So I realise I've been a ridiculously lax blogger in recent months- I can only offer laziness and having-too-much-fun-doing-other-fun-stuff as an excuse. Also I can directly blame a certain Norwegian who has suddenly taken up vast amounts of my time. His name is Morten and he is lovely and a half and is now accompanying me in my travels across the Central Americas and Cuba. Unfortunately for the both of us, him being Norwegian and my being Australian means that we couldn't conceivably live any further from each other (I actually looked at this on the map), unless perhaps if he moved to the north western edge of Greenland. Now that's gay. But I reckon if I tried hard enough I could get the Norwegian government to pay me to go to Norway, or get them to pay him to come to Australia- apparently 12 per cent of the taxes that they pay, they get back in the form of 'vacation money'. Paid to take holidays?!?! Socialist geniuses.
So how to sum up the months of March, April and early May in the USA?? It has been craziness and a half. Managed to fit a second trip to Tahoe for more skiing action, with a fiesta of other internationals: 2 Spaniards, a Turk, a Norwegian, 2 Chileans and 2 Aussies to boot. Much beer was consumed, an insane amount of slopes skied on and 1 Chilean froze his balls off running into the frigid icy edged waters of Lake Tahoe for 20 bucks. The same Chilean almost got deported in my last blog- Mathias has a talent for creating his own fun and action.
Needless to say, Tahoe offers vastly superior skiing conditions to that in Australia. At Northstar resort, I skied on runs that went on and on for kilometres, with beyooootiful conditions... by the end all of our leg muscles were ready to cack it, but the awesomness of the whole affair overrode my instinct to faint from muscular exertion. So we skied and skied til the resort closed.
Spring break was another episode of awesome and a half. I joined fellow Aussies, Jamie & Kat, Norway (Morten) and future president of Spain, Paula for a week long roadtrip across the south west corner of the USA. The mainstops: LA, the Grand Canyon in Arizona, Zion National Park in Utah, Vegas and Death Valley California. After a brief frolick through LA's In and Out (an exellent burger chain notorious for secret word commands such as 'animal style' with grilled onions, or the more adventurous 'protein style'- a burger with no buns, wrapped in lettuce, or 'flying dutchman'- 2 patties and 2 buns. Dave, an American that lives down the hall from me in IHouse swears he saw someone order a 24x25- a burger with 24 patties and 25 buns) and numerous other errands, we set off at the crack of for Arizona. We reached the Grand Canyon in the late afternoon. Much to our surprise, it was FREEZING. We were effectively snow camping, yet all we had envisioned was a desert like conditions with cowboys yeehawring down ridges towards the Colorado River below. Yet we were decked out in all the layers we could find, looking like homeless hobos.
As for the canyon itself, it was absolutely mindblowing. Due to its wild exposure and worldwide renown, I hadn't been that psyched for the canyon. Sure, it was going to to be pretty, I had seen all the pictures. But I should have been psyched, because nothing quite prepares you for seeing the grandeur of the place with your own eyes. It is simply massive. The most massive thing I have seen in my life, possibly. The way the sheer cliffs just drop down into this gaping chasm, carved out over centuries by water, ice, wind... it was incredible almost to the point that the whole thing was unbelievable. After watching the sunset, we cooked dinner in the frigid snow and comforted ourselves with hot chocolate (that consisted of 50% Baileys). After a shit sleep (due to frigidness) we woke up and watched the sunrise over the Canyon. Needless to say, it was amazing and made all the more amazing by Kat's operatic renditions of Puccini and our Disney reenactments of Colors of the Wind and Circle of Life, all of which received applause from fellow sunrisers. We then walked down the stunning South Kaibab Trail, following a beautiful ridgeline down towards the Colorado River basin. After our obligatory 'Lost and Found' session with Paula, we collected her from the visitors center and proceeded to Utah.
As we drove from Arizona to Utah, I came to the realisation that America, is in fact quite a beautiful country. It was winning me over, and winning me over big time. Living in Northern California had been the bomb, but as we drove past huge, red monumental sandstone formations, then through snow covered peaks with vast pine forests, then through huge plains with the sun's rays bursting momentarily through the clouds, I thought, 'S*/¿! this place is beautiful'. Along the way to Zion, we were met with one of our biggest obstacles: 8 RVs, all lined up, all identical to one other, bar the front leader, the big boss, the Don. Like a real life game of Gran Turismo, Morten floored it and began overtook them at the correct strategic moments, one by one. We celebrated wildly after we finally overtook the obese leader RV.
