Close Encownters

As Chris mentioned, we have been venturing off into North Bay to seek out new hiking trails and warmer weather. On Saturday we headed to Point Reyes National Seashore, which is about an hour away from our apt, though on this day was missing the warm part. While there we walked down 308 stairs to visit a lighthouse, hiked cliff-side, and saw elephant seals, elk, deer, shrews andoh so many cows. We actually drove our car through the middle of their pasture. No fences.

After spending a disproportionate amount of time in the car riding from one destination to another, we decided to have dinner at Point Reyes Station before driving home. We ate at an organic restaurant which was pretty good, but it was Chris' last minute decision to order the berry pie and ice cream as dessert that made it awesome!

All in all it was a fun trip, but it will probably be a while before we visit "Point Reyes Cow Adventure" again. Coming up next week we will be visiting Minneapolis, and Duluth(for Chris' cousin's wedding), and the following week Chris' parents will be visiting SF. We hope to make our first trip to Yosemite with them!! Hopefully I can get all my freelance work done(that I have the unfortunate timing of getting now) and I can participate in all the fun events. If not I'll just have to read the hav-wartz blog and pretend I was there. Maybe he can paste me into the pictures, ...or maybe I should stop writing and get to work so I don't have to pretend:)

I think I have poison ivy.

Okay. So March was like... two months ago. I mostly forget what happened then. I switched to the day shift, which is some kind of awesome, and I'm doing more scripting for now, which is interesting. And I'm getting better at it, so fewer people are dying senselessly as a result. Not that many fewer, but still...

We've been getting out a fair amount lately. As Kacey mentioned in her last post, it's been warmer. Not consistently, but there have been a decent number of warm days. Sometimes we seek out the warm weather by going to the north bay (across the Golden Gate Bridge, to the north of the peninsula that is home to San Francisco) or a little south of the city. Where we live is fairly prone to cooler weather, or "f***ing freezing" in Kacey parlance. It has something to do with ocean currents, or wind, or witchcraft, I can't remember. But there are still a few nice trails and trees really close to our apartment, and sometimes I jog for a mile or three along the coast of the bay in the mornings.

Anyways, so we've been doing a little bit of hiking. And walking in sand on beaches. And looking for places to go to the bathroom or get a drink after we've walked for a few miles and scraped up our feet on beach rocks and lost Kacey's phone. The bottom line is that it's awesome how many different places there are to hike/walk/explore, and how close they are to our place. The beach is 5 blocks away, and we haven't driven more than 40 minutes for any of the aforementioned nonsense. I kind of love it. You should come and check it out. But not all at the same time. It's not that big of an apartment.

A fridge full of leftovers.

Nope, no jackets on in this picture. For the last 7 days we've had the pleasure of entertaining Orlandonian Larry. I don't know how he managed to, but he snuck the Florida heat with him on the plane and San Francisco reached a record high of 93 degrees. It was a bit smoldering, but I loved wearing shorts and a tank top for a change. During his trip we went to three different beaches, the Japanese cherry blossom festival, the Zoo, the Exploratorium, Coit Tower, Fisherman's Wharf, and drove over that big orange/red structure that sits in the bay. We hung out with Ed and Ginger, and ate lots of food! Larry had Indian food for the first time, and later in the week I even tried half a piece of sushi! The other half was eaten by this cute little napkin creature.

This morning we woke up super early to eat breakfast at an oceanfront diner before parting ways:( Our one regret is that we were too tired to pick up some late night "In N Out" burgers, but I guess this gives Larry at least one reason to return. We had a ton of fun this week (minus the part where I got two parking tickets in one day), and can't wait for Larry to rack up more vacation time, or just get a job here and move to SF forever and ever. It is true, San Francisco is the new Orlando guys, with the exception of the ground shaking sometimes.

Pictures from Larry's visit, (taken by larry.) More posts to come!

Trois Mois

Hello, April.

It's been almost three months since the last post. I'm not sure how that happened, but the time has just kind of flown by.

