tugrik

I'm pretty sure I need to send my 10D in for a back-focus fix. Most of the images here are a little soft because I didn't take the time yet to do proper unsharp-masking (as the EOS-system cameras often require), but some are beyond that. It's a known problem with the 10D that's easy to fix; it just takes time. So please, excuse the 'gently out of focus' look a lot of these shots will have. I'm posting quite a few pictures here, so proceed through the cut-tag at your own bandwidth's risk. :)

As always, click-through on any image to get to its page on the image server. Click through again from there to get the full-sized pic. Keep in mind: they're 6mpix images, and the panoramas are much more than that.

Wednesday night ended at 4am thanks to a support call, and restarted at 7am due to a power contractor coming in early to work on my new server room in the San Jose office. By 11am I told the boss I was Outta Here and headed home. It took an hour or two of prepwork to get things ready: GPS programmed, rear seats out, futon mattress in, gear packed and loaded. I then promptly went to bed for a midday nap, waking up when Revar got home that evening. We didn't get out of the house until after 8. Dinner and doubling-back to the house for a forgotten item or two meant it was after 9p before we were on the road to Boron. I drove until we hit I5. At Santa Nella I retired to the back to sleep while Revar took over. It was 2:30am before getting to Mom-of-Revar's house. We snuck in so as not to wake anybody up and went to bed.

The amusement of hearing Revar's mom do early-morning-rousting of the bat went well with the pancakes she served. It was 11am before we hit the road; a little later than planned. As we started out, Revs discovered there was now GPRS service there in Boron and in fact all the way along the 58/I-15 in to Vegas. Ubiquitous data access is becoming closer to reality, it seems. Being able to online-chat while droning through Barstow, CA was pretty cool.

Just as we hit Baker the freeway ground to a halt for no real obvious reason. The Baker, CA exit was just ahead and I gladly took it. "It's backed up for miles thanks to construction," was the reason we got from the gas station attendant. A quick check of the GPS and it was decided to take a 40 mile detour through Pahrump, NV, skirting the eastern edge of Death Valley. North we went, on what looked like a Road to Nowhere. Being a bit of a desert rat from my youth, this kind of terrain is familiar and comforting to me; much preferable to a traffic-clog on a boring interstate.

The GPS showed a little one-lane asphalt line called "Old Stage Road" which cut about 10 miles off the trip, letting us slide south of Pahrump. Just before the turnoff the radar detector let out the "yes, it's a Real One" KA-band *squawk!* and I reflexively tapped the brakes. I was doing about 20 over. Hey... it's flat-open desert. It's really hard to not speed! The officer was too far away and too off axis to get a reading, but he saw the nose dip as I tapped and knew I was guilty. He just couldn't prove it. :) This got us waved over as he passed, of course. A quick mental run-over of the checklist: Pull over in a punctual (but safe) way. Sunglasses off. Keep hands on the wheel where he can see them. Act pleasant/cooperative. Pull the keys out and put them up on the dash so the officer can see I'm not going to go anywhere. All these things together tend to put the CHP at ease. As expected, we got a warning and the usual check of documents. A few minutes and we were on our way. The 5-0 was out in force for the entire length of this trip and this wasn't the first time we were going to chat with them.

A plywood coyote greeted us at the entry to Old Stage Road. The road was pretty relaxing as we paced over the state line, popping out behind Las Vegas in the Red Rock Canyon area. We pulled out at the obligatory tourist-stop just next to a few limos, hopping out to take some pictures of the vivid rocks and cliffs that surrounded the area. It took a few moments before we realized we'd stumbled into a Vegas Wedding. 108(F) degree weather didn't stop about a dozen people in tuxedos and bridesmaids dresses from standing in the sun and reciting vows. We snuck out of there quickly, not wanting to disturb their moment. Red rocks make a much better setting than a roadside Vegas chapel; I think they made a good choice.

We didn't even stop in Vegas, returning to the high-speed blast of the I-15 right through Nellis AFB and Mesquite. The road dipped into Arizona's corner just long enough to slot right into a highway-wide knifecut into the Virgin River canyon. In less than a mile the road went from cresting a huge desert plain to a claustrophobic set of sheer, winding walls as we followed the river up and into Utah a few short miles later. It's like Nevada wanted a monopoly on the flat-desert parts and bunched up all the cliffs and edges as it pushed 'em out across the border. That would explain why Southwest Utah and the Arizona edge are so cliff- and canyon-prone.

The trip I'd picked put us up I15 past Zion's western edge, then over easy freeways to our stay in the Bryce Canyon lodge. We pulled off on Highway 9 to get gas, stumbling upon a rather cool-looking and swooshy wild-horse logo stuck on a new burbclave. A check of the map showed we could just stay on Highway 9 around the southern end of Zion and get to the same place. This turned out to be a serendipitous choice.

Highway 9 goes right through the middle of Zion; it's where you want to be. Unfortunately the sun had set on us as we left the valley-town of Hurricane just before the park, making Zion itself rather invisible. The good fortune was discovering all the people walking along the road as we entered the park and figuring out why: a fireworks show was about to start! We got lucky with a place to park (while tourists all around us were scrambling to find things much farther away), hopped out and sat on the tailgate. The display was made even more impressive by the locale. The multicolor flashes lit up the rock faces, shadows angling dramatically as the flaring lights fell. Each burst of color brought a loud report that slammed into the sharp canyon walls, rebounding at us from all sides until it would fade into a rumble. I think this had to be the best Independance Day display I've seen. Revar got good pictures/video of it with the little Pentax camera. Hopefully later that'll end up posted in Revar's journal.

With the rapid-fire thunder of the finale we jumped back in the car and rushed into the park, hoping to beat the exiting crowd. Instead, we met another Officer Friendly. 50 in a 35 didn't please him. I practiced the same pull-over etiquette as before and got the same polite treatment. Not only was the officer happy with our response to his enforcement, he was also looking for drunken revellers. We were not the droids he was looking for. He chatted with us for a little bit about the route to Bryce and sent us on our way; not even a warning. Okay, so I'll watch the speedo a little better in the national parks... 35. Eesh. :)

We hit Bryce Canyon after midnight. A little confusion in finding the lodge only took us a few extra minutes, but the short walk up the slope to the registration office was like a death-march. 8500 feet? When the heck did we go above 8K? A simple slope felt like going up 4 flights of stairs carrying luggage. Aaaaaiugh. We got our cabin keys and crashed out. The cabin was quite nice, with a gas fireplace and lots of room. I didn't see too much of it, though -- I was too busy curling up and sleeping like a rock. Tomorrow would be the day we actually get to go see the pretty places instead of drive through them in the dark.