Days 14 & 15 - The End, Part 1

We started the day in Rocklin with a delicious breakfast with Dan's niece and her boyfriend at Venita Rhea's (look closely at the mural when you're there...). Then we headed north on US-97 towards the Shasta area.

it's just cool that this has to be a
sign at Sierra Nevada Brewery

But no trip to inland northern California is complete without a stop at The Holy Land...aka the Sierra Nevada brewery in Chico. If you know Dan even a little, you know how vital this little magical place is to his, um, lifestyle. It is actually a really impressive operation, known for it's amazing commitment to sustainability. It's nice to support a business that is truly dedicated to managing their environmental impact.

We mosied on up the road through lovely Klamath Falls, OR with an ultimate destination of Bend, OR, one of our very favorite towns. The Goog was telling us about 8 hours from Rocklin to Bend, but we considered the aforementioned F-L-L-R effect and knew we'd be there pretty late. We rolled in around 9:30pm, headed to the 10 Barrels Brewery for a late dinner, grabbed a bundle of firewood and headed just a few miles north to the Tumalo State Park campground. This is a fantastic, family-friendly place to camp just outside the city if you are looking for somewhere to go close to Bend. Highly recommended.

Upper Klamath Lake

On the way into Bend we began discussing the fact that a big Northwest Overland event (Spring Plink, Drink, n' Trek) was taking place over the weekend just a couple hours from where we were going. Originally we planned to to drive all the way home, then Dan was going to return almost all the way back to Bend the next day. As the desert dust was clearing out of our brains we realized the foolishness of this idea, and arranged for a rental car in Bend to get Amy home to rescue the pets and keep Dan from adding miles, hours, and gas payments to the trip.

The next day we went back into Bend and were able to have a nice long lunch with one of Amy's oldest and dearest friends, who works in Bend helping low-income seniors with meeting housing needs. After a nice lunch at McMenamin's Old St. Francis School (awesome outdoor seating!) we picked up a zippy little Hyundai Accent at Enterprise and split our stuff in the parking lot of a laundromat. It was like some sort of twisted high school breakup. We said "See ya around sometime" to each other, and Amy headed off to the north while Dan hunkered down to wash some dirty duds.

Amy's drive into Seattle was beautiful. A stop at the Stonehenge World War I Memorial on the Washington side of the Biggs crossing over the Columbia River for some breathtaking views, right underneath the massive wind turbines. Headed up through Yakima, stopped in Ellensburg as the rain was looming overhead. Got home late that night, happy to be back, and rescued the dog from the kennel...all healed up from his unfortunate altercation. We're sure it was the other guy's fault...

Day Thirteen - It's Easy to See How the Aliens Chose a Landing Spot

We got up pretty early, for Vegas, and got on the road right away. We had a dinner date with family all the way in Rocklin, CA (just shy of Sacramento) and we had a lot of miles to cover.

We hope you looked at the pictures from yesterday, because the contrast of today's pictures is astounding. Not one hour away from our hotel the landscape turns utterly raw and barren, in a windswept beautiful way. You can practically see the UFOs jockeying for terrain.

this road looks fun...

We meandered on up US 95, also known as Veteran's Memorial Highway. We could see the end to the sunny weather up ahead, and it looked rather ominous. It turned out to just be a rainstorm, which effectively washed 99% of our Moab mud residue off the Disco. Western Nevada is amazing. There is NOTHING out there, for miles. It's so easy to imagine pioneers and explorers riding through that area, and it actually has a lot of history. We stopped for lunch in Tonopah, at a restored hotel called the Mizpah, which has been through many owners and hosted a number of famous people as the town's mining economy waxed and waned. It's currently owned by the people who own Cline Vineyards in California. They have a rockin' Zinfandel...

Shortly after lunch we happened upon an abandoned salt mine. We pulled over to check it out, and it was like nothing we'd ever seen, right there on the side of the highway. About an hour past that we came around a bend and happened upon a huge weapons depot, spooky little mounds extending as far as the eye can see, followed by giant Walker Lake which was the first hint of groundwater we'd seen for many miles.

