Climbing Mt. Sinai

The first thing one should know about climbing Mt. Sinai is that you will not be alone. Not that I thought I'd have the mountain to myself, but any notions of a "spiritual experience" were squashed along with our bodies into a van with 11 other people when we left Dahab at 11PM. There were numerous check-points where we had to show our passports on the way to the mountain and when we disembarked at St. Catherine's Monastery at 1AM we found a circus-like atmosphere of tour buses, taxis, cigarette-smoking Egyptians and camels. In Dahab, we bought a "package tour" that included a guide up the mountain (going on your own is difficult to arrange) and after getting our guide, he lit a cigarette and led our group to the path. It became clear from the onset that this guide was only there to make sure we didn't fall off the mountain, not befriend us or point out anything of interest.

We walked by light of a full-moon, on a rocky path crowded with what seemed more camels than people. Some found ignoring the offers of "camel, camel" every few steps impossible to resist; we saw one Japanese lady from our group bounding up the mountain on a camel, not to be seen again until 10AM when we boarded our bus back to Dahab. Riding a camel was never a temptation; if walking worked for Moses, I thought, it's good enough for me.

We stopped several times on the way up at one of the many little tea shacks. Tea or coffee is one thing, but Fanta, Coke and Snickers?

From Dahab and Mt. Sinai

The top of the mountain was even more commercialized. Locals sold cushions to sit on and blankets to stay warm at 20 LE a pop (about $4.50). We came prepared for the chill, finally getting a chance to use our 25-degree sleeping bags we'd been uselessly carting around everywhere. We staked out a front-row spot on the top of the mountain and watched the beautiful sunrise.

From Dahab and Mt. Sinai

The top of the mountain was like a mini-United Nations convention. There were people from everywhere, and people everywhere. Our van alone had people from the USA, Canada, Japan and Slovakia, and after the sun came up, wondering around you could hear many different languages.

From Dahab and Mt. Sinai

Many people found the climb to be very spiritual. We saw groups of people praying, chanting, singing, meditating, which I found admirable, as all I could do was gawk at all the people. We took a different path down the mountain, following the "Steps of Repentance", a set of 3,700 steps carved by a monk instead of the more direct "Camel's Route" that we took on the way up.

If we thought the summit was crowded, St. Catherine's Monastery was even more packed. We got to the bottom around 8AM but had to wait until 9AM for the Monastery to open. There was a narrow door to get in to see the second-largest collection of religious manuscripts in the world (outside the Vatican) and to see the Burning Bush of Moses fame. We did see the bush, but passed on the museum as there was an extra fee and the crowds were overwhelming.

From Dahab and Mt. Sinai

Overall, our experience of climbing Mt. Sinai was interesting, definitely not negative, but it'd be hard to call it an amazing experience. I think with a little more effort we could have figured out a way to make it a more personal trip. Maybe climbing it in the late afternoon for the sunset instead? Or staying out at the Monastery (it contains a small hotel) to visit it when the crowds are less, although I'm not sure if there is ever a time when it's a quiet spot. In any event, it is what it is. You can see all the pictures of our climb, as well as some pictures of the very chill town of Dahab here.

We're at somewhat of an impasse with our trip now. We called Egypt Air and extended our ticket to Istanbul by one week since we're enjoying Egypt a lot. We now don't leave Egypt until May 8, a week from tomorrow. For the time until then we have some choices to make. We could travel to Jordan for a few days and see Petra, but we're hesitant to do if the crowds will be like anything we experienced at Mt. Sinai. The other option is to take a ferry across the Red Sea to visit Luxor and "Upper Egypt" before heading back to Cairo for our flight.

We're having a fun in Dahab, a town built for just lounging around. There are many restaurants and cafes right on the water where you sit on the ground surrounded by pillows. Since we didn't have a hotel room for the night of our Sinai trip, we spent most of the afternoon hanging out at one cafe, playing Scrabble and drinking tea and coffee. On our trip to Sinai, we met a really nice Canadian women and last night we went out to dinner with her and two other Americans she'd met earlier who are also on an around-the-world trip. It was fun comparing stories with these two guys. Their trip closely mirrors ours and we could reminisce about many of the same places we'd been so far. You'd think it would energize us to see even more places, but honestly, hearing about their trip and thinking about all the places we've been has made us somewhat tired though (for those really interested, read this blog post that summarizes the "problem"). So, maybe we'll just hang out in Dahab for a few more days, enjoying the wonderful weather.

