Road to Nowhere

For the first time on our trip, we were faced with the prospect of a day of driving with nothing to break the monotony – no visits to pueblos or national parks, in fact nothing much at all. Our sole objective was to try and go from Ridgecrest to somewhere-close-to-San-Francisco, nothing more. A bit of a change, and a somewhat depressing one at that.

After a breakfast that’s seemed to have the staff at the Hampton Inn on the hop due to unexpected numbers of people staying (we ended up getting doled out with small cartons of frozen juice to keep us from running amok when the normal juice dispenser had long run out) we hit the road once again, driving south at first toward Mojave then swung west to Bakersfield, finally joining I-5 north for a distant San Francisco through steadily driving rain and uninspiring scenery.

Thankfully everything changed when we finally turned off I-5 to head to Gilroy, past the San Luis Reservoir State Recreational Area, where the bland, recurring scenery finally transmogrified into something straight out of Middle Earth, all luminous green hillocks, bodies of water glinting in sunlight shafting through heavy grey clouds, and small clusters of hobbits running merrily about, displaying absolutely no road sense whatsoever.

We passed through Gilroy, somewhat depressed that the drive to the town was better than the town itself. Nothing wrong with Gilroy, as such – it’s the quintessential California farming town, with quaint roadside fruit stalls with names like the Cheery Cherry, Glorious Grape and Murderous Melon, still mostly, sadly, yet to re-open from the winter break. Driving through fields awash in water – well, not literally though the fields, but on roads through the fields, we joined 101 north, mashed the foot to the floor (which, in the Ford Escape, achieves nothing whatsoever except a slight increase in engine noise and a drop in MPG, all for no perceptible forward momentum) and joined the throng of traffic heading toward San Jose.

Our plan was sketchy, at best, as it often seems to be, and could be summarized as “find accommodation somewhere”. For reasons unknown, this stretch of the USA was completely devoid of any signage advertising ‘gas, food, lodging’ at any exits we passed. With San Jose looming closer, and nothing spotted thus far, we opted (possibly in error) to join 280 north in the hopes an Interstate would yield better prospects.

It didn’t.

Eventually, strategy went out the window, we drove past the first of three exits to Redwood City, and decided to take the middle of three alternatives – “when in doubt, choose the second exit” has been our mantra for some time, though rarely, if ever, tested. Turns out it was yet another error of judgement.

Redwood City – at least, the part we passed through – seemed like a great place to raise a family, all large blocks, weatherboard houses and hilly, tree-lined streets where you can apparently still leave bikes in the front yard without fear of them being stolen. We descended hill after consecutive hill, hoping for something – without success - and eventually landed downtown, milling about aimlessly. After some period of driving back and forth, we stumbled upon the salubrious Pacific Euro Hotel, but I realized it wasn’t the place for a young family when I walked into a small lobby to encounter a dozing denizen in a wooden chair, and a counter behind seemingly bullet-proof glass.

We opted to press on.

Ultimately, success was close at hand. After a couple of hot laps of El Camino Real and Woodside we found the Pacific Inn (seemingly unrelated to the its more international namesake encountered earlier), made a quick pit-stop to Target to pick up yet more urgent toy purchases for the kids, then drove onto Denny’s for a thoroughly forgettable meal served by the forgettable Sonya, who forgot about our cutlery and a request for more water… so we forgot about her tip.

Tomorrow… San Francisco. It’ll be great to be back.

The lowest point in my life

After a day of outlet shopping, and an evening of gondola rides, water volcanoes, musical fountains and a couple of things closed outright due to sudden, high winds (the pirate show outside Treasure Island, and more critically the Eiffel Tower at Paris) we were ready to get away from a city and back into relative wilderness. We went for one last lap down the eastern side of the Strip from The Venetian to Paris, found (with some relief) the Eiffel Tower elevators were open once more, and headed up to the top floor for what is arguably one of the best aerial views of Vegas, without hiring a helicopter. About the only minuses are the level of haze present in the air, and that from this altitude you really can fully appreciate what a dive Vegas is once you get a couple of blocks away from the Strip.