In February, Kacey and I celebrated our third anniversary. It was kind of like the parade scene from Aladdin as they enter Agrabah. I can still hear the genie singing.

Lauren visited for a week from Orlando. She and Kacey hypnotized me with TV and abandoned me during the days--wandering aimlessly around different parts of the city, exploring random shops and restaurant bathrooms, and taking lots of pictures of discarded cigarette butts. I eventually managed to break free from their spell, and we went to Muir Beach, the Academy of Science, the SFMOMA, the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park, and probably some other places I forgot. Pictures!

At the end of February, Kacey and I attended a three-day comics/popular arts convention called WonderCon. The convention had panels and talks about art, comics, upcoming movies and tv shows. There was a big exhibition floor full of comic artists and illustrators displaying and selling their art, where you could talk to them about their methods, inspiration, and hangovers from the previous night. We bought a few prints and books, and got several of them signed by the artists/creators along with quick personalized drawings on the inside covers. Oh yeah, and we saw a bunch of people dressed up as transformers, star wars characters, and superheroes/villains. Pictures!

Kacey also wore a few costumes to the convention. She went as a 24-year-old one day, and as a 25-year-old the next two. She still hasn't taken that second costume off. Kat and Ray met us at the convention on her birthday, and we all went to the Cheesecake Factory afterward to celebrate. Mark my words, I will never forgive Ray for his generosity.

Maybe sometime this winter I'll tell you what happened in March!

Hav-Wartz: the bed & breakfast of champions!

There aren't really any major updates ...but I had to write something so that the terrible pig drawing would not reign supreme on the top of the blog anymore.

We have been trying to work fitness back into our schedules. Not long after moving here we found this fantastic fitness trail in Golden Gate Park. If used regularly, it can make us into true champions... the "used regularly" is where I struggle the most. Actually that's not true. The hills on the way back from the park are where I struggle the most.

Along with gradually resolving our varying states of inactivity, we both have been moving forward with our personal blogs. I am working more furiously at getting mine up and running, due to that little thing I call "playtime". . . others call it "unemployment." I am hoping to include works in progress, finished illustrations, sketches, as well as my thoughts and processes of individual works. Chris transferred his old site to his updated one, so you should be able to pick up where you left off:) Anyways we hope that you check them both out sometime, and always feel free to leave comments! Here are the links to my blog and Chris' blog, which can also be found with the rest of the links at the top right of the page.

As Chris talked about in the previous post, we had visitors recently at the lovely Hav-Wartz bed and breakfast. Be sure to book your visit soon because the vacancies are filling up. Your stay will include easy beach access, cable tv, plently of ethnic food, a queen size air mattress or couch depending on preference(Jason highly recommends the couch), and some fun experiences with public transportation! If you come bearing gifts, we can add a continental breakfast to your stay for free... call today!

Further Developments

The big news: Kitzzy and Jason were here this week. Jason is still here for MacWorld. We did some things.

The gory details: read on.

There has been some polarizing in the photography community in our apartment. By which I mean, Kacey takes all the photos, and I don't take any. She is committed to taking at least one photo every day this year and posting the results on flickr. See, I was trying to be punny when I titled the post 'further developments.'

New Year's was uneventful, which was kind of relaxing after scrambling to acquire items from craigslist after Christmas. Our energy level/available time/interest in posted items had hindered even modest furnishing of our apartment since we got here, and we were determined not to pass up this opportunity while I was away from work. We got a couch, a file cabinet, and a small dresser. This may not seem like much, but it was kind of our crowning achievement of the break: there is now somewhere to sit in the living room other than camp chairs, and we finally emptied most of our boxes from the move. This really only leaves two boxes of art supplies, which I'm not sure we really have room for anyways, or much reason to have readily available as we do most of our stuff-making on the computer lately. We also picked up a new rug. The acquisitions, in addition to actually cleaning up the place, meant that when Kitzzy and Jason arrived on Friday night, and Kat and Ray came over to join us all for dinner, we actually felt like human beings capable of having friends over, instead of bewildered creatures clinging together trying to stave off the cold. We didn't happen to get any pictures of any Kat and Ray's chocolate-smeared toddler or Kacey's experimental peach pork that night, but we took some pictures with Kitzzy and Jason over the subsequent days, which of course you can see on Kacey's, Kitzzy's, or Jason's flickr.

