OK. Just Okay.

Well, not a lot to update yet. Roswell to Oklahoma City has been fairly boring. Not a lot to see. Except we have completed our longest stretch of nights spent in Walmart parking lots. Six.

Not proud. But it is free.

We did get our first taste of Texas, though, crossing through the panhandle. I've never seen so many cows. Driving down the road you'll see a big black spot in the distance. When you get closer you realize that it's really a field packed with cows, shoulders to haunches.

In case you didn't get it, aliens are all Roswell has going for it. Even the Walmart gets in on it.

We stopped in Amarillo, TX. Not much to say, except it looks to be the Detroit of the Southwest. On our way out we came across a home where the owners put up signs in their yard with poems and such, and this cryptic little non sequitur.

Apparently architects are hard to come by in Texas.

We also passed through Friona, TX, which calls itself the "Cheeseburger Capitol of the U.S.A." However, we didn't see one burger joint, except for a Sonic. Liars.

We pulled in to Midwest City, a suburb of Oklahoma City, yesterday to spend some time staying with Nikki's cousin Shanelle and her fiance Adam.

If our rib dinner tonight is any indication of the time we're going to have while staying here, I'd say we're in for a treat.

Paint the Desert Red

Back on the road at last! It feels good to be back in the Dod with her sweet aroma of gasoline mixed with sweet cherry air freshener and coffee, feeling the engine rumble beneath our feet and listening to everything from Prairie Home Companion to the Mars Volta.

Yesterday we drove north from Phoenix into Flagstaff and made a pit stop at Montezuma Castle - dwellings built into a stone wall by the Sinagua in the 1100s. There are about 45 rooms in the "castle" pictured below.

Unfortunately, visitors are not permitted to tour the dwellings due to much deterioration over the centuries.

How did they get up there?

This was the view (and, of course, the source of water) for the Sinaguas from Montezuma Castle.

After Montezuma Castle, we drove through Flagstaff and froze our butts off. We ran a couple errands and headed east towards Winslow, AZ. On the way, we came across signs for the meteor crater attraction. The 50,000 year old meteor crater is two and half miles in circumference and over 500 feet deep. Unfortunately, "the man" has been able to fence off and privatize that land and charge $15 a head to see the big hole. So, Chris and I give the man the finger and take pictures from the brochure.

Wow! For free, we even got to see the actual meteor plummeting towards Earth!

Even though we missed out on the Grand Canyon, we got to see a picture of another big ditch.

This morning, we continued east and drove up through the Painted Desert. We watched a short film on the history of the Painted Desert, Petrified Forest, Theodore Roosevelt and Route 66 before taking a stroll through the petrified garden. You might recall the visit to the petrified garden in South Dakota that charged $5 a person. Remember, the rock that resembled a ham? Yeah, that's the one. Well, come to find out, petrified wood isn't as rare as SD would like you to think. Petrified wood has been found in every state in the country! And that makes me this happy:

But, you know what makes me sad? Thieves. Damn greedy tourists steal a ton (literally thousands of pounds) of petrified wood from the Petrified Forest EVERY MONTH. It took millions and millions of years it took to turn the trees into stone. People are disrespecting Mother Nature and Father Time when they steal. Legend has it, anyone who steals from the Petrified Forest will be cursed with bad luck until they return the stolen goods. We're talking about relationships collapsing, planes crashing, alcoholism and even... giant blisters.

Dozens of people write in each year sending back the stones. Many testify that the guilt and bad luck they've endured since they stole the rock has been overwhelming.

Creature from the Triassic period at the visitor center.

Petrified wood, what!

OOoohh... AAaahh....

Petrified wood gets Chris pumped!

Quoth the raven, 'Nevermore' to make plunder out of petrified wood.

Petrified wood rock face.

Does not make good firewood.

A whole petrified tree trunk.

Hm... this wood is hard as a rock!

We picnicked down the road at Lacey Point with a view from the Dod of this:

The layers of color are similar to the hills in the Badlands.

El Desierto Pintado

The painted desert.

In the afternoon, Chris pulled into Mark & Stoney's Garage to have a mechanic take a look at the new belt that was just put on. Stoney tightened up the tension of the belt but he said we should put a smaller one on soon.

A site from the road near the border of Arizona and New Mexico. How would you like to live there?

Once we entered New Mexico we headed to the historic city of Gallup developed on Route 66. It was lined with a pattern of Indian arts & crafts shop - cheap motel - gas station - drive-up diners - repeat. We're currently camped out at the Gallup Walmart, the strangest and busiest Walmart we've visited since Salt Lake City.