We returned to the Venetian to collect the car and check out, and finally left Las Vegas via a quick visit to New York, New York and Excalibur, heading via 160 West to Tecopa, then Shoshone, and finally into Death Valley from the south.

It was not at all what I expected it to be – in my mind, Death Valley would only be canyons, salt-flats and sand dunes but it’s a far more complex environment than this. Approaching from the southern end, you drive progressively lower through a long, wide, valley, and at the time of year were visiting, wildflowers were starting to bloom in a myriad of colours and shapes, including a truly weird thing which looked to be hair-like, bright orange spores or fungus, tangled around host plants.

Regardless of this initial surprise however, Death Valley’s primary claims to fame still have to be that it possesses some of the most freakishly wild and colourful looking desert country in the US, and that it is home to the lowest spot in the United States, and one of the lowest on earth – Bad Water, at 282 feet below sea level. Even more remarkable is that it’s only around 80 miles from Mount Whitney, the highest point in the ‘lower 48’. Bad Water has nothing, but in the nothingness is its beauty. We stopped at Bad Water, and experienced both the scenery and the slightly surreal sight of dozens of people wandering, often seemingly slightly dazed, off onto the salt flats as though being called to attendance at a religious cult.

A few miles on from Bad Water is the Devils Golf Course, which can perhaps be most accurately described as a coral reef made out of mud and salt. It’s a sea of small, jagged-edged hillocks crested with razor sharp salt crystals, all designed to tear your clothes, boots, and even you to bits if you fell on it. There’s nothing to stop you from walking out into it as far as you’d like, but after ten or twenty metres most visitors have had enough and turn back to the safety of their car. It’s apparent how Death Valley got its name – crossing from one side to the other would either mean blistering heat and razor-edged salt flats in summer, or those same salt-flats in a freezing winter, made worse by their weakening with rare amounts of rain, ensuring you crack through the buckling crust and sink into deep, thick, black mud like axle grease. As a visitor, today, it’s a sensation. 100 years ago it would have been avoided at all costs.

We drove on through truly alien landscapes featuring hills, mountains and canyons the colour of dropped tiramisu and choc-mind puddings, turning into Artists Point and, ultimately, Artists Palette where literally almost every colour of stone, sand and dust were on display, from the expected browns, blacks and tans through to orange, red, pink, white and green, then swung back onto the main road and to the small town of Furnace Creek, known as the place where the hottest temperature ever reliably recorded in the US was experienced – 56.7 degrees Celsius, on July 10^th 1913. Only one other place, Al’ Aziziyah in Libya, has ever beaten it, and then only by 0. 1^o C. I’ve experienced days in Australia over 45^o C, and truth is it doesn’t seem a hell of a lot more ridiculous than 40, so perhaps beyond a certain point, any measure is redundant, at least from a human experience. Regardless, I can’t begin to imagine what it was like back in 1913, with little water and no air-conditioning. They must have bred them tough in California back then. I’m sure they still breed them tough in Libya…

Thankfully when we were there it was a considerably cooler but even in March the environment has an ability to suck the moisture from you. We stopped in for a couple of ice-creams and drinks, sat in the shade for 15 minutes knocking them back, then realizing we were running out of time and had yet to line up accommodation, we headed off west once again, via a quick pit-stop at Zabriskie Point and the Mesquite Dunes (location of minor pick-up filming of Tatooine in the original Star Wars, for any fanboys in the audience) then continued on in gathering darkness over causeways across salt lakes, and up and down narrow, winding mountain roads, finally clearing the small town of Trona and onto Ridgecrest for the evening, completely stuffed.