More about Auckland

We're loving Auckland. As we noted, Auckland reminds us a lot of Seattle so we're very comfortable here. On our second day we took a ferry trip out to the island of Rangitoto, a park reserve about a half-hour ferry from the city harbor. It's an old dormant volcano and reminded us a lot of Wizard Island in Crater Lake National Park. It was a nice climb to the top where there were great views of the city. The day was kind of overcast and hazy but it was still a nice outing.

From Auckland

Yesterday evening our couchsurfing host, Young, had some people over for dinner and games at his apartment. There was also a french couple, Estelle and Christophe, who were couchsurfing with Young as well for the night. This couple has been traveling for almost three years, biking their way around the world. They started in France, biked across Europe, through India, Iran and Pakistan, into China, Thailand, Laos, Malaysia and Singapore. They then spent about a year in Australia before coming to New Zealand. They had some cool stories and were surprisingly laid back about all their travels.

Young also invited his neighbors over, Christine, an American who went to high school with Young and the first New Zealanders we met, Bronwin and her daughter Cass. The french couple made a lovely quiche and Bronwin brought a yummy salad. It was a wonderful evening hearing stories of everyone's travels. Interestingly, of the non-Americans, only Christophe had been to the US (once to New York City). (Christophe's biking jacket reflected from the flash - we tried "photoshopping" it out but only made the picture worse so we left it.)

From Auckland

We're leaving Auckland in a few hours to catch a bus to our WWOOF farm in Warkworth. We don't know what the Internet will be like there, but assuming we can connect we'll post our impressions after a few days.

Here are the pictures we took while in Auckland:

Auckland

Climbing Kosciuszko

As mentioned in our previous posts we planned on climbing Mt. Kosciuszko, the highest point in Australia on our roadtrip from Brisbane to Melbourne. Well, we're happy to report that we succeeded!

Continuing from our last post, we drove south down the coast toward Sydney and camped at Crowdy Head National Park, a secluded ocean-front park. We had to drive about 10 miles on a dirt road to get to the camp ground and since we didn't see any other vehicles we thought we'd have the campground to ourselves. We were surprised when we turned into the campground and it was pretty full. And they charged $10 per person per night! This is in contrast to US National Parks which almost always charge only per site, and never more than say $20. But, there were free showers which we took advantage of the next morning. We also enjoyed watching the kangaroos interacting with the other campers:

From Kosciusko

The next morning when we drove around Sydney we got stuck in quite a bit of traffic. There are a few toll roads in Australia but very few of them take cash; you need a transponder in your car to ride on them. Since we didn't have one we had to take surface streets around Sydney. Eventually we found our way out of the city and started heading west toward Mt. Kosciuszko.

We camped at a rest stop outside Australia's capital, Canberra, which is also near some of Australia's wine country. We were able to visit a winery on our way the next day but some of the other wineries we tried to visit were closed, as was a brewery! I guess it's sort of "shoulder season" here between Winter and Summer.

We got to the Mt. Kosciuszko area which is a National Park, even though there are several ski resorts inside the park. (As a side note, you have to pay per day to enter the park, which was $16 per day per car. Unlike the USA where paying a National Park entry fee generally allows you to stay for seven days.) We parked the van in a secluded spot where we had kangaroos and pygmy possums visiting us during the night.

We drove up to Charlotte Pass (one of the ski areas) to start our hike. It was a pretty easy hike, walking along a flat trail that used to be a car road. The hike was 18km (about 11 miles) round trip with about 468 meters (about 1500 ft) of elevation gain. It was really beautiful scenery. Here we are at the top:

From Kosciusko

It seems most people who climb Kozi (as they call it here) take a chairlift part of the way up. But not us. Plus, it cost $29 each to take the chairlift!

