely closer to ‘scorching’ or ‘blistering’ or ‘stupid hot’. And on top of that, the temperature of the ground was probably in fact hot enough to fry and egg on, literally.

I spent a lot of time taking the scenery in from within the safety of the truck. The whole experience was made that much more interesting with the deep blue sky and puffy white clouds overhead. The contrast between the happy sky and the angry valley was one thing that did register in the camera. And I know I said the lens couldn’t capture the true hideousness of the land, but as I look at some of the shots now, the pictures tell a pretty vivid tale.

Next stop Vegas. VEGAS!!! Maybe?

As I was leaving the park the Dakota spoke up; it was suffering. It yelled at me with a sort of whiny sequel while I used the clutch. Instant fear. I wanted to just turn up the stereo and think about rainbows and smiles, but the truth of the matter was the desert had eaten away at my truck. I pictured the Dakota giving out in the middle of the Death Valley ocean of nothingness. I pictured the inside of the cab slowly turning into a furnace as the A/C melted away. I pictured myself standing outside the truck with my broken cell phone waiting for a car that would never come. I pictured the movie Gerry, I pictured Into the Wild, I pictured the demise of all the great heroes in tragedies where nature wins. And then I was in Vegas. I had made it. The truck held out. As I pulled into the Tropicana parking lot, and the Dakota came to a chocking stop I could smell a burning; the vehicles inside were melting away. It was my first night in Vegas and I already had my own unique story. I just hope that the saying ‘What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas’ applies to Dakotas.

Day Ten: The Jackson MiniTramp tribune reads: Death Valley Claims its latest victim…

Day 9 - My new Favourite Tree... the Joshua

Tuesday, May 27th, 2008


In the light of day, the Windsor Motel didn’t look quite as ominous as it had last night. It did still scream ‘bad horror film’, but in a less intense way. I packed up and grabbed a bowl of cereal before hitting the road. It sounds like no big deal, but the milk has to come from somewhere, and so that is why last night, after seeing that the Windsor was decked out with a mini fridge, I made a run to the near by gas station to grab some Skim for this morning’s breakfast. It’s all part of the Jackson MiniTramp show.

Jump back to the broken cell phone story. I stopped at a gas station where I picked up a five dollar calling card. It advertised that for any call made to a number in North America the fee would be one cent per minute. Perfect! Now we’re talking, literally. Jump to the part of the story where I’m at the pay phone discovering the hidden charge; a connection fee with the use of pay phones, 99 cents. What the– Not only that but I made two calls that didn’t connect before I figured out what the story was. Not all was lost though, I did get to leave a message at home base, letting them know the details of my situation (that I’m an idiot with an exploding phone that is fully functional except for the fact that you can’t see what on the screen).

Forget about the phone thing, there are more important stories to be told, like the Joshua Tree National Park story. It begins at the visitor’s centre where a park ranger (I don’t know if that’s what he was or not, but it sounds pretty classic) gave me the run down of the park and highlighted a few hikes that could maximize my single serving visit. Four hikes later and just over four hours in the park I was beaming. I don’t really deal with the whole ‘pinching’ thing, but if I was into that I’d have been pinching myself all day trying to determine if I was actually seeing these spectacular displays of some of the planets best work, or if in fact I was dreaming. Each of the four short hikes allowed me to see a different part of the parks characteristics. Skull Rock was a trail that led you through a sort of rock garden where these bizarre ‘Dinosaur Exhibit at the Calgary Zoo’ style bolder collections pilled up. It ended up being a play ground for free running as I danced across the rocks having way too much fun. The potential to Gerry-it-up was very high. Similar to the landscape the two Gerrys in the Gus Van Sant movie faced, there were many small pathways that jutted off the main Skull Rock trail. It would have been easy to lose my bearings, especially since the heavy sun was directly above my head. It didn’t happen though; John 1, Skull Rock Zero. Hike two was a short loop called Cap Rock. This huge rock rose up from a field of Joshua Trees like more than just the tip of an iceberg in the sea. This little meander allowed me to really get up close and personal with the Joshua Tree; they are so strange, I almost can’t believe they are a reality. Hike three was at the end of a road that helped you with half of the climb to the top of Keys View. The trail brought me to a point where I was surrounded by 360 degrees of spectacular vistas. I could see the entire park, and so could my two cameras. Many people were taking in the scene from the parking area below me, but the real reward was twenty minutes above the parking lot. My final stage of the Joshua Tree National Park tour was a place called Hidden Valley. It was just that. Large rock formations had enclosed an area of vegetation in a way that land might trap water and form a lagoon. A mile long loop took me through the valley and finished my day with some of the best scenery the park had to offer. I felt like the park had showed me its best stuff, and after about four hours I had grown to love the Joshua Tree. I already want to plan a return trip.