Thankfully for the kids at least, the local Hampton Inn had a spa, so while they frolicked (I assume they frolicked playfully, as from my experience at least it’s impossible to frolic miserably or dispassionately) I knocked over a local Walgreens and came home with a swag of American junk food. Everyone was a winner. Well, except for Walgreens.

*note some artistic license has been used in the preparation of this blog. Ridgecrest Walgreens was not robbed that night, at least not by me.

Viva Las Vegas

For a loser, Vegas is the meanest town on earth. 
~ Hunter S. Thompson

Las Vegas has all the amenities of modern society in an habitat unfit to grow a tomato.
~ Jason Love

After a couple of trips to Vegas, to be honest I’m no closer to knowing what I think of it, and more likely I’m further away from knowing than I was before I first went there.

Vegas is a charmless, heartless, grim city. Step away from the Strip and you have a mean, bleak town in the middle of the desert devoid of charm, personality or any reason to visit. It’s a soul-less, soul-sucking place, brimming with places offering constant reminders of the cost of gambling, once you peel the pretense of glamour and fun away – the 'real' Vegas is Pay Day loans, pawn shops, bail bonds, hookers and kitsch.

Vegas is a town constantly hovering somewhere between a party and a melee, far more likely to erupt into sudden, unprovoked, shocking violence than it is into a sudden good time. Vegas is less looking for fun than it is looking for a fight.

Vegas is excess, masquerading as success. It is fun, in a muddleheaded way - just don't look, or think about it, too deeply. The lights are brighter here than anywhere else, the gold more golden, the marble is more marbled, yet the effect is overkill; your senses are carpet bombed into submission. Vegas is saccharine instead of sugar – everything is even sweeter than the real thing, yet all that sweetness comes bundled with a bitter aftertaste no amount of marketing can hide.

Everyone’s a winner in Vegas, except for the losers, the down and outs, and those on the inexorable downward slide toward rock bottom. Those who have already hit the wall and have all but given up are found crouched on pedestrian over-passes holding up brown cardboard signs hoping for change, unable to even make eye contact. Those who are still desperately trying to crawl out of the quicksand sell cold bottled water to tourists, or stand on street corners wearing fluorescent orange shirts, flap-flap-flapping business cards flogging bordellos and strip clubs. Their shirts guarantee girls, delivered to your door, in 15 minutes or less. In Vegas, people are pizza.

Everyone’s your new best friend in Vegas, until you have nothing to offer, then they suddenly find a new best friend. Walk into a hotel and you’ll be swarmed with people wanting to know your life history, all about you, where you’re from, how long you’re in Vegas for…  whether you’d like a cheap show, a free show, any show at all. When you decline, the winning smile and attention fades instantly, their eyes alight on someone else, you’re history, gone, an opportunity no longer worth pursuing. Hang around in their line of sight any longer and you become a hindrance*.


Vegas is crass, masquerading as class. It’s the desperate attention-getter of high school, doing whatever it can to be noticed, yet for all its strenuous efforts it's quickly forgotten. It’s a city where the meek attempt reinvention into what they wish they'd become as adults: in Vegas, everyone’s just won at the tables, or is a suave, cocktail lounge type in a crushed velour jacket, or is a totally extreme party dude, or a princess on the town. Everyone’s a roaring success. Everyone’s a winner. Everyone has limitless quantities of cash. All possess superhuman endurance and livers immune to cirrhosis. If everyone in Vegas partied the way they’d like everyone back home to believe they’d partied, only cockroaches and Charlie Sheen would survive.

Like any party, it comes to an end. Eventually there’s always a tomorrow, even in Vegas. People still walk the Strip by daylight, of course, still clutching drinks. The content of the cup provides no indication to the time of day – 10:00am could see it full of coffee, or full of tequila. Yet like any other party coming to an end, even Vegas is eventually caught in the daylight on its way home, with its make-up in a mess and its dress torn. The harsh light of day does Vegas no favours. The gold seems less golden. The marble seems less marbled. Yet the bitter aftertaste remains.