As for the canyon itself, it was absolutely mindblowing. Due to its wild exposure and worldwide renown, I hadn't been that psyched for the canyon. Sure, it was going to to be pretty, I had seen all the pictures. But I should have been psyched, because nothing quite prepares you for seeing the grandeur of the place with your own eyes. It is simply massive. The most massive thing I have seen in my life, possibly. The way the sheer cliffs just drop down into this gaping chasm, carved out over centuries by water, ice, wind... it was incredible almost to the point that the whole thing was unbelievable. After watching the sunset, we cooked dinner in the frigid snow and comforted ourselves with hot chocolate (that consisted of 50% Baileys). After a shit sleep (due to frigidness) we woke up and watched the sunrise over the Canyon. Needless to say, it was amazing and made all the more amazing by Kat's operatic renditions of Puccini and our Disney reenactments of Colors of the Wind and Circle of Life, all of which received applause from fellow sunrisers. We then walked down the stunning South Kaibab Trail, following a beautiful ridgeline down towards the Colorado River basin. After our obligatory 'Lost and Found' session with Paula, we collected her from the visitors center and proceeded to Utah.
As we drove from Arizona to Utah, I came to the realisation that America, is in fact quite a beautiful country. It was winning me over, and winning me over big time. Living in Northern California had been the bomb, but as we drove past huge, red monumental sandstone formations, then through snow covered peaks with vast pine forests, then through huge plains with the sun's rays bursting momentarily through the clouds, I thought, 'S*/¿! this place is beautiful'. Along the way to Zion, we were met with one of our biggest obstacles: 8 RVs, all lined up, all identical to one other, bar the front leader, the big boss, the Don. Like a real life game of Gran Turismo, Morten floored it and began overtook them at the correct strategic moments, one by one. We celebrated wildly after we finally overtook the obese leader RV.
The beautiful-ness of the American landscape came to climax in Zion National Park, where we entered to find massive, towering pink-red-grey rocks formations that were simply overwhelming in both size and beauty. As Morten drove down the windy road, the rest of us peered out the windows, making the occasional orgasmic noises when we glimpsed a piece of scenery so stunning that it incited that particular form of sound production. Poor Morty had to keep his eyes on the road though, in order to avoid us plummeting Thelma and Louise style over some cliffy edge.
We spent a day and a half exploring the awesomeness of Zion. On one of our longer hikes, Morty and I managed to get ourselves to the top of the valley, and waded through some decent snow to find 'Observation Point'. Here we observed the Zion Valley in its entirety, whilst a poor bloke who had eaten a dodgy fig puked in a distant corner. He did kindly manage to take a picture of us though. In my opinion, Zion was even better than the Grand Canyon- as the Grand Canyon so grand that it defied comprehension. Too much for my little brain to process. Zion was more accessible, more tangible, more brain-processible. From Zion then, it was off to that infamous desert city- Las Vegas. This was, however interspersed with a most satisfying trip to a Walgreens in the middle of the windiest plain in Utah. Here, we made one of our best finds: Mormons! Real, genuine Mormons! Shopping in Walgreens. Kat accordingly did her duty and stalked them with the best of her Asian kungfu abilities. She monitored their purchases like a hawk, one of which included orange juice. How mormon-ish. We returned to the vehicle feeling more worldly, strangely satisified, and in good supply of weird flavoured lime chips.
Then Vegas. That horrible, yet oddly addictive little strip. After viewing some of the most ridonkulus natural beauty I had ever seen, to enter Vegas, in all its artificiality, was a true shock. It was the pure antithesis of what we had seen in Zion. Fake Paris, fake New York, fake Italy, fake Egypt. We checked into our Pyramid Hotel and spent the day wandering the strip. Unfortunately with Morten being the only one legitimately over 21, life was a bit limited for us in Vegas. That didn't stop us from enjoying the Bellagio's fountain show a few times too many, and from eating through a challengingly HUMUNGOUS meal at Outback Steakhouse, an American diner chain that sells food under the pretence that it is uniquely Australian. Where in Australia it is normal to eat fries lathered 3 inches of cheese and bacon, and to eat steaks the size of your leg, or to cut onions the size of soccer balls into flowery formations and then deep fry the crap outta them; I shall never know. As we struggled with our gargantuan plates, the manager did pay us an exclusive visit. Perhaps rumour had reached him that some real Australians were indahouse.
After visiting the fascinating outpost of Vegas, it was off to Death Valley. It is a blisteringly hot desert, home to the lowest point (not underwater) in the US, a place called "Badwater". It's -85m, and is a salt pan that is blindingly white, but also very cool. The Valley itself is bound by some rather impressive mountains, and from the peak of the highest one of these mountains (I forget the name) to the valley floor, is a distance of over 3 km, which is a drop even bigger than 'that of the Grand Canyon's. We amused ourselves by hurriedly climbing over the Mesquite sand dunes to watch sunset whilst gorging on biscuits. We finally settled on a spot in the sand and played uno until it was darkly. A sweet day.
The trip back to L.A. was mostly uneventful, but punctuated with a few bursts of activity in the form of a real life game of supermario karts with a series of white cars that had questionable driving morals. We returned to Pasadena, L.A. extremely pleased with ourselves, and extremely pleased with America. What a lovely nation.
Next episode I shall tell you the tales of Big Sur Hot Springs, protest marches in the crime capital of california, the incredible beauty of Shasta and Oregon state, Bill Gates, Bill Clinton and the finish of springtime in the Berkelian and Bay Arean world. And then, I can finally get to telling you about where I am now- the incredible, and very very wet Central Americas.
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