I ended up in Barstow. It took about two hours to cross the Mojave from the town of Joshua Tree. The Mojave Desert is everything a desert should be. I couldn’t believe that just yesterday I had been wandering along the beach in Santa Monica, and less then a day later I was in the middle of a Planet Mars style backdrop. Several times I actually verbalized ‘Unbelievable’ to the empty truck. Barstow was going to be my fuel pit stop before stopping for the night at a campground in Yermo. Well I couldn’t find the campground or Yermo for that matter. I mean I located where the town was supposed to be, but there was no one left, it was a true ghost town. Had the sun not been setting and I been less freaked out, I would have been looking to get some real photography done, but alas I was in and out of the former Yermo, happy when it was in my rear view. Queue Plan B. I found a motel 6, paid the $44 (after tax) and felt good about life. Ghost towns, now that’s just silly.

With my room came a phone that wasn’t a pay phone, so I punched in the two dozen numbers you need to activate the calling card, and just like that I was back in touch with the Command Centre. It felt a bit like the ‘Loved Ones’ episode during the Survivor season; I was rejuvenated by my family’s voices, and ready to pour it on for the next leg of the trip.

I like the Motel, but I had been ready to camp. This may have been the reason that I cooked up my soup on the Coleman stove in the motel room. I can imagine that it is something that would be frowned upon by the Motel 6 staff, but I didn’t burn the place down, and really what they don’t know can’t hurt them. Plus the soup was good.

Day Nine: There is such thing as too much adventure, and it’s called camping in a Ghost Town.

Day 8 - Driving the Streets of Los Angeles

Monday, May 26th, 2008


It takes me about half an hour from first sound of the watch alarm to be ready to hit the road. The art of breaking camp. It’s as easy as you are willing to make it. The idea of keeping things in a sort of order from the time you reach the camp site makes the final clean up fairly simple. For the Memorial Day Vacationators that surrounded me, it was going to be a full time job that I just didn’t have time to stick around for. The overall atmosphere of the campground had gone from last nights ‘Partaaaaaay’ to a mix between absolute chaos and passive hostility. Funny stuff.

I found the Pacific Coast Highway before too many others so the traffic was relatively tame for a holiday. It is a very popular area from the surf board and as I drove passed the many beaches, tents and RVs were camped right on the water front acting as base camps for the surfer crowd.



After driving through Malibu, which was all the California Swank I had hoped for, I turned up one of the Canyons. Topanga Canyon was quite busy, but this just meant I didn’t have to navigate the winding roads on my own. This lead me to Mulholland Drive. I had wanted it to make an appearance on Drive during the LA portion of my trip, because it reminded me of some movie… I just can’t quite remember the title, it was good, very strange, but really well done… hum, oh well, Mulholland Drive let me see many different sides of LA from high up in the hills. I found it to be an amazing drive. The road ended at the Hollywood sign, where I fiddled with my camera-tripod team until I managed to capture myself and a sort of white line in the background. Never the less, the Hollywood sign is just such a cool sight.

From Mulholland, my next street was Hollywood Boulevard. It felt like the epicenter of the universe, and I couldn’t wait to get out of the truck and let it all wash over me. I traveled from East to West along the boulevard making a few different stops. I wasn’t exactly sure how well the whole operation was going work, since I didn’t want to pay a trillion dollars for parking and I didn’t want to just ditch the truck mid-lane change. Turns out, there are a tone of meters along the street and I found it fun to park, toss a dime in a meter and use the six minutes to race around that block. I saw the Capitol Records building, the Clarion Hotel Hollywood Roosevelt, El Capitan Theatre, Mann’s Chinese Theatre, the Kodak, and of course I had to watch my step the whole way, because the walk of fame was star studded (bahaha, nice one John). It was a busy and hectic place, and the energy was intoxicating. It felt like the Mann’s was the center of it all, and along with the boat-loads of tourist, there were a number of costumed characters looking to be a part of your vacation scrap book. Classic.