Vegas has the ability to make conservatives out of liberals, and liberals out of conservatives. It makes people blind to the misfortune of others, yet acutely aware of their own misfortunes. In Vegas, anything goes, and nobody cares. No-one has any dark secrets, or regrets, or wishes they could undo the events of the previous evening, or apologise for being such an ass, or not even come to the damn town in the first place. Nobody gets hurt, and nobody has any bad dreams in Vegas. It’s just a pity that such things only happen in fairy tales.

*Big shout out to the wanker outside Excalibur – I’ll put your photo on my website shortly.

What Happens In Vegas...

...stays in Vegas

This is the greatest case of false advertising I’ve seen since I sued the movie “The Never Ending Story.”

Lionel Hutz is wrong on this one - the Grand Canyon far exceeds any reasonable expectations. A must do activity, even for those who hate such things, is to watch a sunrise over the Grand Canyon

We set the alarm for the hideously disturbing time of 5:45am and, despite my doubts, everyone decided to wake up with me and come to Yavapai Point. Our timing would have been perfect for the forecast 6:31 sunrise, except for the fact we’d ignored the constant falling of snow the previous night. Walking out to the car park over crunching newly formed ice, to a car half buried under snow, was an exciting experience for still bleary-eyed kids, but having to scrape ice off the windscreen with a loyalty card and having to open the door to back up (the electric windows on the car had frozen shut) only served to make us late.

By the time we arrived and dashed through snow to the lookout, the sun was already just starting to crack its first rays of light over the northern rim of the Canyon. I set up as quickly as I could in half darkness with numb fingers, managing to get away a couple of hopefully decent photos before the sun had fully risen. It was an awesome experience, all golden light backlit fur-trees on the canyon walls covered in frost and snow, and a slowly sinking, dissipating mist. Fifteen minutes later it was all over - the kids were restless, Jackson’s toes were wet and cold from incessant jumping into snow banks, and we were in need of a coffee so we drove onto the café at Yavapai Lodge for a middling breakfast of pancakes, sausages, danishes and the ubiquitous, crap coffee, then returned to the hotel to book it for another night, and returned once more to the Canyon.

It was a far better day than the previous one, all blue skies, fluffy clouds, and only the fresh snow betrayed the conditions of the previous day. We walked the rim from Pipe Creek Vista toward Yaki Point for maybe 20 minutes before Elise had decided she’d had enough, so she and I returned to the car while Nic and Jackson walked on to Yaki Point, then got a shuttle bus (the only means of transport allowed from Yaki Point) back to the car.

Well, that was the plan anyway. After an hour and a half of waiting, including maybe half a dozen or more return drives from Pipe Creek to the Yaki Point turn-off, looking for Nic and Jackson, they finally turned up, all chuckles, wondering why we didn’t collect them. To add insult to my complete waste of half a morning sitting in a car on the Canyon rim, they’d also spent 15 minutes photographing elk only a few metres from them. Glad they had a top time, while I sat around fuming. Apparently they didn’t realize that only shuttle buses were allowed from Yaki. I’d have thought people getting constantly on and off shuttle buses (without being dropped off in cars) every 15 minutes might have been a subtle hint, but apparently not.

We drove back to the Visitors Centre with me still in surly silence, and Nic took the kids to the Visitors Centre to attend a Ranger talk necessary for them to complete their Junior Ranger certification. I took the opportunity along the way to be dropped off at the Yaki Point turn-off, where I completed the walk from there to the Point, then back along the rim to Pipe Creek. I got to see the elk – from maybe 50 metres away – which partially lessened my anger, but with such awesome conditions and scenery it was impossible to stay angry (despite trying as much as I could), and by the time I’d made it back to Pipe Creek I was over it. I picked up the bus back to the Visitors Center around 4:30, dropped Nic and the kids back at the hotel so they could watch the Grand Canyon IMAX movie, and I headed back once again via shuttle to Yaki Point to run off a time-lapse of sunset over the Grand Canyon. It was an epic, perfect sunset and my camera clacked away once every twenty seconds looking toward the north rim, then east toward the Temple of Vishhu, while I chatted with a very friendly young couple from Montreal who were also taking photos on the rim, and dreading the thought of returning to camp in a tent in the snow. I had to physically restrain one of them from leaping off the cliff when I told them, upon hearing they were heading to Bryce Canyon in the next couple of days, that it was even colder and snowier there. Not really, of course, but they were discussing, in French, the possibility of staying in a hotel instead. I wouldn’t be so proud as to insist on camping either, in those conditions.