The drive from Kozi into Victoria and Melbourne took us another day and a night. We camped by a river and after a long day of driving today arrived in Melbourne in the afternoon. We're staying in Williamstown, a cozy suburb of Melbourne at the grand parents of Yael. They're super nice and plan on showing us a few sights around here the next few days.

Here's a link to the rest of the pictures of our Kozi hike.

Kosciusko

Back in Brisbane, briefly

We are in Brisbane again for a quick stop to pick up Jaimee's sister Michelle. She finished her last final about 1/2 an hour ago and we will soon be off on a road trip with her. Our first stop will be at a family friend's house near Brisbane for the night, then the three of us will be off on the long drive to Melbourne. This is about a 2,000 km (1,200 mile) drive. Our route will be along the coast initially, then cut inland toward some mountains in order to climb Mt. Kosciuszko, the highpoint of Australia. I'm not sure how much Internet we'll have during our trip but you can check our Spot page to see where we are.

After our sailing adventure, our return trip to Brisbane was fairly uneventful. We stopped at roadside rest stops to camp in the van. At one spot there was a huge flock of lorikeets. Here's Jaimee getting accosted by them when she brought out some bread to feed them:

From Australian Roadtrip Part I

They were super pretty and cute all lined up:

From Australian Roadtrip Part I

We also stopped in the town of Hervey Bay for a little bit but otherwise our drive back from Airlie Beach was pretty direct. We are writing this from the house of our second couchsurfing host in Brisbane. Couchsurfing has been so great so far on this trip, as we've met some great people and seen some less touristy sides of the places we've been.

Sailing in the Whitsundays

When we couchsurfed in Bundaberg and we told our hosts we were heading north they suggested we message a couchsurfer in Airlie Beach who has a sailboat. They had heard that he sometimes took couchsurfers out for a sail in the Whitsunday Islands, a group of 74 islands in the middle of the Great Barrier Reef. We thought it was worth a shot so we sent him a message before continuing north in our van.

From Bundaberg, we spent the morning at the beautiful beach at Bagara and then checked out the sea turtle nesting grounds at Mon Repos. The turtles weren't quite there yet (plus they only come in at night) but it was neat to read about them and see the beach where 90% of all female loggerhead turtles lay their eggs.

After spending the night at a camping rest stop right along a river we drove the next day into the town of Airlie Beach, the gateway to the Whitsunday Islands. Airlie Beach is fairly developed but a cute town. It's full of backpackers and travelers. We spent the first day lounging around, playing Scrabble and reading. It was beautiful and relaxing.

From Sailing the Whitsundays

Later, when we checked our e-mail, the couchsurfer with the boat, Joe, e-mailed us back and said he couldn't promise anything but he might be heading out for a sail in the next few days if we were hanging around. We met up with him for dinner at the lagoon and met him, three other couchsurfers (a German, Austrian and Australian) he was hosting on his boat as well as this other couchsurfer John who owns a catamaran. John was also hosting an American couchsurfer. There were also two Swedish travelers who joined us for dinner. It was quite the motley crew.

We parted company that night and Joe said he'd text us in the morning if he was going sailing. In the morning he sent us a text and said he was going out for an overnight sail but he had to be back by 10am the next day. We said, sure we'd go! We packed a little food, our bathing suits and met him at his boat. It turned out to be a 52 foot sailboat (I couldn't even get the whole boat in the picture from the dock!)

From Sailing the Whitsundays

Together with the three other couchsurfers we sailed into the Whitsunday Islands. It was beautiful! We sailed through some islands stopping for the night in this cove to enjoy an incredible sunset.

From Sailing the Whitsundays

Later, John and his catamaran found us and we moored together to have a two boat party. The next day Joe told us he thought we'd stay out for another night which although fine with us, was a bit worrisome as we didn't bring very much food. Plus, the three girl couchsurfers didn't have much food either. But, the next day we sailed over to Whitsunday Island and Whitehaven beach, which was probably one of the prettiest beaches we've ever seen. The sand is extremely white and super pure - it's so fine that your feet sink several inches in and if you rub it on silver it polishes the silver!

From Sailing the Whitsundays

We climbed Whitsunday peak on top of the island and had views into Hill inlet which is the picture you see most often when seeing postcards of the Whitsundays.