When drinking is outlawed, only outlaws will drink

We bid adieu to Utah today. It's been real. It's been fun. But it ain't been real fun.

Actually, it was pretty darn cool. Much better than we expected. (Nikki - "Moab? Where's Moab")

However, one tiny little fact hindered the experience from being all that it could be: the state controls the liquor. We've all heard the rumors about the booze scarcity in Utah, but I never could have fathomed the iron-fisted grip they keep on their spirits in that state.

After a few days in the canyon, we headed back to town to stock up. A woman at the local grocery store gave us directions to the Moab State-run liquor store. However, Monday was Columbus day and the store was closed. So we headed into the Canyonlands with a tiny little bottle of grappa Nikki had been saving. No big deal.

However, by the time we completed the drive to Salt Lake City we were thirsty. I mean, that's a long drive, you just need to unwind every once in a while.

We were going to be spending the night in the (crazy spooky) SLC Walmart and decided we should just get some beers. Or so we thought. In Utah they can only sell beer that has 3.2 percent alcohol in grocery stores. Oh, cruel, cruel world. What a rip off.

Dismayed but not daunted we roamed the streets of SLC looking for a bar.

After charging or computers at a Subway we stumbled upon Duffy's, and for $1.75 a piece we were each handed a nice, frosty glass of beer.

Little did we know how lucky we were, because every other bar we came across was members only.

Recharged, we headed home for the evening after a little stroll through SLC's south side.

The next day we rode our bikes through downtown SLC. It is nice, neat and clean, and you always have a view of the mountains to the east. Also, we found two of the best bookstores Nikki or I have ever been to.

After several hours roaming shelves we retreated to the Dod and made our way out of town. But first we wanted to see the "Great" Salt Lake.

Did you know that "Salt Lake City" isn't even on the Salt Lake. BS, right?

In my head I had always pictured a bay or something.

So we drove 20 miles out of town in our attempt to find this so called Lake. And after 30 minutes of driving around corn fields and horse pastures, we found it. Almost.

Salt Lake has an island in it. It is a state park. There's a long bridge that goes out to that state park. Five miles before you even get to the lake, they want you to pay $9, just to spend the day there. Not only does this state guard their booze with the totalitarian zeal of a despot king, they keep a lock on the Salt lake too.

We asked the attendant at the gate if there was any public access to the lake near by. She told us No, but if we wanted to drive down I-80, towards Las Vegas, Nevada, we could see it from the expressway.

Well, I've seen enough lakes in my day that i wasn't about to give Utah my nine bones. Heck, I lived smack dab in the middle of the gol-darn Great Lakes. Bodies of water actually deserving of the title.

Forgive me, I'm just a little bitter.

Needless to say we continued down the road. However, within an hour we could see the shimmering waters of the Salt Lake and we took the first exit we found to try and once again breach the state's defenses.

Now they wanted $10 from us to see their lake. Except this time the guard shack was unmanned, so Nikki punched the gas and we busted through.

And then there it was, the Great Salt Lake, rimmed by mountains to the west. I stuck my feet in the cool waters and Nikki did a cartwheel in the sand. Then we hightailed it out of there before we got caught.

All in all, we had a pretty good time in Utah. But we must be moving on. We're making a pit-stop in Burley, ID for the night before continuing on to Boise. Then it'll be another trip through the mountains before Washington. However, now that we're out of the canyons we should be able to post more often.

Until next time.

Canyonlands By Foot and Uinta By Dod

Captioned photos of Canyonlands National Park and Uinta National Park below.

But first, a word on WalMart. I've grown fond of the notorious WalMart over the past four weeks. Despite their unfair treatment of and poor wages for employees they've made a decent impression on me personally. WalMart provides me a lot to lay my head in every third night or so. WalMart sells me beverage to wet my whistle and ease my mind. WalMart gives me free DS and Wii games to sample. And most of all WalMart is a prime people-watching venue.

On that note, Salt Lake City WalMart is a special case. I saw one of the oxymoronic hairstyles I've ever seen : a slick poof patch of wavy black hair on the back of a shaved head. And me without a camera... The beer aisle offered a maximum of 3.2% alcohol. Say what?! Even disregarding the preconceived notions of Utah, I've seen and heard more children than I ever wish to again. In the women's restroom there were no less than three toddlers crawling unsupervised in and out of the stalls. Two more were yanking out paper towels by the dozens. One peculiarly pale young lady strutted her stuff down the aisles in a black tank top and jean skirt with heels she could barely stand in. Twice, people emerged out of nowhere in the parking lot soliciting tamales. And finally, our cashier had a lanyard made of human hair. Salt Lake City WalMart, you're one-of-a-kind. You can thank God for that!

