Memories of Trips Past

Because it's been over a year since I did the journey, and so I have a travelogue of my itinerary and activities before I forget, this post sums up my daily activities for the entire trip. Yay. I wish I'd done the full three months as originally planned, in hindsight.

Day 0 (Saturday, Sept 05 2009): Travel from Toronto to San Fransisco in the afternoon using an Aeroplan Reward ticket. Spend the night at the dismal Courtyard San Francisco Airport.

Day 1: Take the BART into downtown San Francisco and pick up my cheap cheap rental car for the month. Drive back up to the airport on the back streets to get a feel for residential San Francisco, and check out. Drive north over the Golden Gate Bridge and through the John Muir Woods area (skipped due to being super crowded!) Drive up the shoreline highway 1 and stop at some scenic viewpoints, and hike some short cliffside trails. Spend the night at Fort Bragg, CA.

Day 2: Continue to drive North and leave the coast, driving inland. Stop and hike some trails in Humboldt Redwoods State Park after driving throuhg Avenue of the Giants. Continue on to Eureka, CA for the night.

Day 3: Continue north on the coast road and arrive early at the Redwood National park visitor center to get a pass to the Tall Trees restricted access area (tallest tree in the world.) Hike Tall Trees, Lady Byrd Glade, then go up to Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park and set up camp on the beachside campground. Do a loop hike here late in the afternoon that ends up taking longer than expected, hiked the last 3 miles and 1 hour in the dark.

Day 4: Continue up towards Jedediah Smith State Park . Drive the scenic loops and hike the Boyscout Tree trail as well as another one. In mid afternoon, drive into Oregon along the coast roads, and stop at Coos Bay for the night.

Day 5: Head east and inland with destination Crater Lake National park. Arrive early afternoon, and book the lake boat tour (restricted availability.) Hike down to the lake, lather up in sunscreen, and take the two-hour tour of the lake. Back up to the top, then set up camp at the National park Campground. Drive the Rim Road loop around the lake for some sunset/dusk pictures, then back to camp.

Day 6: Early morning rise and hike up Mount Scott for a sunrise view and an overall perspective of Crater Lake. Descent back to ground, feeling glad to have missed the troup of 50 middleschoolers noisily making their way up, then drive east through the Oregon Badlands. Stop in Bend to browse the Columbia Sportswear Factory Store, then on eastward. Stop at Boise for the night and book a Motel 6.

Day 7: (Saturday, Sept 12 2009): Today was a down day. Puttered around in Boise doing laundry, watching the local college football game, etc. Late in the afternoon, head northeast for a drive through Sawtooth National Forest. Camp overnight at a roadside State Park Campground next to the rushing river.

Day 8: Exit Sawtooth NF and grab lunch and watch an NFL game at a pizza joint in Ketchum. Continue east and arrive at Craters of The Moon National Monument in late afternoon, and spent the evening hours wanterind the short, moonscape trails around the visitor access center. Free hiking the lava fiels is neither allowed nor recommended. Camp for the night in the campground, amid a volcanic wasteland.

Day 9: Travel/Driving day, but taking the more scenic route. Drive through the southern Idaho rangeland, stopping briefly at Atomic City, then on down to Provo UT for the night at a seedy Motel 6. Meat up with John & Dan for beers.

Day 10: Take an early departure east up scenic Provo Canyon Road, then a long scenic drive across the Utah Plateau to Moab, south of Arches National Park. Book a campsite outside of Moab for the next three days. Head into Arches NP late in the afternoon to catch sunset lighting and see many of the roadside sights, like Balanced Rock.

Day 11: Full day of hiking inside Arches NP. Overall it's a small park with not many trails, so it's easy to hike most of them in 1-2 days. Included the Primitive Loop, Balanced Arch, Broken Arch, Double Arch, and other 2-3 KM loops. Some of the more backcountry trails unavailable since gravel roads washed out or unpassable due to recent storms.

Day 12: early morning rise to hike the slickrock trail to Delicate Arch and catch the morning light. Hardly any crowds this early, only 4-5 people at the arch while I was there. The crowds were coming in thick and fast as we left, however: good to catch this one early (even if sunset lighting is supposed to be the "best".) Spend time during the day wandering around Moab and its shops. Mid afternoon, drive back into Arches for the pre-reserved "Fiery Furnaced" guided tour through the more intricate and maze-like parts of the park.

