Death Valley - Day 3, July 27

George drove most of the previous day as he has issues with letting me drive -it's the man's place, he is more relaxed if he is in control, and my reliance on my peripheral vision as well as my being (he thinks too) confident in my ability to gauge how long I can look away before any oncoming car or cliff can catch up with me (but I've never had a wreck while the car was moving, except for two slight mishaps at 2 miles an hour getting out of a gas station and out of my driveway, but I was a teenager!). So his chest must have been feeling a lot of pressure to let me drive on that 15 mile peninsula at the end of our Grand Canyon trek I told you about last entry. Uncharacteristically of me, I only stole a few glances at the emerging canyon as we went along the no-shoulder, narrow switchback road, mainly because I was trying to convince him to relax. The way out was scarier than the way in because the precipice was on the west side of the road. But the light was good and there were insane trees growing in cliff rocks to keep you from falling over so I was only mildly nervous - unlike how I felt on Highway 1 along the California coast but I'm getting ahead of myself.

The next morning he insisted on driving after we checked out of the Excalibur and headed through Las Vegas' Moon-like mountains into Death Valley's Mars ones. We were thinking being on Mars was pretty cool at the beginning "cool" part of the day as we made our way down below sea level to Death's visitor's center.Then you have to go back up and out for a very long way. They tell you to turn off your airconditioner so that your car wont overheat. So here it is above 100 degrees with my heart patient driving without airconditioning 'cause sure enough the engine began to overheat as we left Mars and ascended into Mercury's hot side. The mountains were obviously volcanic with the steam still coming out of the scattered black rocks which were laying everywhere. Hell would be having to walk barefoot through Death Valley. But still our brand new rental van's engine continued to overheat so we had to turn on the heater full blast to get it to cool down! Then the climb up and down Death's mountains began to melt the brakes and even when we were inspired to put the thing in low gear, we still had to pump the brakes and worried about sliding over the side as we took the turns. We only got one picture as our knuckles were too gripped to secure objects to even think about letting go to hold a hot camera.

The Grand Canyon - Day 2 cont.

The North Rim main visitor center area presented some spectacular views of the Grand Canyon, but it was sad to learn that what I thought was haze was really smog from mines and cities to the west. Is western progress really that necessary?














I'm thankful for advances in medicine and other comforts such as a convenient transportation that lets us visit 4 National Parks in 3 days but the quality of the visit is also diminished by effects such as this. I've always been "Indian" at heart, love the beads, buckskin, moccasins, and their spiritual communion with nature. That reminds me that our guide in Juneau was of Tlingit descent and the relaxed but vigilant way she spotted the bald eagle on a distant tree seemed inherited to me. What would America have been like



if we had been more cooperative with the Indian way of life? Too late now. Thanks Teddy Roosevelt for keeping some of it preserved. When he established the Grand Canyon as a National Park he said, "leave it exactly as it is." Remember that '70's polution commercial where the Native American stands by a littered smoggy highway with a tear rolling down his face?

This is taken after a 15 mile drive down a peninsula to the east of the main visitor center.




My back which has been bothering me for about 2 years now was starting to hurt by the time we got to this part, but the hike to the end of window rock was worth it. This shot shows how windy it was up there. It was also cold!

Day 2, July 26

So we woke up early, 9am our time, 7am Las Vegas time! and fed the kids McDonalds breakfasts as the rumors about cheap buffets weren't substantiated in our experience, while George and I drank our protein vitamin shakes. Then we headed northeast towards the Utah border and



















Zion National Park, which Father Stephen had so compellingly recommended. The geology was very diverse along the way varying from sand dunes to dramatically erupting dark stone edifices and chasms to striated sedimentary sandstone cut outs. But those scenes are on video, so I'll try posting them later. Here's some from Zion though. 
























It's frustrating that you can't get a sense of the immensity of the mountains through the photographs. They just trigger a memory of how overwhelmed I felt but now can't convey. It was a beautifully cool noontime as we drove through the park eating our sandwiches we made in the rental van after stopping at a grocery store. I already showed you a window in the 1.1 mile tunnel that Father Stephen had told me about. The switchback drive up the mountain to get to the entrance was gorgeous.



















Here's a lady rock climbing near the entrance. That is really zoomed in as she was hard to spot on the cliff above us.
























The terrain was different on the other side of the tunnel with neatly stacked layers of rock rather than eroded ones. When I get to heaven I would like to see a time lapsed movie of how the earth was formed, and the whole universe for that matter.

Then after all that drama, there was virtual flatness until we got closer to the Grand Canyon's north rim. tbc

What I did on my summer vacation - Day 1 cont.

Rebecca was a little nervous about take off and landing on her first flight at an aware age, but other than that, she took it all in stride. She loved the peanuts and soft drinks as well as the fold down tray and "reclining" seats. Southwest has new leather ones with improved lumbar and neck supports. There was a comedian on the ship that made fun of the reclining seats that only go back two inches and he demonstrated in small shifts of posture as if he were one of those dolls whose eyes close when they are supine, "awake", "asleep", "awake", "asleep". I forgot to recline one time and noticed no change in comfort. I guess it's supposed to make you think you are in more control of your environment than you actually are.

We got such a good deal on our flights because we had one touch down in El Paso and a lay over in Phoenix on our way to Las Vegas. On both flights, the touch downs caused a delay in arrival because they also use them to let on passengers whose flight delays made them miss their previous connections. I guess it increases their options and lets them fly more people cheaper. So since we got in Phoenix late, we thought that we only had 5 minutes to get to our next plane which was across the airport from where we landed. Not good news for George who gets symptoms in his chest upon exertion. Nevertheless we powerwalked down the treadmill, which Rebecca thought was way cool, to get to our gate. This indeed caused George to feel pressure and dizziness and made him take NTG - his nitro pill. Then we discover that Phoenix is two hours back from Dallas time, not just one! During these episodes the kids got a little quiet, but they seemed relaxed and enjoyed the new surroundings anyway, and thankfully they were short lived.