Kacey and I decided a month or so back that we would wait for Kitzzy and Jason's trip to do some of the more touristy things here. So in three days, we walked on the Golden Gate Bridge, drove on Lombard Street, took a ferry to Alcatraz, and saw the sea lions at Fisherman's Wharf. And I had a sourdough bread bowl full of clam chowder, which is probably more significant than everything else that happened. Because it was delicious. Kacey went to the Academy of Science with them, which apparently was a good time. But I doubt it can stack up against the chowder.

A Very Ziggy Christmas

I am not sure if this will be a continuing trend, but I seem to be the unofficial hav-wartz holiday correspondent. Maybe Chris will write the New Years post and document all our wild and crazy times.

On Dec 23rd we were still missing a Christmas tree. We both planned on surprising each other on the same day by purchasing a tree while the other one was sleeping. Chris was planning on picking up a tree on his way home from work in the morning, and I wanted to go get one after he arrived home to go to bed. Neither of us could execute these goals because the car battery died the night before. While Chris was out purchasing jumper cables for the car, the apt buzzer rang and I opened the door to find a delivery man with a Christmas tree in his arms. Chris' parents had ordered us a tree from a local florist, and the timing was great because while Chris was gone I had time to set it up in the living room. Instead of "running errands" like he said, he was out at a tree farm trying to pick out a tree to carry home as a surprise. Unfortunately they didn't have any in the size he wanted, so when he returned empty handed, he was happy/relieved to find his parent's gift. It was the perfect size for the living room and came decorated with pine cones and berries. We added lights and it made our little hearts fill with Christmas cheer.


On Christmas Eve we were starving so we decided against going to the grocery store and taking the time to make dinner. Instead we went on a walk through the city to see what restaurants were open. We ended up at Bill's Place, a family owned diner specializing in burgers. They cut and grind their own beef daily and some of their burgers were created by and named after celebrities; the The "Carol Doda" burger pays tribute to the legendary North Beach stripper with two matching patties sitting side by side, topped with olives. Get it...the burger is supposed to look like boobs :) I ordered a banana shake that was fantastic, and it was more than enough for both of us to share. After eating we had the joy of walking uphill 10 blocks back to the apt, but the food made it all worth it.

My parents sent me a San Francisco 49ers sweatshirt for Christmas. This is funny because they are the football team I became attached to in 4th grade because everyone else liked the Cowboys. I followed them throughout the years, eventhough I never lived in California or planned on living here. My dad would always get me San Francisco 49ers calendars and other memorabilia each year, and so this year the gift was especially fitting. I hope to attend a game at their stadium and wear the new sweatshirt sometime next year:)

On Christmas day, we drove to Kat and Ray's house in San Mateo...about 35 minutes from our apt. Chris worked with both of them while he was going to UCF but I had only met them once at their going away party, before they moved here two years ago. It was so thoughtful of them to invite us to be part of their holiday celebration, and it was nice to spend time with familiar faces when we were so far away from everyone this year. We met their adorable (almost 2 yr old) daughter Aria, Kat's father and sister, and we all ate dinner together, played video games and watched Christmas movies. It was a lot of fun and we hope to have them over for dinner at our apartment sometime soon.

Christmas magically extended to today, when Chris was able to find a nice tv for a great price on craigslist. He also surprised me with a gift he had been hiding under the table for two days:) We are hoping to get some more furniture this week while Chris has off work. Hopefully this translates into Kitzzy and Jason having something other than camping chairs to sit on when they are visiting San Francisco next week. Also with that new tv, we were able to watch one of Chris' favorite holiday past times...an old network televised Christmas special called "Ziggy's Gift". . . which as of last year we own on dvd. It teaches of Joy, Love, and more Love and Joy.

It was hard being away from family this time of year, but next year we know to purchase plane tickets well in advance :) We hope everyone is having an awesome holiday/winter break and that we talk to you all soon.