Waves of tourist came and went, with a large glut of highly irritating Japanese turning up 10 minutes before sunset, fighting on the cliff, yelling, throwing snowballs at one another (and nearly collecting my camera in the process) then thankfully, and with sweet, sweet relief, then left 5 minutes after sunset.

Fifteen minutes later the last group went, leaving just me and the rim, alone, in darkness. The camera was the sole source of light, continuing to fire shots every 20 seconds until one by one the stars started to appear over the rim. I fleetingly thought of taking some star trails but the thought of a 3 mile trudge in darkness back to the Visitors Centre in sub zero conditions strangely didn’t appeal. Finally I conceded defeat – the snow, ice and biting cold had gotten the upper hand despite four layers of clothing and two sets of gloves. When the lights of the second last shuttle of the evening lurched out of the darkness I experienced a strange sense of relief, as though its arrival had highlighted my isolation. It was clearly time to return to the hotel.

I was the sole passenger on the oddly long, slow drive back to the Visitors Centre. He and I chatted about travel, his desires to visit Australia, and prime Canyon points (he recommended Pima, for those who are interested) then I was out of the bus, alone once again in a snow-swept car park, pools of orange sodium vapor lighting marking the way back to the car. The drive back to Tusayan was bitter-sweet – I was mindful that I wouldn’t have the chance to do any more sunset trips, and we wouldn’t be doing any canyon walks due to the icy conditions, making an already perilous walk for small children an insane proposition.

Next time, maybe.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...

When I peeled the curtains cautiously back at 8:10am, fully expecting to see a magical sunrise, it was with massive relief that my lack of optimism was finally rewarded. Yet another miserable day, incredibly even more miserable than the previous one, was on show – flat, grey clouds and flat, grey light. Only a flat, grey fog draped like a funeral shroud over the tops of the mountains made for anything even slightly different to what I’d turfed myself out for the past few days. I could barely contain my joy.

We took care of breakfast in short time, then headed off for the Grand Canyon, pausing at the Mean Bean for a couple of real coffees instead of the dishwater you get at hotels. While there, watching the rain come down, I noticed it had finally stopped coming down and was instead coming sideways, and occasionally coming up, landing on the windscreen in small, white flecks. It was snowing at Zion. Only just, but snowing all the same.

Heading up through the tunnel on our way back to Orderville it was clear what we had experienced in Springdale was only a fraction of what was happening in the hills – a thick blanket of fresh snow covered Utah Juniper and red rocks, with large clumps of snow, like soap suds, continuing to fall. Ten minutes out of the tunnel we finally found a decent pullout and stopped, taking photographs as the snow continued to fall and the kids finally had an opportunity to get smacked in the head with a proper snowball thrown in anger (by me, mostly), rather than the icy, potentially deadly missiles of a couple of days earlier at Bryce. Half an hour later, faces and hands numb, boots wet, we finally tore ourselves away, set the heater on the car to “rotisserie” and drove through a half-sleet, half snow to Orderville, then Kanab. It was an absolute blast. I’m sure people who live in places where it really snows hate the stuff , but every time I’ve been lucky enough to drive in snow it’s been magic – I love the way the stuff comes in at you sideways as you drive, making you feel as though you’re flying upward into it. Every bit of scenery , from bland to spectacular, is made better by its addition, and the juxtaposition of a desert landscape and a blanket of downy white, as was the case at Zion, is just about impossible to resist.