So we made it to Las Vegas, drug our luggage to our rental van, and checked in to our cool hotel,
if you can hold your breath as you pass through the smokey casino. The people at the slot machines made us all feel sad, but the rooms were nice. Then after dropping off our luggage we stopped at a drive through MacDonalds - $2 more expensive a meal than in Texas! - and headed to Hoover Dam.
























We got there just before sunset.
The glowing chasm was beautiful though I'm not sure how I feel about all the damming of once mighty rivers. (to get a bigger view, click on the pics. To get an even higher res view, click on it again on the next screen.)

Day 1 - July 25th

After all the planning, preparations, making reservations, shopping, scheduling pool vacation maintenance, dropping Kronk the bearded dragon at a friend's house, Pippin at the dog boarders, worrying about expenses, and leaving for the airport on time, it wasn't exactly a relief to finally be on our way because of George's new medical condition that he doesn't like to be talked about. But it's effects were such a big part of our trip, I don't see how I can write about the trip without mentioning it. Why are men so reluctant to talk about any problems? Since he is so reluctant, and hadn't even discussed it in detail with me, you can see what a big deal it was for him to take himself to the doctor a few weeks before our trip. I'll just say that he probably has cardiac ischemia and angina where the heart periodically - way too often - doesn't get enough blood supply and oxygen so that there are symptoms. The doctor won't know what's causing it until he does a heart catheterization which he wanted to do while we were gone and didn't like that we were going to go anyway. Well would you rather die having a very nice time or at your office desk? We picked the former, which by the mercy of God hasn't happened. His heart cath is scheduled for this Monday, please pray that they find the problem and fix it without further ado.

So until we got on the Dawn Princess to make our way to Southeast Alaska, we kept wondering if we were doing the right thing or if he should go ahead and check into a hospital in the cities we passed on the way to San Francisco because his symptoms got bad a few times, though characteristic of angina, they went away after taking newly prescribed nitro glycerin under the tongue. But once we were on the ship, he started to relax more which decreased his symptoms notably.  One thing that helped was that the ship's rocking motion made him not know if he were still dizzy or if it was the boat. He chose to believe it was the boat. And the first few days, there were high winds and waves that caused the ship to rock enough to make very loud clanging noises in the lovely elevators. I even got sea sick.

Back to driving to the airport in Dallas. It so happens that that morning there were terrible explosions of propane barrels in Dallas right by the intersection of I-30 and I-35, which was on our route, and which we could see a few miles before we got there.






















































We didn't hear what the cause of the upcoming billowing flames, smoke, and loud booms that swelled enormously and receded every few seconds until we turned on the radio after we had passed through flying, flaming barrel lids that went right over our van as we crossed the overpass getting on 35 from 30! That was at the peak of the fire, immediately after which they closed the highways. We would have missed our flight if we'd crossed one minute later. It was interesting seeing it on CNN at the Phoenix airport during our lay-over. More on Explosions here. And here's a video that shows the hurtling lids.

I guess smooth sailing wouldn't have been as exciting to write about after the fact. I'm glad for the distance time has given me to be able to write this knowing all 8 of us our 15 pieces of checked in luggage and 4 carry on's, as well as Pippin, Kronk, and the swimming pool survived intact.

More reasons I haven't written about our trip yet

What a hectic week so far! For me anyway as I prefer to only have one extra thing to do a day or less. Monday was get the final curriculum straight for this coming school year, including a call to Weatherford College to see about dual enrollment for Jared and Ben for their senior year of high school. They have done all the math Abeka offers since they completed Trig/Analytical Geometry last year. So I was told that for them to take Calculus at WCC I would need to fill out an early enrollment form, regular college application, and submit a transcript. Well that took all day yesterday as I hadn't conglomerated all their grades yet and had to find a transcript template on line, which I ended up modifying and making my own tables on WORD.

I guess it all turned out pretty well, because this morning as the three of us assembled at the College, the admissions counselor kept saying, "excellent" as he perused it. I have to admit I'm more impressed with their accomplishments after seeing them concentrated on 2 pieces of paper each. They've worked really hard to make good grades, and accrued 186 community service hours each! And that does not include serving as Altar boys and Choir members. But it does include Pysanki sale days, Peroghi making and sale days as well as food pantry and monastery and Mexico orphanage improvement projects.

Next they have to take a placement test and get cleared with the head of the Math Dept. The Counselor was really helpful and told them to come to his office and let him know after they scheduled their test and then again after they take it and he will personally register them without their having to stand in the long, last minute lines. Cool.

Ben's already started a post on the trip which will probably beat mine to the presses.

Ok, we're back

I was advised not to post our travel dates while we were gone for retrospectively obvious reasons. I'm not good at keeping secrets so it's been hard and not completely successful. But we had a really nice, once in a lifetime vacation that included planes, boats, buses, street cars, feet and automobiles. My percentage of being able to say, "been there, done that" has gone up significantly. I'd hoped to be able to post more under "friends and family" while we are gone, to be made public on our return, but the lack and expense of internet access was prohibitive. I only got one post in. And that one was rushed so I hope to reconstruct our trip now that we're back. It will also give me a chance to stay there for a while longer before school starts next week. Oh yeah, I have to call A Beka as they helped fill up our answering machine while we were gone with some curriculum ordering glitch. Back to real life.