Afternoon Conundrum

No real news today, I just felt like writing something so I could rub it in Kacey's face that she hasn't written a post in a while. She is currently sleeping. I normally would be too, but a colleague pointed out that today is supposed to be the only sunshine we'll have for a week, and I didn't want to waste it. Unfortunately I made this decision only after Kacey stayed up most of the night, so she's missing out. I suppose I'm kind of missing out as well, sitting here at the computer instead of going to the park or walking along the coast. But there's something about not having a tiny weird human next to me during such activities that just makes them slightly less worth doing. Maybe I'll go bang some pots and pans together. But then she'll think I'm cooking her breakfast. Hmm...

A quick review

We've been in San Francisco for something like six weeks now. It has flown by in some ways, and dragged on slowly in others. During the road trip out and the first two weeks or so here, we were keeping a list of the (debatably) interesting things that we did or encountered, and planned to write about them for all the world to scrutinize/ignore on this fine blog you're reading. But as it turned out, after we finished the posts about the trip, we sort of lost our steam and didn't really write much about our "new life in the city." Instead of continuing to entertain the notion that I will some day share whimsical musings about the things on that list, I thought I'd take a moment now to expunge them from my brain. With new perspective, most of them seem incredibly inane, and I see little point in bantering on at length about them. But part of me is wondering whether sharing this in an abbreviated list form actually makes it even more useless than going on in detail about any of these items, because any significance they may have is only accessible through elaboration. Ironic.

We have acquired a bed, bookshelf, dining table/chairs, and a desk. We are still lacking a couch. And a chimney through which Santa could deliver it, so we're kind of in a bind.


We have explored the surroundings somewhat, and we found a puddle and some weird green stuff that we didn't expect to be in a city.


Random stuff:

• This is the fourth place I've lived in a row where the closest business is a Walgreen's. I think this is a conspiracy to keep me eating their Mediterranean fruit & nut mix.
  
• Kacey seems to have discovered a taste for Indian food. Mild Indian food, anyway.
• There are other people in this city. We have even hung out with some of them.
  
• We are finding life without a microwave to be considerably more agreeable than we would have thought.
  
• We have now attended two ILM parties. Kacey won a puppy at one of them.
• I am growing increasingly accustomed to the night shift. My only remaining hurdle is sleeping while hanging upside down from the ceiling, and I've got a guy coming in tomorrow to install some support scaffolding, so I'm counting that box as half checked already.
• We've been going to Golden Gate Park once or twice a week to do a fitness course there. But the weather's been getting colder and the days shorter, so I think we're going to switch to open water night swimming pretty soon.
  

There are more moving in pictures to behold if you so desire.

That wasn't even a very good list. Man.

Mmmm gibblets . . .

From the outset this Thanksgiving seemed slightly doomed. We hadn't even purchased a dining table until a couple days before the big feast (thank you Aaron from Craigslist, we wish you the best of luck in France!)

We were expecting to include these items on our Thanksgiving menu:

1. hilarity
2. turkey
3. mashpots
4. yambos
5. green beans
6. cranbizzle
7. corn
8. those rolls (you know, the kind made out of bread)

Following the construction of this list, Chris asks, "If we have a turkey that will feed 12-16 people, should we cook enough of each of the other items to feed the same number of humans?" Decidedly so.

On the big day, in addition to waking up late, the pan I bought for the turkey was about a quarter inch too big to fit in the oven, the bird was still frozen when we took it out of the fridge, and in the end, we cooked it about an hour more than it required. But when we finally sat down to eat, our focus shifted from being tired and stressed to being thankful for all the food in front of us, and the opportunity to eat it in an exciting new place together.

During this holiday weekend last year we were attending my grandpa's funeral in Maryland. In retrospect, this Thanksgiving's culinary short-comings were quite trivial in comparison, and although the dinner may have taken place a little late, I am very grateful that my family is doing better and that they could spend this time together.