Sunset Boulevard wasn’t as done up and glossy as Hollywood. It sort of felt like a grown up version of it’s northern neighbour. I pulled the same stunt on Sunset as I had on Hollywood, and leap frogged the truck from one end to the other, snapping shots of the House of Blues, the Sunset Tower Hotel, the Director’s Guild of America, and the Comedy Store. Although the crowds weren’t spilling into the streets the place wasn’t deserted by any means. Most of the Sunset crew was on the patio scene, soaking up that sun that I was so happy to have found. It’d be a nice way to spend a holiday Monday afternoon.

My final street for the day was Santa Monica Boulevard. This one took me back across town toward the Pacific again where I found Santa Monica waiting for me. The Third Street Promenade is an ampted up version of Steven Avenue in Calgary. I moved up and down the pedestrian street wandering in and out of shops while joining groups that had gathered around different street performers. This ended up being one of my favourite parts of the day. As the sun was setting I only quickly made an appearance at the Santa Monica Pier, but it has a great view of the beach and the huge skyline.

The opportunity presented itself, so I ceased it, I ceased that opportunity right up. It was dinner at Jack in the Box. One of ‘My Adventure Goals’ while in the States was to eat at a Jack in the Box. Odd you might say. Sure, but with all the American channels that we get, I wanted to know what this Jack character was really all about. Plus in Pulp fiction when Jules and Vincent are taking care of business at ‘look at the big brain on Brett’s’ place and Jules asks about Brett’s burger (which he is eating at 7 in the morning), he asks if it’s from ‘McDonalds, Wendy’s, Jack in the Box…’ Now of course it turned out to be a Big Kahuna Burger, but I couldn’t help but feel that I was missing out ever so slightly by having no true experience with Jack in the Box. So mission accomplished. I ordered their number one meal, which in my opinion is always a good introduction to a Burger join. The Jack in the Box combo 1 happened to be a Sirloin Bacon and Cheese Burger, with Fries and a Soda. I went all American and filled up my cup with Orange Fanta (for some reason in Canada we can’t have such a thing). The whole event was very exciting. I loved it. I would go back. And I have made a mental note that before I cross the boarder again, I will have to revisit the Jack in the Box dinner option.

So that was my LA experience. It was what I wanted out of a one day drive through of the city. There is way too much to do in Los Angeles for one day to cover, so I picked the activities that might not make it to the top of the list next time I visit. This of course means I have to come back, because there are movie premiers to be seen, stadiums and stadiums of sports to be watched, restaurants to try, comedy to laugh at, and beaches upon beaches upon beaches. The drive through is a fun experience though, if you do find you have a day to kill in Southern California.

I drove east and wanted to get close to the Joshua Tree National Park for my next pit stop. I had scanned the map, look at my AAA Camper’s book and found that for a tenter like myself Cherry Valley’s Bogart Park Campground was just the ticket. I pulled in at 9pm and found that not only was it not open at 9pm, but it hadn’t been open all day, it probably hadn’t been open in weeks. What the… So it’s dark, it’s late, I have no idea where to go and only a vague idea of where I am, so I resort to Plan B. Plan B on this trip is simple, Motel it. So I drove into the nearest town, Beaumont, and after touring the town’s city center (two and a half blocks of small town goodness), found I had a limited selection. I went with the shady looking Windsor Motel, where there wasn’t a soul. Probably not a good sign, but I was tired, and ready to pull the truck off the road. It turned out to be a bit of a diamond in the rough. One of those ‘interesting’ exteriors with a very charming inside. Ahhhh, all is well, time to rest, right? Wrong!

As I was unloading some new close, my maps, the computer and way too much else, I dropped my cell phone. It exploded and it’s being a big baby about the whole thing; it’s broken. Everything seems to work, but the screen is blank. I am actually really devastated about it. I’d been using it on a regular basis, not only to stay in touch with friends and family back at home, but also to get help with booking certain motels and finding different campsites. Not to mention it was my safety net. Now I’m totally alone. What a piece of junk phone. Looking back on life before the broken cell phone; man did I have it good. I guess this is all part of the experience, the adventure, the pursuit of the unknown. I don’t know though, it’s a little scarier than I would have liked. Let the excitement begin… and GO!

Day Eight: I am now totally cut off from my world… comfort zone, what’s that?

Day 7 - Dancing around the Big Sur

Sunday, May 25th, 2008


It wasn’t easy to leave the Surf Motel. I had been there for two nights, which felt like a real commitment. I had bonded with the place. I again needed to pack up my life which had also bonded with the motel room and found a way to reach every corner of the space. With the complementary breakfast fueling my body and soul, I said audios and got behind the wheel again.