CANYONLANDS NATIONAL PARK

Tuesday, the Dod got two separate compliments. The first was from a guy rubbernecking out of his own VW van to mouth "NICE VAN". The second was from the ranger at the Canyonlands visitor center who said "sweet ride!"

A breathtaking drive into the Canyonlands National Park (free once again thanks to our America the Beautiful pass) lead us to our campsite for the next two days. Fortunately, we were able to claim the very last site of out of the 12 at the camp. We took an evening stroll down to the Green River overlook to watch a sunset that never came due to overcast skies. On the menu for dinner: Beef & Brandy.

The Green River which carved out a channel of rocks that were deposited nearly 300 million years ago.

Chris and the Dod at our campsite at Willow Flat. There were rumors of a wildcat citing late on Tuesday night.

Wednesday morning we got an early start to attend a geology lecture with a park ranger. After the talk we took our newfound knowledge on a leisurely hike around Grand View Point overlook.

Me, posing after an informative geology talk by Ranger Nathaniel. I'm standing on the highest level of sandstone cliff referred to as the Wind Gate. The Wind Gate is made up of a dense matrix of well-sorted layers of sand lithophied hundreds of millions of years ago by weight and pressure when this land was nothing but a massive dry desert.

Chris posing while we hiked around the White Rim. The White Rim was formed after the Wind Gates when this land was a huge salt-water beach. The white edges of the cliffs were formed from the sand on the white beaches. The white rim is hard and erosion-resistant.

The center of the photo shows some of the Chinley Formations. They are also of the sedimentary variety, but less rigid and more prone to erosion. They were formed when the land was a tidal mud flat and the rivers deposited many different sizes of material from silt to boulders.

Breathing in the fresh air until a geriatric behind us let one loose that echoed through the canyons. No joke. Even Chris was like "What the hell was that!?"

The prom picture we never had.

Can you spot Chris Peters?

Incaptionable.

Chris wished he had his G.I. Joes to play with here. I wouldn't understand... I never played with dolls.

Tuesday afternoon after a lecture on John Powell, native Illinoisan who ventured west to map new land, we took another hike to view the Upheaval Dome.

Small rock piles guide the way and man-made stairs assist in the hike up the steep sandstone to Upheaval Dome.

View into the grand Upheaval Dome in the Canyonlands. Two main creation theories are it was either created by salt tectonics or by a massive meteor crash.

Chris curmudgeonly posing in front of the Upheaval Dome (his words, not mine)...

Me, doing an interpretive pose of this knotted, dead tree.

Lily the Lizard, tour guide.

Next, we took in the sights at Buck Canyon.

A fantastic display of the multilayered beauty of cumulous-rich blue sky, towering La Sal mountains in the background and Buck Canyon in the foreground.

A view of the White Rim.

More rocks.

UINTA NATIONAL PARK

Wednesday we departed the Canyonlands bound for Salt Lake City. The highway drive was more scenic than a lot of parks I've seen.

View from Highway 15 en route to Salt Lake City.

Another view from Highway 15.

The weather went from cold and windy to warm and sunny to cool and foggy to cold and rainy to mild and sunny.

Fog-busters!

Jesus wuz here.

We took the state 92 road which lead us thousands of feet above sea-level on winding roads for spectacular views. We almost camped in the high altitude for the night but decided against it due to cold temperatures and rain.

The Dod in front of a spectacular view in Uinta National Park near the Timpanogos Cave.

Hidden-away waterfall.

The Dod posing in front of the waterfall cache.

Another waterfall amongst the rocks.

These here are Dalmation Trees. There's 'bout a hunderd million of 'em on 92.

Snowy peak in the not-so-far distance.

On 92 in Utah. One of the top three most scenic drives of the trip thus far. This would have been very similar to our campsite view had we decided to camp for the night.

Alas, we opted for a WalMart instead for the night. It's been adventurous none-the-less, just not in the preferred outdoorsy way. Sweet dreams, guy with poofy slick patch. Sweet dreams, children crawling on bathroom floors. Sweet dreams, Dod. Sweet dreams, you.