We re-lived this meal in its entirety for five more dinner cycles and for brunch on occasion as well. Starting today we will be exploring new turkey options such as sandwiches, quesadillas, soups, and more. We hope everyone had a great thanksgiving holiday, and in case you were too busy eating turkey to catch it, here is a link to the best part of thanksgiving 2008 (in my opinion)

oh yeah, and pictures.

Cue Obese Chanteuse

We left Las Vegas around 11am, and proceeded to drive through the Mojave desert. This eventually turned into hills, and we saw a bunch more windmills, which Kacey once again demanded that I photograph. We stopped at a ridiculously windy gas station, where the wind blew the car's gas cap fuel door thing closed repeatedly. EXCITING!

At some point along the way, we realized this was it. There were no more fun stops, no more diversions. We probably should have realized it a lot sooner, but the point was this: we weren't on vacation any more. There was no turning back and driving home to Orlando. Across this unfamiliar land full of new sights, we were driving home. For Kacey, it was a home she hadn't seen before, except for a picture or two on craigslist. I was somewhat worried that she wouldn't like the place I had picked out a few weeks earlier on a trip to San Francisco. But I still had an enormous half of an enormous sandwich to keep me from worrying too much. Alternating comforting bites of turkey, pastrami, coleslaw and rye, I listened intently to election results on NPR as each mile brought us closer to our new home by the Pacific.

Between adjustments to the radio tuner to keep NPR audible, I made a phone call. We arranged to meet our new landlord at the new apartment around the new 9pm, and we arrived in the new city around the new 8:00. Presumably because of the extra hour, Kacey told me that she had developed some sort of instinctual navigational system and wanted to try to find the apartment by feel rather than having me navigate for her. This may very well be the craziest thing she has ever said to me, but I stopped keeping track a long time ago. We ended up in the Castro, San Francisco's most fabulous neighborhood, where there were numerous people celebrating Obama's victory in the streets. The resulting commotion and unexpected pedestrians, combined with my lack of faith in Kacey's mystically acquired navigational skills, transformed her from a small, docile and adorable creature into a 5'3" ball of white hot rage. After about 25 of the most challenging minutes of the trip, we eventually set a course to the new apartment. At about 8:57pm, we reached our new home. Barren, dusty, and with repairs scheduled for the next day, the apartment welcomed us.

We had reached the end. But in many ways, we have reached the beginning. Between jobs, between homes, and between destinations, being on the trip was like existing in limbo. As much fun as we had, the prospect of standing on firm ground again is kind of appealing. Until the earthquakes start.

Saying goodbye and packing everything up in Orlando was like closing a chapter of our lives. Or mine at least; I don't know what kind of crazy stuff goes on in Kacey's head. The trip was full of new experiences, but also reminders of the past and visions of the future. As we begin the next chapter of our lives, we want to say thank you again to everyone who has helped us along the way, whether by taking us in, helping us out, or simply making us smile. We hope to see or talk to all of you again soon, and we hope that you have enjoyed following us on this journey. We've enjoyed sharing it with you.

What manner of zany adventures await our heroes? Find out on the Hav-Wartz blog. You're already on it; just come back in a few days or so and there will probably be something new. Oh, and here's a hint: it's likely to involve working, sleeping, or eating. All of which mean raw, unrestrained adventure and excitement.

Sin City

So we checked into the Mirage hotel around 4pm and spent about an hour wandering through the lobby of the hotel and casino. We had tickets to Cirque du Soleil "Love" (choreographed to the Beatles) at 10pm, so after grabbing a couple drinks we went for a walk on the strip. We watched a "peformance" of the Bellagio fountians, walked through Caesars Palace and were asked (while holding hands), "whether we were married or just practicing" two different times by the same person. Apparently marriage is really just a question of whether or not you are holding your partner's hand just right. Gentle with a protective grip maybe? I'll ask my parents later.

We returned to the Mirage and ate dinner at Carnegie's, a deli which is popular in New York City. Chris, after a fair warning by our waiter, ordered this.

Everyone stopped to stare when the waiter brought this monster out of the kitchen. Half of that sandwich tagged along for the remainder of the trip.

