Pictures

I uploaded the pictures of our trip. Check them out here!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/havenleah/sets/72157607182246323/

Hospital

Well, we are all moved in now. Our new apartment is located in the Central Haight area. Originally built to be a hospital in the 1920's, it was converted into apartments and condos in the 1980's. You can sort of still tell it's a hospital. I was worried that our apartment was going to be haunted by the overdosed hippies who died here in the past, but it seems to be ghost free. Our view is incredible. Below us you can see the Mission and and to the left you can see the downtown skyline. My favorite is watching the barges full of cargo sail across the bay. I still can't believe that I actually live here.

Since we've been here we haven't done much other than unpack and go to the stores to buy things like toilet paper and groceries. Speaking of groceries, they don't have Pick and Saves here- they have Safeways. Going shopping was interesting. They don't have the brands we're used to like El Rey tortillas or Schneider string cheese. I am not a fan of the dairy products I have tried here. They taste weird and will take some getting used to. Wisconsin is still the number one dairy state as far as I'm concerned.

We're going to have time to explore our neighborhood now that things are settling down. There seem to be a lot of businesses on Haight Street including medical pot dispensaries. It's weird how open they are about pot here. The free weeklies have ads that say things like "medical marijuana is great for anxiety disorders, ask your doctor for a script." I always smell pot when I walk down the street and there are a lot of random dudes milling about asking anyone who passes by if they want to buy any.

We've been taking a lot of public transit and are figuring out where the different lines go. I have to buy a pass soon since scrounging up correct change each time we ride is a hassle. 

I started looking for jobs on Craigslist this morning.

Yosemite

Hi everyone. I'm blogging this to you from my new apartment located in the Haight in San Francisco. I've got a brief moment to tell you about what happened in Death Valley and Yosemite. Since I've been home we've been so busy with unpacking and setting up our new home and haven't had time to blog. Please forgive me! I will try and remember what we did to the best of my ability.

When I last wrote we were in Death Valley at the Furnace Creek Inn. All of us had a great sleep that night. We woke up relatively early and had a buffet breakfast. I admit we did a lot of overeating on the trip and I think I gained a few pounds. But isn't that what vacation is for? Our eating schedule was incredibly sporadic. Eat a big breakfast and maybe if we were lucky, a granola bar in the car. 

We spent the early part of the day checking out Death Valley sights like the salt flats and the devil's golf course. I wasn't able to spend too much time outside the air conditioned car before I started feeling nauseous. It was HOT there. One could not drink enough water, and our clothes were soaked with sweat.

Driving through Death Valley made me nervous. I was very worried about the car or truck breaking down and being stranded in the incredible deadly heat. We had several gallons of water stowed in both vehicles just in case, but that direct sun is killer. As we made our way past barren plains of scorched earth, I tried to contain my anxiety. Death Valley is a beautiful place, but it's very easy to die there in the extreme heat if your car gets stranded or you get lost on a hike. Seeing signs like "turn down AC to keep car from over heating" and "radiator fluid 2 miles"did not help to calm me.

We finally made it out after a few hours of driving through twisty mountain roads. As we approached the Sierra Nevadas we encountered a new problem. Sand storms. The truck shuddered and swayed as we pressed through the blinding sandy winds. I have never experienced a full on sand storm and thought it was very interesting. Right at the base of the mountain range the police had stopped all traffic since the storm was so bad. Sitting and waiting to move for about an hour made Michael very bitey and I had to pee. We were stopped again at the entrance to Yosemite since the winds were so bad on the mountain passes. Apparently a truck had blown over, it was so terrible. Cursed winds! It seemed to be a theme on this trip.

Yosemite is of course, BEAUTIFUL. Of course all the parks we've been to are beautiful, each in their own unique way. We had a tent booked at Curry Village. Little did we know, you had to drive in a loop around the park for about an hour and a half before you got to Curry Village. Night began to fall and we lost track of the truck. Mom and I took a wrong turn and almost went to Fresno. It was so dark, we couldn't see anything. We didn't receive any replies to our panicked calls on the walkie talkies and neither of us got cellphone reception. We didn't have a map and the signs on the road didn't tell us anything. We began to freak out!