From Sailing the Whitsundays

Then we sailed over to a great snorkeling spot and swam with tons of fish. Joe threw bread (and tuna) into the water which got the fish riled up into a frenzy. Then we sailed across the bay as it got dark and actually sailed for a couple hours while it was dark. The wind was really blowing and it was a tad scary, especially since Joe was often down below while he left either me or Jaimee steering. Plus, he kept saying it was a "bit rocky" which in Australian means unsteady seas and not actually large rocks, although we didn't learn this until later!

We found a protective cove, made up an improv dinner using spagetti and pumpkin (it was pretty yummy actually). We did a long sail the next day back across the bay to Airlie Beach and arrived on land 60 hours after our departure. Even back on land we kept thinking it was rocky as we were so used to swaying on the water.

Today we start the long drive (900 miles) back to Brisbane to pick up Michelle before heading on to Melbourne. Here are the links to the two albums we've posted so far:

Australian Roadtrip Part I

Sailing the Whitsundays

Brisbane, Part I

Our first impressions of Brisbane were pretty positive and after spending two nights here we still like the city a lot. Supposedly it never rains here, but that is a lie because on our first full day it totally poured on us. We had planned on having a look around the city botanical gardens but ended up ducking for cover under some trees and exploring the free art museum of Queensland University of Technology.

We went to the Farmers Market in the rain, but that didn't stop us from having lots of samples of all sorts of fruits and cheeses.

The next day we took the bus out to the bigger botanical gardens at the base of Mt Coot-tha, and after looking around the gardens we hiked up to the lookout. There were great views of the city (not seen in this picture). This is me, Jaimee, Michelle and friend Yael who is also from Massachusetts and studying at the University of Queensland with Michelle.

We took the bus back into town and climbed up the tower of City Hall. Our guide book said it would cost $2 to climb the 300 foot tower but as a bonus, it is now free! You have to take the elevator (lift) which was a little disappointing as I would have preferred stairs, but hey, we saved $4!

We have more pictures (with captions!) on our picasa page but we will be adding to them for sure as tomorrow we're heading out to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary where we have been promised that we can hold Koalas and feed kangaroos! It is a bit ridiculous that we've been in Australia three days now and haven't seen a kangaroo (or koala) yet.

We are writing this blog post at our second couchsurfing hosts in Brisbane. The first couple had a two night limit so we found this other house within walking distance of Michelle's dorm. It is a huge house of five students, three of which we've met so far - two from France and one from Germany. They said they were going to cook a group meal after they finished some school work, but it's almost 8PM now and with our jet lag we're hitting the wall early, but we'll see what happens...although I will say I'm enjoying the music selection the French student is playing; we've heard french-language rap, Neil Young, and a song from Grease, among others. Couchsurfing is interesting to say the least.

From the South to the North

We've almost made it to New England. We're currently in Catskill, NY, staying with my Aunt Lisa and her husband Dick at their lovely house right on the Hudson River.

It's amazing to think that our US portion of the trip is coming to a close. We're staying in Catskill for the long weekend visiting with my Aunt and Uncle and my sister and her wife came up from Boston for the weekend as well. The foliage is turning and today turned out to be a beautiful fall day.

After camping and hiking in the Smokies we went to Durham, NC to visit some friends of ours who moved there from Seattle last winter. We actually have seven Seattle friends who have moved to Durham. They moved there for cheap real estate, more sun and change of scenery. I thought Durham was a pretty nice place. There were some nice places downtown and you can have up to ten chickens at your house, unlike Seattle which only lets you have four! Here's our friend Mike dealing with one of his chickens.

There's also a lot of cool history in the area, much of it involving the Civil War. We went to Bennett Place, the site of the largest Confederate surrender involving over 20,000 troops.

From North Carolina we made our way north, stopping in Snow Hill, Maryland to stay with a couchsurfing friend who had stayed with us in Seattle. Mary and her husband Dave were super hospitable and we got to stay in their historic house from the 1800s.

We also went to Ocean City, Maryland for dinner with Mary and Dave. Ocean City is kind of a cross between Atlantic City and Cape Cod, but apparently with antique cars. There was some sort of car show so people were cruising the strip in their cars.