After dinner we took a brief nap and woke up to go see "Love." I bought a 5 dollar Sprite, which Chris wasn't too thrilled about; but it was sold in a commemorative cup and now we have something to cherish the experience forever:) The show was fantastic. It wasn't a typical cirque performance because it had a little more singing and dancing than flipping and flying, but it was a great balance of acrobatics, music, and theatrics. Plus the visuals were stunning. We both really loved "Love."

After sleeping in our seriously amazing beds, we woke up the next morning ready to gamble! We each started with 25 dollars. I know it sounds lame, but we were playing the nickle slots and it would have taken forever otherwise. Chris won 71 dollars at one point on a quarter slot machine and of course I lost all of my money. In the end we broke even, which happens to be the key ingredient for an uninteresting blog post.

Lets do a final recap of our trip through sin and back:

Scandalous attempt number one: Get Wasted!
We each had one drink.

Scandalous attempt number two: Gamble all our savings away!
We broke even.

Scandalous attempt number three: Dessert for breakfast!
Score!!!

So in the end, it was for the best that our worst offense was a sweet breakfast, because on our way out we saw this guy. And no one wants to offend him this time of year.

Las Vegas Photos

Dam you, Colorado River!

We were driving down the highway in Arizona when we saw a sign that said something about a security checkpoint we had to pull through. When we stopped, the following exchange took place:

Security guy: "Do you have any food?"
Kacey: "Not any more." (I have no idea what this meant, or what cataclysmic event she was alluding to)
Security guy [looking at a container of rice in the back seat on a stack of food packages and baking supplies]: "What's that, rice?"
Kacey: "Oh, yeah."
Security guy: "Go ahead."

I'm not sure if I should be more concerned at Kacey's apparent inability to classify food items, or the security guy's lack of interest in her blatant lies. In any event, this is how our Hoover Dam experience began.


So the dam is like... big and stuff. We weren't initially planning on stopping there, but we were a little ahead of schedule so we decided to do the basic self-guided tour. Kacey quickly read through the exhibits and proceeded to take pictures of the dam itself, while I leisurely filled in the gaps of knowledge from middle school about how electricity is made. Oh and muckers. They are important. I had no idea how wide of an area is served by the water and power provided by the dam. Seriously I think next year they're going to start irrigating the moon with it.

In all honesty, I never thought much about the dam before I got there, but it was pretty cool and interesting, so much so that I annoyed Kacey by slowly reading almost everything I could and just staring at the vastness of it. Sometimes I like to pretend I know things about engineering, which is completely untrue. But seeing stuff like the dam makes me think that engineering could have been a fulfilling career path. Then I remember that I like seeing dinosaurs move. And shiny objects.

The Hoover Dam is a triumph of engineering and the human spirit. Kind of like a Turducken.

Hoover Dam Photos

Alien insurance?

Leaving Carlsbad we had originally planned on camping at Bottomless Lakes State Park and visiting Roswell the next morning. But because our visit to the caves was shorter than anticipated, we decided to stay the night at a hotel in Roswell instead. Of course this drastically increased our chances for an alien encounter, but a nice bed with blankets will always win over a cold desert floor(at least when one's camping gear is buried in the depths of their trunk). Additionally, I think most of our warm blankets were waiting for us in a box at the greyhound station in San Francisco.

We arrived at a hotel around 5pm and when they asked how much we wanted to insure our belongings for against alien abduction/destruction, I didn't know what to say. Do aliens use laser beams these days or mind powers? If lasers, the damages would be irreparable. I can afford a little emotional therapy for my toothbrush but if the bristles are burnt to ash I just can't work with that. This involved way too much research so we decided to just try our luck. Besides, isn't it true aliens want to abduct your body, not your toiletries or feather pillows. At least this was my understanding. Maybe I would learn different at the museum the next morning.

The museum admission was 5 dollars a person. We each got to wear a neon green sticker which would allow us to return all day until 5pm!! It is hard to believe that the whole Roswell phenomenon began with one man's discovery of some unfamiliar metal on a farm. Mac Brazel, you are a legend.