Finally we found the truck. Thank god. I thought we were going to be stranded in those mountains, totally a bear's dinner. Ack.

Curry Village was unlike anything we'd experienced up to this point. It's a community of several hundred tents. There were lots of people, cars, sounds, smells. Bear boxes and signs were everywhere admonishing us to stow our food to keep out the hungry lumbering beasts. A few people in our party began to panic and considered setting up camp somewhere more safe. Later on we realized that there were a lot of very careless people and the severe warnings were mostly for them. Our tent had several beds which was nice. Unfortunately it was extremely cold that night and none of us slept too well. At least there wasn't any wind!

Curry Village felt like an adult summer camp to me. They had a pizza parlor, a coffee shop, a tourist shop, and more. It wasn't really camping which was fine with me. I think at this point we were all pretty much done with the camping experience and wanted creature comforts like hot showers, fresh food, and warm soft beds again. 

We spent our last day checking out the giant sequoias in Mariposa Grove and a great view of Half Dome called Glacial Point (?I think?) I highly enjoyed staring at Half Dome. Look at it long enough and you see things like birds and funny faces. 

The next day we drove into San Francisco and moved in. It was a relatively painless move since we have an elevator here. 

I am thinking about continuing to keep this blog to document our adventures in our new city. Would you read it?

Zion and the Valley of Death

(I wrote this last week and am posting it now.)

When I last wrote we were headed towards Zion National Park in Utah. We arrived in the park in the early evening. The entrance to the park is enchanting. Massive red sandstone monoliths sculpted by water, dotted with pine and cactus greenery. The desert heat was absolutely sweltering, but we were in high spirits.

But not for long. Procuring a camping spot was not easy. Almost all the spots were taken except for the "desperation flats" as the ranger called them- a spot next to a highly trafficked road and a spot next to a dumpster. We decided on the latter spot since it seemed quieter and we figured we could hide the dumpster behind the Penske truck. Not so bad, right? Wrong. When we were setting up our tents we realized that not only was the ground was so solid that we couldn't pound in our tent stakes, our site was situated on a giant ant hill colony. Tiny bitey little red guys were everywhere and kept biting our feet. It was awful. In addition to that, a little stream running by was a breeding ground for mosquitoes. We were all pretty disheartened by our lousy site, but decided to just deal with it and check out the river nearby and attend a ranger talk about bats before we went to sleep. It didn't help that the ranger mentioned that Zion has many cockroaches. This made me even more skeeved out about our campsite.

In the night THE WIND came back. This terrible wind has been plaguing us our whole trip. The sun dips below the horizon and then these sweeping hot blasts of wind come out of nowhere and rattle our tents nonstop and keep us from sleeping. Last night was particularly awful since we weren't able to stake our tents down. The violent winds caused the tents to collapse in on us. I got so frustrated that I started crying. I try to  be a good camper and can usually put up with quite a bit, but last night was just too much and I coped with it by having a good cry. Another night spent hunched up in the car trying not to sweat to death or get blown away by the wind. Ugh. Dawn couldn't come soon enough.

When the sun finally did come up, we were all pretty bedraggled. We decided to hike a few Zion trails and then get out. We knew we couldn't have another night like that. We'd had enough of THE WIND.

The morning was beautiful and relatively cool. The walks we took were calm and peaceful. However, it wasn't long before the sun began to sizzle and the temperatures were in the low 100's. We looked at our maps and decided we couldn't take it anymore- we'd check into a plush hotel in Death Valley. Air conditioning, beds, electricity, conveniently located flush toilets, showers, and restaurants serving salad? Yes please! I think we deserved it after all the bad sleep we've had caused by THE WIND. 