I wasn’t quite done with San Francisco though. I drove the truck over to Fishermans Wharf and took about half an hour to see the piers in the fresh sunlight. That’s right. The sun was back. By 10:30am I was riding the waves of the city’s downtown streets towards highway 1 and the continuation of my southward direction. At this point it became clear to me that a car chase would really add to my Sunday, so I swerved and cut off a jacked-up truck full of hooligans while giving them the figure, and the race was on. Okay that’s a lie, but I did replay some classics in my head like the Hummer catching air in the Rock, and the mustang showing its stuff in Bullitt. Back to the real world; Things got interesting when Market turned upwards and sent me to the top of Twin Peaks (with a view just as dramatic as the eerie TV series). From there I finally let go and saw the last of San Francisco… at least for this trip.

Along Highway 1 I found that the first signs of Southern California were revealing themselves to me. Around every bend in the road was a strip of sand with crashing waves bringing wet-suit clad surfers towards the beach. It was very cool. I then started to notice that for the next fifty miles most of the cars on the road were carrying boards in their back seats, similar to the way you might see a hockey stick peaking out the rear window of a car in Calgary. It’s been little things like this that have really made my trip a riot.

Enter the Big Sur. Named El Pais Grande del Sur by Spanish colonists at Camel in the late 18th century, this central Californian coast line is the wildest stretch of the pacific ocean’s shoreline that I’ve seen. Heavy, untamed forests lash out over the rolling hills at the ocean’s violent waves as they find the steep walls of the rocky cliff face. Meanwhile Highway 1 gets pushed around in all different directions forcing cars to slow to a crawl in order to hold on. This was a fun drive. By the time I reached San Luis Obispo and met up with the 101 again, I was absolutely exhausted from griping the steering wheel. As an advisory, I would suggest avoiding this scenic route if you are afraid of heights, can’t handle roller-coasters, drive like a sissy, or find adrenalin to cause panic. The Big Sur is not for the faint of heart, or the heart that tends to faint. I for one loved it!

Santa Barbara welcomed me with the southern California feel that I am familiar with as the highway cut through the Palm lined communities with the mansion-covered hills laid out as their back drop. Following an afternoon of rain and cloudiness along the Big Sur, the sun had come out and gave me hope that my return to the camping life would be a dry one.

I was aiming for the Carpinteria State Beach Campground. This was a tall order since the Memorial Day weekend had clogged my peaceful holiday with busy commuters and crazy Vacationators. All day I had suffered the ill-effects of sharing my adventure with a national holiday; the highway was crowded, the pumps were constantly occupied at the gas stations, and my Vista Points were overflowing with tourists. I pulled into the Carpinteria State Beach and saw a big ugly sign that said Campground full. I thought to myself, ‘okay, challenge accepted, let the games begin’. I passed the entrance in order to turn around and casually asked about the full lot. Sure enough someone had just pulled out. There was one site left out of the 100-plus scattered throughout the grounds. Someone pulled in behind me as I paid for the site, and I realized that two minutes separated me from the poor bastards who were now on the haunt for a place to stay.

I set up my tent and wandered out to the beach. The sun was setting and I was in no rush to stop enjoying the light breeze the pacific was offering up. I walked the campground to stretch out my legs (they were not happy with my decision to tear it up all over San Francisco yesterday only to return to nine hours in the car today). The camp was a crowded set up, giving off a sort of trailer park meets Woodstock type of vibe. Everyone seemed quite settled in. I realized that camping was just ‘big people’ excuse to create forts. Every site had circled the wagons and comfortably built themselves a home away from home. I was impressed. As I brought my legs back to life I found that the majority of people were taking their Memorial Day Weekend camping seriously, from the Dads who had gathered around the camp fire to tell tall tale while juggling brewstofas, to the millions of little kids that ran rampant around the grounds throwing every type of ball imaginable while getting as dirty as possible. There was however those who were regretting there decision to camp it up long weekend style. Some of the classics were present; the crying baby, the arguing husband and wife, the girl who specializes in tanning and gossip magazines, the teenager who determined partway through the weekend that he was too old for the family vacation and had locked himself in the car with his laptop and a movie, and of course the many apartment buildings on wheels with full satellite, steam room and king sized bed carrying people who obviously can’t get enough of the great outdoors (just a hint of sarcasm on that one). The last campground I pulled into had me so far away from anyone else that I didn’t even cross paths with another camper my entire stay; this was a fun change of pace.