The next day we traveled north through Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and finally into New York. Luckily we didn't run into very much traffic and got to my Aunt's house . We did conquer one more "peak" on our way - Ebright Azimuth, at a lofty 448 feet it's the high point of Delaware. I'm not going to count it as Peak #35 but I thought I should record the "accomplishment".Now, for the next two weeks before we head for Australia we'll be visiting family and friends in New England and do any last minute preparations for the international portion of the trip.

Six peaks, four days

We settled up the bill at our hotel in New Orleans. Somehow the $45 per night hotel ballooned into $76 after adding in all the taxes and fees! Apparently Louisiana state law requires safes in all hotel rooms and hotels charge $4 per night for this? That was just one of the many hidden fees charged. I felt a bit duped with all the extra taxes and fees, but we were glad to see more of New Orleans. It's a great city and one that I hope to visit again in more depth some other time.

From New Orleans we cruised through Mississippi and most of Alabama to camp at Cheaha State Park in northeast Alabama. We got there right as it was getting dark and we found the campground to be a little difficult to figure out. There was an area for RVs but the tent area was labeled "semi-primitive" without designated camping sites. Plus there was a group of American Heritage Girls building fires and roasting marshmellows all over the area. Although the one group leader seemed very nice (they're so polite in the South) we decided to go back to the RV area and pitch our tent in a RV spot.

The next day we got up and climbed the 75 foot tower marking the highpoint of Alabama.


We also discovered the other tent camping area lining the road leading to the tower. But again, there were no designated sites. People just pulled their cars over and camped on the side of the road. I've seen more orderly homeless people in Seattle.

We left Alabama and crossed over into Georgia, seeking out the highpoint of Georgia. There was a road almost to the top, but it was a 6/10 of a mile walk to the actual highpoint.

From Georgia we headed into the Smokies, camping for a night at Great Smoky Mountain National Park. This is the busiest National Park in the country and October is the second busiest month of the year (after July) although we did find a spot in the campground. In the morning we drove up to Clingmans Dome, the highpoint of Tennessee, and also the highest point on the Appalachian Trail. I thought the structure they built on the top was pretty ugly and wouldn't mind seeing them tear it down to make the highpoint more natural.

We detoured south into South Carolina for a quick walk up Sassafras Mountain, the South Carolina highpoint before getting on the Blue Ridge Parkway to head toward Asheville. We had a quick beer and dinner in Asheville, but apparently it wasn't quick enough because when we got to the campground at Mt. Mitchell State Park it was padlocked shut! We couldn't get in, and if you were already in I don't see how you could get out either! We also saw a black bear on the road going in to the park.

We continued on the Parkway for a few miles hoping there would be another campground but there was nothing out there. Eventually we gave up and ended up sleeping in the car. It was raining so camping might not have been that fun either. After 50+ days on the road, to have to sleep in the car for the first time wasn't that bad and we slept pretty well actually.

In the morning when the state park opened we drove up to Mt. Mitchell and walked the short walk to the top.

We then drove further on the Blue Ridge Parkway up into Virginia where we camped at Grayson Highlands State Park, probably the nicest campground we stayed at yet. It was super clean, there were free showers, the host was very hospitable and there were tons of trails. Plus, ponies! (Seriously, there were ponies grazing in the "high country".) We also saw another bear crossing the road.

In the morning, admist lots of rain and fog we braved eight miles (round-trip) of the Appalachian Trail to the top of Mt. Rogers, the Virginia highpoint.

We are now in Durham, North Carolina visiting several of our Seattle friends who have moved here. Durham is an interesting place. It's definitely a place of contrasts. Block to block it changes a lot and while there are some nice areas there are also some very scary areas that I definitely would not venture into at night. But overall, we're having a nice visit here. Tomorrow we head north for our final push to New England. We'll stop one night in Maryland and then it's on to the Catskills of New York for the weekend...

Here's a link to the rest of our pictures from our highpoint frenzy. Also, I have now done 34 peaks of my 35 peak challenge. I'm open to suggestions as to what the 35th peak should be. Let me know in the comments what you think...

Southern Highpoints

Texas!