In time, and with a descent in elevation the magic inevitably disappeared along with the snow as it slowly sublimated to sleet, then finally to thoroughly charmless rain. Darting into Kanab fleetingly for some supplies, we turned east through relatively unspectacular scenery, until finally, descending once again, with the first fingers of Lake Powell extending toward us from the Glen Canyon National Recreational Area I spotted a sign highlighting a dinosaur exhibit, and hung a right into Grand Escalante National Monument, and it’s visitors centre, maybe 10 miles north of Page.

It was a fortuitous decision, for along with an excellent exhibit of dinosaur remains found in the area, we happened to be lucky enough to encounter a talk by Merle Graffam, a largely self-taught paleontologist from the area who happened to discover a fearsome predator armed with 15 inch claws, Nothronychus Graffami. The eponymous Merle was an excellent talker, explaining a brief history of dinosaurs and their now widely-accepted descent into modern birds, in a simple yet unpatronising way that Sir David Attenborough would no doubt approve of. For my mind, the most sobering thought was that modern humans have only been practicing agriculture for around 11,000 years, about the same time that the last ice-age abated. Unfortunately for us, we’ve only got another 8,000 to 9,000 years left before everything in the continental US from Kentucky, northward, is under masses of ice up to several miles thick. His belief was that global warming is likely not having as significant a global impact as many believe, yet is definitely having significant impacts in more localized environments. Who knows – without a hint of sarcasm, maybe the return of the ice-age and global warming will offset one another, to at least some degree. If they don’t, we’d better learn how to grow strawberries in tundra real quick.

We continued on to Page and, a few miles south, found the trail to Horseshoe Bend. After a brief clamber along an undulating path over sand dunes and a rocky path we found ourselves, suddenly and precipitously at the top of sudden, sheer cliff-tops, the Colorado River following a huge, sweeping ben a thousand feet below. As seems to be standard issue, there was the usual smattering of morons all standing on vertiginous, crumbling ledges, acting desperately, thoroughly gnarly and extreme, and at least in part I’d love them to have had a massive and sudden scare. Not death, of course – that would just be perverse, right?  - but maybe just a 50 foot drop, a broken leg, that sort of thing. Still, as I’ve noted before, it appears humans have an innate ability to tempt fate without Fate taking the bait. Thankfully. For the morons, anyway.

We returned to the car, noticing new scratches on the doors that we hoped Budget wouldn’t, and pressed on to the Grand Canyon. I’d been lucky enough to have been here before, back in 2004, but truth be told I’m sure you’d never get bored, or fully come to grips, with the scale of the canyon, nor it’s sensational viewpoints. If anyone ever asks you to nominate the best spot, the correct answer is ‘anywhere’. It’s all awesome, yet unlike almost any other place on the planet, no photo ever comes anywhere near close to doing it justice. I’ve seen photographs of the Grand Canyon by the very best of the world’s photographers, and, to varying degrees, everyone is just wasting their time.

We visited the famed, Mary Coulter designed Watch-House (which is now nearing the completion of an extensive renovation project) at the Desert View lookout, and drove on to Najavo Point, then Lipan Point, crunching about on frosted snow and half-glazed puddles, yet by the time we got to Moran, then Grandview Point it was no longer worth the effort – we didn’t even get out, as a thick fog, aided and abetted by the resurgence of falling snow, had reduced visibility to almost nothing. Still, driving along the Canyon rim at 20 miles an hour, watching for wildlife as the snow slowly piled up on the road was a pretty sensational experience. Still, it was getting dark, the snow fall was becoming heavier, and we were keen to get to our – for once, reserved – hotel room at the very nice Canyon Plaza Hotel, where I’d stayed with my parents years ago at a bargain rate.