Day 13: Break camp in Moab and head down into Canyonlands National Park for some daytime hikes. Visit Aztec Butte and its cliffside granaries, Upheavel Dome, and Island In The Sky trails. Then head west towards to Torrey UT for the night.

Day 14 (Saturday, Sept 19) : Spend the day in Capitol Reef National Park hiking some of the canyon trail and driving the scenic route. Eat pie at the Fruita Visitor's center before heading southwest on the scenic drive to Bryce Canyon. This took a lot longer than expected and I had to grab a campsite in Henrieville in the middle of nowhere.

Day 15: Continue into Bryce Canyon National Park for the day. Drive the rim road, hike the Navaho Loop, and other activities. Set up camp for two nights at the NP Campground.

Day 16: Early rise to catch the sunrise from Observation Point. the Bryce Canyon cliffside are east-facing so capture the light really well. Spend the rest of the day hiking the remaining trails in the NP -- this park is best seen in a single day, and I didn't need to spend two nights here.

Day 17: Leave Bryce and head southwest to Zion National Park. Reserve a cheap motel Springdale for two nights, then head back into Zion NP for the afternoon. Park the car at the visitor's center and take the mandatory shuttle bus system to the attractions. Hike up Angel's Landing, regretting that I forgot my camera memory card. Back into town for dinner and sleep.

Day 18: Back into Zion to stop at some of the roadside shuttle stop attractions, then up to the end of the scenic road to hike the full length of The Narrows. Back to the motel at the end of the day wet and tired, but worth the trip.

Day 19: Leave the motel but head back into Zion NP to hike the Observation Point trail. Mid afternoon, yead north towards Nevada and stop at Cedar breaks National Monument to check out the short rim trails. Stop for the night at Ely, skipping Great Basin National Park due to time constraints.

Day 20: Make a beeline west across Nevada and end up in Davis, CA for the night at Jer & Siobhan's place.

Day 21 (Saturday Sept 26): Pick up Thomas and Alyssa at SFO in the morning and then head down central California to set up campe for three nights at Sequoia National Park.

Day 22: Hike the Big Tree Grove, see the General Sherman Tree, and other Sequoia park activities.

Day 23: See more sights in the area... Chicago Stump, Boole Tree, Buck Rock fire lookup.

Day 24: Wander the Big Stump Meadow with 100 year old piles of sawdust, then head up to drive the King's Canyon National Park scenic route towards Muir Rock. Then, head north towards Yosemite for the next few days, staying at the Housekeeping Cabins within Yosemite.

Day 25: Wake up early and hit the trails one hour before sun-up, to hike up Half Dome and then back down, an 8-12 hour journay.

Day 26: a down day after the long hike yesterday, end the day with a sunset hike up Sentinel Dome.

Day 27: moredome hiking as we head up to the North Dome trails across the canyon from Half Dome. Thomas & Alysa head back to campsite by car while I take the Snow Creek trail down 93 switchbacks to the valley floor. I then get lost in the dark and have to call Thomas to pick me up once I reach an identifiable landmark along the road.

Day 28 (Saturday, Oct 03): Head into the Yosemite High Plateau area along TIoga Road, then hike into the Cathedral Peaks glacial area at around 10,000'. Head back into camp for the final night in Yosemite.

Day 29: Leave yosemite early and drive back to San Fancisco and drop off Thomas & Alyssa at the airport. Head back to Davis CA to spend an afternoon and evening with Jer & Siobhan again.

Day 30: Idle day in Davis then head back to San Francisco for the afternoon. Check into the Airport Motel 6, then head into downtown to return my rental car, and spend the evening in the city.

Day 31 (last day, Oct 06 2009): Back up and head to the airport for the flight back to Toronto.

All Work and No Play

Not much in the way of any really interesting trips recently, all for work. Business travel isn't a joy when there's absolutely no time to do anything on your own, or you've bee to the same place too many times.

Just back from some time in Seattle for the Common Use Working Group (CUWG) meetings at the airport with a bunch of peers in the industry. Then, home for laundry and off immediately to Miami to visit with a customer.

The most adventuresome moment was the drive across the thumb of Florida to Naples to visit my grandmother. An excellent morning of chat and lunch was had but I needed to rush back to attend some calls. So no time for beaches, fancy restaurants, or anything.

And I think Big Brother has it out for me. After 4 years on the Nexus program sailing through inbound customs going to the US or coming back to Canada, I was selected for "random screening" on both of these recent trips. Hmmph. The Toronto screening took an hour; the Montreal screening was much more information, I wonder why..