We actually got two e-mails making sure we're doing okay since we haven't posted in almost a week. We're glad to see people are following our travels and everyone can rest easy as we're doing fine and having a wonderful time! (It's good to know we have at least two fans!)

We were sad to leave Santa Fe, as we had such a good time with Asa's Aunt Debbie. We went south through New Mexico, making a quick stop in Roswell. Roswell is an interesting place, worth a drive-through, but not much else. We went to a museum there where we saw information about Robert Goddard, an early rocket engineer from the 1930s who was from Worcester, MA - interesting mainly because that's where Jaimee's family lives! It's a small world!

After camping at Brantley State Park in the Southeast corner of New Mexico we stopped at Carlsbad Caverns National Park. This is definitely worth a stop! We did the full self-guided tour through the caverns - it took us over two hours to walk the whole thing. It's a pretty neat place. It also seems to employ a lot of Park Rangers - they rove around the cavern on "Cave Watch" duty - looking for misconduct or for those who didn't "assess their hiking fitness" and need assistance.

We continued on to Guadalupe Mountains National Park in Texas which is now one of our favorite parks. It's a "wilderness park" meaning that if you don't want to hike or backpack there isn't a whole lot to do. It also contains Guadalupe Peak, the "top of Texas" at 8,749 feet. West Texas has some tall mountains! While climbing the peak we met the first, but definitely not the last Texan who was proud of his/her state. Texans love Texas, and they let you know that. I think that's great - you should love where you live.

After two peaceful nights, where our campsite hosted both skunks and deer, we traveled southeast to Big Bend National Park. Despite being about "10 hours from anywhere" it's also a great park. We camped up in the Chiso Mountains basin, the only mountain range in America to be entirely contained inside a National Park. We did a few hikes in the mountains before heading down to the Rio Grande side of the park.

I wish I had visited Big Bend prior to 2002 as that was when they began policing the border aggressively. Prior to 2002 the Rio Grande in this area was considered a "soft border crossing" meaning for a small fee a Mexican would row you across the river to one of several Mexican villages for beer and tacos. Now, the rangers follow the tourists making sure that no "Mexican Nationals" are illegally crossing over. It's pretty ridiculous - we essentially had our own escort of two law enforcement Rangers who tailed us as we went from section to section of the park. Then, when dusk came the mosquitoes were horrible! They were so bad that we didn't even cook dinner that night and just hunkered down inside the tent. We would have put our bug spray on but we'd actually just taken showers so didn't want to soil ourselves so soon!

The next morning we got up and made the long drive toward Austin. We took the "scenic route" by stopping in Del Rio, Texas and making a quick stop across the border into Mexico. This is one of the "approved" border crossings. Ciudad Acuna isn't that great, but I was able to get a $2 haircut. And we had fries and a drink for $2.50. The border patrol searched our car pretty thoroughly when we came back into America - I would have taken a picture if pictures were allowed as they let the K-9 German Shephard right into our car to sniff around. He didn't find anything although the border people did find a lot of broken glass which made them suspicious.

We broke up the pictures into two albums:

Into Texas

Big Bend and Mexico

Now we're in hot and humid Austin. We just toured through the Pecan Street festival and are having a fun time here so far. But more on that later...

5,000 miles and a break-in

We have now traveled just over 5,000 miles and are staying with my Aunt Debbie in Santa Fe. This morning we went on a hike of Atalaya Mountain (peak #26) and when we came back our car had been broken into! They smashed the drivers side window and stole Jaimee's purse which had her wallet, checkbook, phone, etc.

We canceled the credit cards and suspended the phone so it appears that no lasting damage is done. Unfortunately, no one in Santa Fe can repair the window until Monday morning and since it's raining off and on here we put a garbage bag in the window.

I think it looks pretty classy (the blue painting tape adds a nice touch):


Apart from the break-in, the first 5,000 miles have been great. We'll be hanging around Santa Fe this weekend, visiting with my Aunt and cousin.

Here's the summit picture of our hike up Atalaya Mountain:

It's a great hike, just remember to not leave anything valuable in your car if you go...

Flagstaff

After a wonderful visit in Tucson, we left and headed north, making our way to Flagstaff, Arizona. We decided to take the scenic route through Prescott and Sedona. It made for a beautiful drive, much prettier than we thought it would be. Prescott is a charming, historic town. We walked around and admired the old courthouse on the tree-lined square.