So we shot across the desert towards Death Valley in the early afternoon. As we cruised past more incredible scenery in the remainder of Utah, a corner of Arizona, Nevada, and finally California I felt a proud patriotic swelling in my heart. I've never considered myself much of a flag waver, but after this trip I feel a deep sense of pride and appreciation for the country I call home. We really are America the Beautiful.

But enough waxing poetic...let's get back to the road. Driving through Nevada was particularly bizarre. It seems to be a state full of military testing zones, ramshackle towns full of trailer homes, and sin cities like Las Vegas. Watching Las Vegas come into view was very strange. After driving across mile after mile of desert and mountain nothingness you're in Las Vegas all of sudden, driving down an 8 line highway past skyscraper casinos and strip clubs. Billboards for tummy tucks and gun shows crowd the sky. I thought the most jarring thing about Vegas was the huge tracts of cookie cutter McMansions that seemed to have been built yesterday. This is one of the cities hit hardest by the housing crisis and it shows. There were SO MANY signs advertising McMansions littering the road, even a corner with men marching back and forth frantically waving signs about various subdivision homes up for sale. I even saw some boarded up homes. The bubble really popped out here.

And then all of a sudden we were in the desert surrounded by nothing again, just like that. 

Driving past the Funeral Mountains into Death Valley was incredible. The landscape is so ominous- cruel mountains stained in black, red, and white. We rolled down the windows, turned off the AC, and felt the suffocating heat blast our faces off. It's so extreme, I love it! We got to feel a few rain drops splash on us which is really rare in these parts. Death Valley doesn't get more than 2 inches of rain a year. We checked into the Furnace Creek Ranch and now here we are. This place is very nice. I had a salad for dinner (awesome after existing on terrible gas station junk food) and just got back from taking a dip in the hotel pool. We're all very content right now.

Tomorrow we're going to check out the Death Valley sights, pray the heat doesn't melt his synthesizers and my vinyl collection, drive toward Yosemite, and pray again that THE WIND doesn't come back and keep us from sleeping there. 

 -Haven, who is loving her stay in a hotel in Death Valley, California

Arrival

Hello everyone. We are moved into our new home. We just got the internets up and running this morning. I'm working on finishing up my blogs for the remainder of Death Valley and our two day stint in Yosemite. I'll post them as soon as possible, along with some choice photos.

Right now we've gotta hop on the BART and take my Mommy to the airport. Thanks for your patience!

And... we're back!

Hi guys. We're currently at a place called Ruby's in Bryce Canyon, Utah taking a brief moment to reacquaint ourselves with civilization. We just had showers after being filthy for five days and got stuffed on a lunch time buffet. I feel like a million bucks right now. Mike and the moms are checking out the tourist junk shop while I hop on the internet real quick to update everyone.

Sorry it's taken me so long to update the blog. Frankly, there's just not many places in the desert and mountains to get internet access. I don't know when I'll be able to update again so be patient and stay tuned!

Have fun reading my posts I wrote while offline. I dated them in the past.

Utah

I blog this to you from Bryce Canyon, Utah. This place, like all other places we've been- is crazy. I mean beautiful, intense, amazing, breathtaking...Mother Nature, she's an artist and she's done some real good work out here in the American West.

Let me bring you up to speed. Last night we all had a blissful sleep. No wind, no storms, and perfect temperatures. I think we're all in pretty high spirits today after finally having a good rest. We had breakfast and packed up relatively early before we hit Bryce Canyon for a little hike. It was amazing and we all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

We've noticed that along our journey we've been encountering a lot of Europeans driving around rented RVs and checking out our national parks. Since our dollar is so lousy right now I think they're all taking the advantage to see the American West. It's interesting that everywhere we've gone we've heard every language you can think of.

Anyways. Our next destination is Zion National Park in Utah for a few days. If I'm able to get internet access again I'll post another blog. But like I said...it's not easy to find internet access out here. I think we're driving across Nevada on Sunday, through Death Valley, and then ending up in Yosemite in California for a few days. Hopefully you'll hear from me again before then.

-Haven (who is deeply tanned, well rested, well fed, and ready to hit the road again.)