Naturally, it didn’t quite work out that way. The Canyon Plaza Hotel had no knowledge of our existence, despite us booking the room on their own website. To make matters worse, the dolt behind the front desk had rooms available, but wouldn’t give one to us at the rate advertised on their own website – I could have actually used my phone to make a booking in the lobby of the damn place, and would have saved $10. In the end we couldn’t be arsed arguing, and drove on to the Red Feather Lodge which had big, warm rooms rooms for nearly $40 less.

My recommendation to you – skip the Canyon Plaza Hotel. That is, unless people from the Canyon Plaza Hotel are reading this and want to get in touch with me to offer me a return trip to Arizona and a free night’s accommodation to make up for it, in which case I’ll shamelessly change my tune.

Sunrise at the Grand Canyon tomorrow. Well, that’s the plan anyway. Here’s hoping.

Weaseling out of things is important to learn. It’s what separates us from the animals…except the weasel

Surely there can’t be that many non-sunsets in a row? Yep, surely there can. Woke up at some hideous time of morning – in part inspired by Chris West’s photography (damn you, Chris!) -  loaded up the car, and drove out to Zion in somewhat brisk darkness to the Towers of the Patriarchs.

I headed up into the hills in near complete darkness, wondering fleetingly what animals were out there with me – deer or wild turkeys most likely, rather than the more elusive mountain lions or bears. Regardless, if I’d heard a noise in the bushes behind me I’d have been out of there. Trudging along, tripod banging against my legs, gear strung around my neck, I finally found what looked like a pretty promising spot about 100m up and started setting up, only to realize I’d left the camera mount for the tripod. Without much choice in the matter I went back down and up as fast as possible to not miss any blazingly glorious sunrise, only to discover yet again that mother nature failed to play ball. No magnificent blue light (see Wankers, Photo) – in fact no light at all other than a now typical watery greyness slowly building in intensity from insipid to spectacularly uneventful. Another morning of lost sleep, for nothing.

With the wise words of Homer J Simpson in my head (see title), I surrendered – yet again – and decided I wouldn’t waste my time again, at least not on tomorrow’s last morning at Zion. I headed back to the hotel, picked up everyone, and we hit Zion in what, thankfully, turned out to be sensational walking weather, even if it was lousy photographic weather.

A morning spent doing the Riverside Walk at the end of the road into Zion yielded brief but rewarding sightings of a squirrel and deer for the kids, then headed to Weeping Rock – it’s a spectacular sight, and arguably offers one of the best views of the valley. After a brief clamber up a steep path you end up either in a cliff cave, or under an overhanging cliff (depending on your viewpoint), constantly dripping, and with access almost completely behind the waterfall. Along the way are endless interpretive boards explaining all the different plants, which Elise insisted on me going through one by one.

Deciding to make a quieter day of things given the breakneck pace of the past couple of weeks, we had lunch back at the hotel, then drove once again back out of the tunnel to do the Canyon Overlook walk, a 1 mile walk along a rough stone and step path wrapped partially along the side of cliffs (where we finally got to see, and photograph, Big Horn sheep for the first time), then for the last third or so out over the plateau, ending in a sensational view right the way down the valley and over the tunnel access road. The hazy conditions didn’t matter one bit, but my time was spent worrying about what the kids were doing on a largely unfenced cliff-face, as well as shaking my head in disbelief at the halfwits attempting to balance on precipitous drops in strong winds for photo opportunities, without any apparent care, regard for their own well being, or utilization of any brain-cells. The sheer number of morons out there fascinates me, with the only thing more fascinating being that the vast majority don’t manage to kill themselves. It’s not for lack of trying. Perhaps they’re so dense they can’t even manage that successfully.

At Jackson’s insistence, we rounded out the day at a Mexican restaurant where a huge margarita (followed by a scotch or two in the hotel room afterward) helped put the morning’s complete waste of time in perspective.

I won’t be getting up early tomorrow though. Knowing my luck, it’ll be a sensational sunrise.