The museum was a spacial time-line, including pictures of UFOs and crop circles, various gov't attestations, and plenty of pop culture memorabilia(this is for Becky). And as the grand finale to our self guided tour, we found ourselves facing a reclined prosthetic alien being! Good show UFO museum. Good show.

The true spirit of this small town could not possibly be captured within the walls of this museum. If anything it was a barrier to the real and true Roswell. Stepping outside one could see this was a town of acceptance. Look at the Arby's photo above. They will serve aliens, and probably with a smile.

America voted for a black president this year, and I imagine Roswell would have no problem voting for a green one either.

Roswell photos: http://flickr.com/photos/kcjane84/sets/72157608802547551/

Carlsprettygood

I read this cool essay by Ansel Adams while we were at the Carlsbad Caverns park, in the Chihuahuan desert in New Mexico (which apparently has more biodiversity than the Everglades). The essay was enlightening and inspiring. Unfortunately, college trained me too well to forget everything I read after a few days, and I'm writing this post from the future. I contacted the park to ask them what the title of the essay is so I can find it again. I'm waiting to hear back. I think it was about the fragility, connectedness, timelessness, and beauty of nature. Which seems typical of something you'd read at a national park, but somehow I thought it was special. So there.


The Big Room is something like 700 feet underground. Before we got there, for some reason I thought I had read that the underground chamber was 700 feet tall. And I had seen an image that I thought was enormous natural stone pillars leaning on each other. Which I also thought were 700 feet tall. It kind of reminded me of the Mines of Moria from Fellowship of the Ring. But somehow I was wrong on both counts. Although the chamber is quite large (I think the largest in the western hemisphere in some category, like a natural limestone cave or something), its ceiling is nowhere near that high from the floor. And I have no idea what image I had seen, because I didn't see any such enormous natural freestanding pillars.


What we did see, though, was still pretty spectacular. There was one quote from an early explorer of the cave (or maybe it was Ansel Adams) about it being both creepy and beautiful, and just about the most alien-feeling place on earth. That seemed fitting. Almost everthing was a pale off-white color, with some very faint hints of colors in different areas (I guess the lighting they use is supposed to reveal the natural color of the formations). You can read all about how the caves were formed online, I don't know if it's something I should bother getting into here because I'm bound to omit or misquote something. Well... I'll try real quick. Basically, acid and acidic water carved away the limestone to form the caverns, and then trickling groundwater slowly deposited minerals and created all the "decorations," or stalactites, stalagmites, columns, draperies, popcorn, and soda straws. A lot of the decorations look like specific forms, like lions' tails, people, and gothic architecture. There were other cool things too, like huge blocks of gypsum, fallen boulders, and lots of bat guano. Apparently the caves were discovered by following the thousands of bats that make their homes their in the summer. Discovered in the Christopher Columbus sense I mean. I guess we missed the bats' nightly exodus from the cave's natural opening by just a few weeks, which is something I'd definitely want to see if I make it back there again.

So... not quite what I expected, but pretty cool. If you are ever in the area, I'd recommend it. Apparently the guided tours are pretty good, but we didn't end up doing one.

Our Carlsbad Caverns photos
Also, if you are feeling like a traitor, you can check out some of the National Park Service's photos.

Texas poop-rise.

After a fun night in Amarillo (as described below), we embarked on a long drive through Texas to reach our next destination. During about 90% of that stretch manure air filled our car like one would expect gas to fill any small gray 2005 chamber on four wheels.

In addition to the foul scent, this section was probably the least interesting of the entire drive (aside from a new found ability to see past vast land expanses). With that said, no one will probably bother clicking any photo link I make now...so I will just force you to look at pictures by including them in this post.

Interesting Picture One: Cotton Field.

Interesting Picture Two: Damn, I think the cotton was about all I got.

Don't think we will be seeing you again too soon Highway 62.

WTF, Amarillo?

I don't really know how to describe the horrors that took place in Amarillo. It's still difficult to talk about to this day.

