Day One-hundred-and-fifty-three: Beautiful country

Today's traveling was so beautiful, I decided to take the more scenic route another day.  I've been in three states today, Arizona twice.  The first time I entered Arizona, on I-15, I thought sure I was going to have to go into a tunnel but instead there were several curves through some beautifully sliced rock walls.  After I was through the slices, it was difficult to see much change as the canyon walls were just as shear but perhaps a little further from the road.  Both were spectacular.

Even though I had only gone 139 miles, I decided to get gas in St. Georges.  Then I changed my Prius navigation system to area three and my destination as the Zion National Park Visitor's Center.

Zion was spectacular as well.  Since I had to pay $25 just to drive through it, I decided to take the shuttle all the way to the end of the road and walk another mile into the canyon.  The pictures I took on the walk were good but cannot show it well.  (While at the end, I did my guided meditation with the roar of the water as the background.  I could hardly hear the voice on my ipod for the water.)  I didn't stop anywhere else in Zion National Park because I couldn't have seen it all and one more wouldn't make that much difference.  I'll just have to go back.  (Yet another place that Marilyn would have really loved.)

Leaving Zion, I set my Prius up for a Best Western in Farmington, New Mexico.  I figured I could get there before midnight.  Then as I drove through more and more spectacular scenery, I decided to stop before dark, which finds me in a Courtyard by Marriott in Page Arizona.  Their restaurant isn't open for dinner and I didn't feel like driving to a less than satisfactory non-vegan restaurant.  (Although a hot meal is becoming more attractive the further in time I am removed from my last one, Thanksgiving Day.)

I was surprised at some of the sizes of the towns, well one town, Kanab, on this side of Zion.  I think it had everyone of the fast food standards.  Glen Canyon and Escalante were also spectacular.  I didn't even bother taking pictures of all the beautiful swirling and layered red and pink and white rocks.  I just enjoyed them.

I'm going to have to travel more in my Life after Layoff.  I wish I had done so in my life before layoff.

I finished listening to the Garrison Keeler CDs.  The last one, number five, had a long skit on jokes with guest Paula Poundstone.  The last two came from one of the musicians:

• What is the definition of a "perfect pitch?"  It is when you throw a banjo in the dumpster and it doesn't touch the sides.
• Son to father:  "When I grow up I want to be a musician."  Father to son:  "Son, you can't have it both ways."

Day One-hundred-and-fifty-two: Nevada Backcountry

I didn't look in the Atlas for the "as the crow flies" distance between Reno and Las Vegas, but I followed the short route on my Prius navigator.  This had me going NW, SE, E, and S.  It also had me on a wash board dirt road for what turned out to be only 14 miles.  The maximum speed I could go on that road made me believe the Prius' navigation estimate of 11 hours.  It was actually closer to eight hours.

The scenery before it got repetitive was really great.  Even the repetitive parts were great, but literally two or three hundred miles of high desert caldera looking land.  Every once in a while I had to cross the rims that it looked like the caldera through up.  I did take some pictures.

I had my doubts about the dirt road that got worse.  About a mile from Alt 95, right at Fortchurchill, it became paved again. I thought that I was coming up on a town but it turned out to be a Nevada Auto Test site.

The mountain tops were dusted with snow but the road level was clear, even at the plus six thousand feet.  While still on the dirt road I passed a formation that looked like a small version of the Devil's Postpile.

The dirt road ran along Carson River.  I took a picture but all that can be seen are trees.  Of course in a desert, the only place a tree can grow is where there is water.  This route took me through Virginia City.  Marilyn and I did make it to Virginia City once because she wanted to see the city that the Cartrights rode to from the Ponderosa.  (We drove by the Ponderosa a couple times near Lake Tahoe but never stopped there.)  We toured "The Way It Was" museum and I thought about stopping and taking a picture but that was when the Prius was telling me it would take 11 hours to drive to Las Vegas.

I'm sure Marilyn would have liked Tonopah and Goldfield.  She probably would have had me pull into the 20-mile beach at Walker Lake.  There were long stretches where we couldn't have stopped for a rest break and I made it all the way to my exit in Las Vegas, which was surprising, given the amount of water I drank.  The air is dryer.

I set the Prius up to take me to a Whole Foods in Las Vegas to post my flyer for the Marilyn Westbrook Garment Fund.  As I was leaving Reno, I happened to be driving right by a Whole Foods, so I stopped in.  They didn't allow customer postings.  All the way to Las Vegas, this stuck in my mind.  But when I got to the Las Vegas Whole Foods, as I was checking out, I asked the clerk about posting it.  She said, "Sure, just put it on the bulletin board over there."  There was a perfect open space for it.  I'll still have quite a few left when I get back to Ohio and West Virginia so I will have to take a different way back to California.

Early tomorrow I want to leave for Zion National Park.  I don't intend to stay there long as I also want to get all the way to Gallup.  I had thought to take a more northern route into Taos but that would be even further on roads that zig zag as much as my Nevada travels today.

Even though I have not burned through all the money I set aside to gamble with, I will not be going out to a casino tonight.  Conflicting desires mean that I'd prefer to go to sleep early to be able to get up early over getting all smoked up again.  Tough choices in my Life after Layoff.  Oh well, there are Indian Casinos in New Mexico and River Boat casinos in Saint Louis.  And there is always the return trip.