Google Maps told us back in Vegas that a dinner date in Rocklin was reasonable. Google Maps is a dastardly liar, or else it doesn't take into account the Fully-Laden-Land-Rover effect. It was clear to us at this point that we weren't on schedule, but we pressed on towards Reno.

Speaking of Land Rover effects...

Time for all the Rover doubters to start nodding your heads with a knowing smile. Cruising into Reno, the engine started intermittently cutting out the slightest bit, right around 62mph. Gulp. Dan was pretty sure it was the vehicle speed sensor, and it seemed to behave ok if we kept it around 55. Better picture-taking speed we figured.

We headed through the south Lake Tahoe area right at the most beautiful sunset we'd seen in a long time. This was where we originally intended to camp the previous night, and it was darn cold outside so we didn't regret our second Vegas night.

We finally pulled up at Dan's sister's house a little after 9pm. Everyone was kindly waiting up for us, which we really appreciated since it was a school night. We had a great visit and were happy to reconnect with our Cally peeps.

Day Twelve - Livin' Large in Sin City

What overlanding blog is complete without a whole entry about Las Vegas? It really is an almost other-worldly place. Clearly, the odds are with the house. It is phenomenal to behold the amount of money invested in the grandeur, architecture, details, and just the whole mass of it all.

a fountain outside Caesar's Palace

We've been to Vegas a few times and discovered we don't have much of a taste for gambling. We'll throw a few bucks in some slot machines but that's about it. One thing that is interesting is that it seems like the casinos have all ceased the nonstop jangling on the casino floors. That's a relief. Vegas is a whole lot more about drinking, dining, shopping and shows these days. The hotels are mostly on the inexpensive side (we paid only $29/night for a place on the strip, only a bit north of the main attractions) but the food and drinks are quite expensive, especially if you go to one of the more famous places.

Our usual gig is to meander right to Margaritaville in the Flamingo, park ourselves on the upstairs deck, and people watch. Unfortunately, Vegas was having a fair amount of wind the whole time we were there so the deck never opened. Luckily there is no shortage of places to sip a beer and ogle the crowd.

We had a great time wandering the bigger spots - Cabo Wabo in Planet Hollywood, the waters at Bellagio, and the "streets" of Paris.

a ceiling in Bellagio

We happened upon some amazingly talented street musicians, which was a really cool discovery. We ended the evening sharing a nice steak right in our own hotel, prepared to get back on the road the next morning.

Day 11 - Away In a Cloud of Dust

Ok, so, camping is dirty. In case you were under the illusion that 4 days in a windy, dry desert location was a neat and tidy experience, well, it's....not.

Everything we own was covered in a fine sheen of red desert dust. Hankering for a nice shower, we peeled out of the campground at Mormon Lake on Sunday morning and headed back into Flagstaff for some breakfast and route mapping to our next destination.

Viva Las Vegas babay!! We headed out across western Arizona - hot and desolate but very beautiful. North out of Kingman, up to the Nevada border which is also the location of the Hoover Dam. We pulled off and went over to that amazing spectacle of human ingenuity. Scary high views - the highway bridge that gets you across the gorge is almost the most impressive part of the whole area.

We got into Vegas around 6 and checked into the Riviera Hotel. Not one of the higher-end spots on the strip but totally great for our purposes. Really nice big pool in the middle courtyard. We washed the 8 pounds of dust off ourselves and hit the pool. It was still over 80 degrees outside and so balmy and nice.

We planned one night in Vegas and then moving on to a campground just outside of Lake Tahoe the next day. However, it took us about 38 seconds to decide on spending both those nights in Vegas. We admit it - we're poolside vacationers at heart. And we were looking at a 33 degree night in a just-opened-for-the-season campground, vs. a nice balmy night people-watching on the strip.

What would you have done, eh?