You might say it was Google's fault. Google had us get off the highway about 20 miles before the exit we should have taken for the hotel we had reserved. At our previous gas fillup, we had budgeted enough to get us comfortably to the hotel. But we learned soon after exiting that the hotel was nowhere to be found. In fact, it seemed like nothing was anywhere to be found. There were indistinct lights in the distance in every direction. So we constantly felt like we were near something, but we didn't know what. Farms? Oil fields? Or just creepy yellow lights erected to disorient and infuriate out-of-state vistors? As the dashboard gas light came on, we wondered whether we were about to embark on an adventure with AAA. But after 15 miles or so on the business loop (a highway we never should have been on), we discovered an oasis in the desert:


This gas station was our Ecstasy of St Theresa. It was Halloween, so there were a bunch of people in costumes, which made everything even weirder. At least I'm assuming those were Halloween costumes. In the grand scheme of things, I was about 39% relieved. We got gas, but our phone call to the hotel yielded very little directional information. We spent the next half hour driving west on what I assume is the main drag of the eastern outskirts of Amarillo, waiting for a sign of an actual city and growing increasingly disappointed.

And then, all of the sudden, we were bombarded with every sign of an actual city you could ever imagine, simultaneously. I wish I had taken a picture, but we were both awestruck and focused on finding the hotel. It seemed like the entire city was one enormous shopping center, extending for miles in every direction, with every chain of restaurant, electronics store, clothing store, everything you have ever seen. I wondered if perhaps at some point in its history, Amarillo was incredibly isolated and had only small local businesses, then the idea of chains was introduced and they just did it Texas style. Which I am assuming is "do it big, or don't do it at all." This was the exact opposite of the ethereal suspicious lights in the distance. Everywhere there was a store with a brightly lit and clearly readable sign. I had no idea where the people lived, or if they all drove in from the outlying areas. I am sure Amarillo is in fact a lovely city with a rich history, lovely residences and respectable citizens. But that night, it was our hell.

We had hoped to get to the hotel early to catch up on some blog posts and internet research for the days ahead, but we were rapidly getting behind schedule. We continued driving around this commercial orgy for probably half an hour, alternately deliberating about whether we should just get back on the highway and bypass this forsaken land, and cursing this terrible place. We had already reserved and paid for the hotel, and I really wanted Kacey to be able to rest. So after two more phone calls to the hotel and a bit more driving, we eventually found it.

The irony is that, in retrospect, it should have been very simple to get to the hotel. In the area around it, there are one-way access roads running parallel to the highway on either side. The hotel was located on one of these access roads, its sign visible from the highway. But because we exited early and the planets aligned to spite us, we were coming from a completely different direction and had no idea such an organization of roads existed.

In the end, the responsibility for this catastrophe is probably distributed among Google, the hotel clerk, and us. But that night, it was all Amarillo's fault.

Things We Learned in Tulsa, Oklahoma

1. Tulsa squirrels are ridiculously fat.
   
2. Concrete from 1957 is not to be trusted (see also)
   
3. Erdinger Hefeweizen is pretty awesome.
4. Wienerschnitzel, German goulash, and hot potato salad are also pretty awesome.

We left our hotel in Springfield, Missouri and drove a few hours until stopping in Tulsa. At some point in the past few weeks, I became incredibly lazy with road trip planning (probably about 5 minutes in). But Kacey diligently did a lot of research to determine how we could break up the drive into decent-sized chunks, minimize driving in the dark, and see some interesting stuff along the way. In Tulsa, she found a rose garden where we stopped to stretch our legs in the sunshine and take some pictures. Once we got there, we also visited the Tulsa Historical Society, then went to a German restaurant for lunch. After our Tulsa experience, we climbed back into the car and headed off towards our next destination: the tenth circle of hell, also known as Amarillo, Texas.

Tulsa pics: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kcjane84/sets/72157608779632616/

Happy Halloween!

So we forgot it was Halloween. . . until we had to pay a toll on the highway. From then on our memory was restored.

Thank you Banana Boy(aka Johnny #1758) for giving us enough concentrated holiday spirit to last us well through winter.