So I was back to roughing it. I pulled out the Coleman again and worked open a can of beans for myself (there are advantages to being on your own…). It had been a good day, and I was ready to hit the sack. Los Angeles awaits, and I am ready.

Day Seven: I am Canadian, I don’t care about Memorial Day… until it messes with my Adventure. Now I have holidays stomping all over my holiday.

Day 6 - Walking my Beat in San Francisco... I dig it!

Saturday, May 24th, 2008


I was struggling with how to approach my full day in San Francisco. There was the ever present pressure associated with an opportunity such as this to see as much as possible during the short visit. Do I drive the swell-filled streets with the Dakota and pretend I’m Frank Bullitt as I take in the sites, trying not to torpedo my truck into the next intersection. Or do I ride the Streetcars and hang off the Cable Cars, taking my ‘tourist’ status to the next level. Should I just bus it and get a 1 day Muni Passport and hop on and off public transit all day. Come On… I’m a veteran of the European Backpacking Adventure; Walk it!

I started my self-guided tour of San Fran after taking full advantage of the complementary breakfast at the motel, twice. Neil it was all pastries, you’d have loved it. You Dig it the Most! I wasn’t trying to hide the fact I was a tourist today. I was committed to seeing way too much city in way too little time, so I couldn’t afford to be stealth about it. The three components of ‘tourist’ are as follows: Carrying a Backpack, holding a map, and wielding a camera. There are of course bonus categories such as reading from a Guide book while on route, wearing a stupid hat, walking with a tri-pod, standing stationary at an intersection looking up at street signs and groaning. I wasn’t dealing with those ‘tourist’ aspects, I did however have the Golden-Three covered and had created one of my own to amp up my ‘tourist’ quality; I was snapping away with a second camera.

And so my day went. I covered some serious ground, working my map, and pulling the trigger on my camera as often as possible. It was an eight hour affair and along with the big sightseeing locations, I moved through a good part of the cities ‘average’ streets. The great part about the ‘average’ qualification in this case is that like say a Venice, every corner reveals a picturesque street. Some of my favourite spots were the North Beach area where the Jack Kerouac 50’s Beat Generation still thrive, Haight Ashbury where there still lingers a strong hint of Hippie, and Fishermans Wharf where the Bay front promenade is bustling while the fresh catch gets served up. I must also mention the popular Pier 39, not only because it is a happening spot for lunch time dining and an epicenter for the water-front souvenir explosion, but this particular Pier is the location of the SFSL Orchestra. They play for the crowds and love the attention; the San Francisco Sea Lion Orchestra is always ready to bark out a few numbers while basking in the light of the flash bulbs. It's a must see event. The Pacific Heights area seemed like the place to set up camp if you wanted to become a native of Frisco. There were great looking San Francisco style four story houses, as well as the odd massive Victorian that seemed to cry out ‘Joooooohhhhhhnnnn, stay in San Fran and we will make you happy’. I ran into a handful of parks during my meander, the Buena Vista wilderness being my favourite. Mind you it’s quite the climb. Actually the whole freakin city is full of huge climbs, but you forget all that when you’re faced with the overwhelming views that result. Ahhhhh, San Francisco, I could go on about you forever. The unfortunate thing about telling the tale is that not only can ‘Words not describe it’, but in this case not even the ‘A picture is worth a thousand words’ can take care of business. You must experience Frisco first hand. The city is alive, it has character. One minute you’re in a harbor town with fresh fish being served up, the next you’re in the bright streets of Chinatown, then there’s the clean, crisp hustle and bustle of the Financial District, the gardens of the Golden Gate Park and Presidio, and the history of Nob Hill. On top of that there is this unmistakable vibe that ties it all together and lets you never forget that you are in San Francisco. It’s extraordinary. And that’s after just one day!

I finished my day with a trip to the Fog City Diner. It was a great find just off the Pier area. The combination of the old American Diner atmosphere and youthful hot-spot style gave off a unique vibe that had me smiling the whole time I was there. The best of both worlds is never easy to figure out, but Fog City Diner has it pegged. I ate at the bar, while chatting to the Bar Tender and the odd guest who was waiting for their table. Service, Food, Drinks, it was all part of my two thumbs up. I left the restaurant with enough time to casually wander along the Piers at Fishermans Wharf and soak in the energy of the strip-like promenade. And that was it. One day in San Francisco and it was just what Dean Moriarty and Sal ordered. Kerouac would have been proud.

Day Six: San Francisco… Add it to your Bucket List.