Days Eight-Ten - Good Friends and Big Trucks

Ah...Overland Expo. The reason for this whole trip. Always a great experience, it's fun and inspiring to spend a few days with like-minded travelers, many of whom have been around the world and to some of the most remote places on Earth.

We arrived on Thursday afternoon and found a spot to set up camp and hoist the NWOL flag. We were right by new NWOL member Jim Henderson, a great guy who flew airplanes for the Air Force and then became a world-renowned oceanographer. One of the projects he spearheaded was building a submarine for Paul Allen - really interesting to hear all about that.

As the campground filled up, we met so many great people, many of whom had heard of Northwest Overland so it was rewarding to see that lots of people in this community are aware of what we're doing. 

Friday morning launched a two-day whirlwind of classes, slideshows, films, roundtable discussions, and circulating through the vendor areas. Some of our favorite experiences: an inspiring talk by a couple from Boulder who became empty-nesters and bought a truck with a camper and spent 21 months traveling the Americas, a panel discussion of people who have traveled overland in Mexico (something we are very keen to do), and a class on writing and publishing adventure travel books.

Friday night was pretty cool. We co-hosted a Happy Hour with our pals from Defenders Northwest and wow...it was great! Remember that beer we mentioned hauling down there? Well that keg was tapped out in less than an hour...with demands for more in the queue for Dan's friend who made it. Stay tuned for news on a special NWOL event at Cole Street Brewery. Brian from Defenders Northwest also brought along two different whiskeys from local producer Bull Run Distillery - their Temperance Bourbon and American Whiskey. These were a big hit as well! We ran into a few people the next day blaming their headaches on it....It was a great reunion with our good friend Ben Davenport (check out his adventures here) and featured an amazing sunset as well.

We saw every kind of vehicle imaginable, from down and dirty motorcycles through giant Unimogs that look like something from a post-apocalyptic movie. But we have to declare that our favorite part of Expo is meeting people. This is such an amazing community of brave, creative, interesting people, and everyone is so willing to share their experiences and help to inspire others to break away from the molds we get stuck in, and do something different. 

We are happy to have been able to get down there again this year and look forward to keeping in touch with the great folks we met.

Days Six & Seven - Arches Galore, Hello Flagstaff

Since we could only put a few shots of Canyonlands in our post, if you are interested in seeing more photos, here's a link to all of them: https://plus.google.com/photos/106905053923141996582/albums/6013094165991982113

We couldn't believe anything could be as cool as Canyonlands, but alas...there's also Arches National Park! After a nice breakfast in a cool little hippie joint called Eklecticafe we headed out.

We first took a little detour up Potash road to see the petroglyphs. Really amazing ancient art, right there on the side of the road. No hiking required!

We then headed basically across the highway into the park. Arches is a lot smaller than Canyonlands and just seems a little, oh, homier. Canyonlands is so vast and amazing and challenges any little fear of heights you may be nursing, but Arches is all about the rocks. You climb a steep winding highway that curves around a big cliff and you are greeted with the sight of soaring sandstone and rolling "sand dunes"...which are actually petrified dunes so they are hard rock.

We drove all the way to the end of the road, which was only about 15 miles or so, to a place called Devil's Garden. You can hike all the way back in to a truly magnificent sight - Landscape Arch. There are other trails to other arch views that branch off, and all around you get glimpses of distant snow-capped mountains. It's a very friendly trail, about a mile all the way in.

Proving that the world is truly small, on the way back out of Devil's Garden, Dan and Lucia pulled the Disco over to the side of the road to take some pictures. Right at that very moment, a dirty Land Cruiser pulling a Bantam trailer emerged off a trail...and it was Northwest Overland members Jeff and Lorena Ellard from Wenatchee! Later that day Jeff and Lorena came by our campsite and we swapped travel stories and got a good view of their great setup and cute doggy.

The other really popular attraction in Arches is Delicate Arch, but the area was so crowded that day they weren't even letting people drive down to the parking lot. We stopped instead at Balancing Rock, then headed out and back into Moab for some lunch and supply restocking.

Wednesday morning dawned bright and sunny and while it wasn't really warm, per se, it was warmer than any other day so far. This was the day our little group was parting ways - Dan and Amy heading on to Flagstaff for Overland Expo and Rich and Lucia staying one more night in Moab then heading back to Washington. We had a great breakfast at the Jailhouse Cafe then said our goodbyes and Dan and Amy got on the road.

Really beautiful drive down US-191 into southern Utah. We stopped at the historical Bluff fort for a little history, and made our way into Arizona. Desolate landscape all around, it was like traveling over the surface of Mars. Past the Navajo town of Kayenta, we climbed into some lovely hills and pulled off onto a dirt track for a break and some refreshment.

We made it to Flagstaff around 6pm, checked into a motel, and were able to connect with Brian Hall of Defenders Northwest and his traveling crew of Carl, Jeff and Matthew. Amy's former colleague Zane lives in town and came out for dinner with us at the Lumberyard Brewery. Beeeer.

Oh speaking of beer...we are hauling a keg of it with us! Dan has a friend who started a small brewery in Enumclaw, WA (Cole Street Brewery) and together they came up with a new IPA we are calling Overlander IPA. It's inaugural tasting will be at a Defenders Northwest/Northwest Overland happy hour on Friday evening at Expo...if you're there come by and sample it, along with Temperance Trader bourbon whiskey created by Bull Run Distillery in Portland.

We'll be off to Expo on Thursday, and likely won't have enough internet mojo to post any updates till we move on, probably Sunday afternoon.

Day Five - Oh Baby!!

Monday dawned with heavy clouds and fairly cold (low 40s) but no rain in the forecast so we were ready to get out of the campsite and start exploring.

We dedicated the day to discovering Canyonlands National Park. It is just an indescribable place. Vast canyons and rock formations, with such a huge variety of colors and landscape. We'll post a few pictures here but in a later blog we'll post a whole gallery of pictures from this day. It was the most incredible day!

We started off with a drive around Horsethief Campground, where Dan and Amy stayed last year. We stopped by the Island In The Sky Visitor Center to check out a 3D topo map of the area and plan out our day. Even at the Visitor Center you can see views like this:

Island in the Sky

We made our way to Mesa Arch, a very popular photo spot. You literally have to stand in line to get a photo of the arch without strangers in it. It's a breathtaking view, and some people even climb on top for a photo. We were sure those teenagers were going to blow off at the next big gust of wind...

We headed over to Upheaval Dome, a bizarre volcano-ish formation whose origins are just theory. There was a small hike up to the edge of the dome and that's where we knew we were at 6000 ft elevation! We had lunch at a nice little picnic spot there, shivering in the wind, then moved on.

Green River Canyon

Next stop was Green River Outlook.You can look waaaaaaay down on the White Rim Trail, a long multi-day offroad trail that goes all over Canyonlands. It starts with Shafer Trail, a precarious descent from Islands in the Sky. Would love to do that one someday!

We moved on to a couple other overlooks, then stopped at the end of the driving portion of the area, Grand View Point. Wow. You just have to see this place to believe it's actually on earth!

So we started heading back to the campsite, but just felt like our day would not be complete unless we left the pavement. Many of the roads are very long and one-way, but there was a good opportunity in the Gemini Bridges road. It takes you to its namesake, which is a really scary place where relatively thin stone bridges (2 of them, go figure) cross over a canyon. It used to be a popular spot for rock crawling, but in 1999 a guy went over the edge so it's blocked off for that now. Lots of rock climbing anchors at the tops of the rocks though...looks like a great place for that. 

Because of the recent rains there were plenty of awesome mud puddles along the way. Trucks got dirty!!

Shafer Trail

Life insurance opportunity

Dirty Disco

Dirty Jeep

We ended the day with a fantastic dinner at Buck's Grillhouse, which happened to be right next to our campground. Moab isn't really known for its cuisine, but if you want a great meal...go there. Well worth it!