Then we continued on to Sedona, driving this wild road that had, according to T-shirts we saw for sale in Jerome (a town along the way), 158 curves in 12 miles. We didn't count the curves, but it was a crazy road. Jerome is a cute town, built right on the bluffs of the red rocks. We tried getting a picture of the houses right on the edge but couldn't get one that captured the steepness of the town. Definitely worth a visit if you're ever in the Sedona/Prescott area.

Sedona was a nice town as well. Although the town itself is very touristy and has a real resort feel (something like Whistler, BC in the summer) the area is amazingly beautiful. We only stopped briefly as our couchsurfers in Flagstaff were expecting us.

We got to our couchsurfer host's house right in time for margaritas and guacamole made with freshly picked prickly pear cactus fruit! Our host Scott boiled the fruit and blended it to make a syrup. The fruit itself has the texture of dates and the taste is a combination of sweet and sour. It's very good, especially with tequila!


The next day we hiked up Mt. Humphreys, which at 12,633 ft. is the highest peak in Arizona. The trail starts from Arizona Snowbowl, a ski area which is above 9,000 ft. so the hike wasn't too bad of a climb.
While on the top of the peak we met a man who said this was his 73rd time climbing Humphreys! He'd lived in the Flagstaff area all his life and said he started "seriously keeping track after his 10th time." He'd been climbing it since 1974.

Our couchsurfing hosts, Scott and Amanda were great. They had a really cute dog named "Moondog" which apparently was her breed as well. We certainly don't know what kind of dog she is. Scott also liked to ride his custom fixed gear bike with Moondog on his side. His bike was a $5 Huffy that he converted to be a fixed gear bike. He called it a "fixed-gear truck" which we thought seemed appropriate in Flagstaff. Scott was also a really good Scrabble player and schooled me and Jaimee twice!

We left Flagstaff and cruised up to the "Meteor Crater". They wanted $15 per person to view this crater but we got a perfectly good picture right from the information sign!

Then we went through Petrified Forest National Park. The park was pretty much what you'd expect - a bunch of petrified wood, although there were also some beautiful overlooks and a "painted desert." We saw some Indian artifacts and petroglyphs and an old Indian pueblo.

Here are all the photos for Flagstaff:

Originally, we'd intended to go to Taos, New Mexico from Flagstaff, but we got a late start leaving Flagstaff so we're now in Gallup, New Mexico looking for somewhere to camp. Hopefully it won't rain on us as it's very stormy outside. Tomorrow we head to Santa Fe to visit my Aunt Debbie. Maybe we'll fit Taos in during our Santa Fe visit.

Death Valley and Joshua Tree

Did we really go to Death Valley in the summer? Yes, and although I wouldn't necessarily recommend it, I'm glad we went. After climbing Mt. Whitney and recouperating a little at the hotel in Lone Pine, we decided to drive the 100 miles into Death Valley National Park. I knew it would be hot (average day-time highs of around 110). What we didn't know is that there was actually a mountain pass of about 5000 feet we had to climb over. And that it was more like 120 the day we vistited. We turned off the air conditioning and even though the breeze made us hotter, the car did fine. It started to inch up on the temperature gauge but it never gave us any problems.

After seeing the sights of Death Valley (like Badwater as seen in the picture on the right) and cooling off a little in the air conditioned museum, we weren't sure what to do for the night. I had actually thought that it might cool off enough in the evening and night to camp in Death Valley (aren't deserts supposed to cool down fast?) but it was averaging close to 100 all night. So, we pressed on toward Joshua Tree National Park, another 275 miles Southwest. We got to see the worlds tallest thermometer in Baker, CA (on left - it was still over 100) and somewhere near Lucerne Valley, CA we saw a pretty large fireworks display while driving. We still don't know what they were for.

We camped on the North side of Joshua Tree the first night and pitched the tent under the full moon. Although it was still warm it was nothing like Death Valley. In the morning we got up early and toured the park, including a hike of Ryan Mountain (peak #22). Then we pitched our Kelty Carport shelter and created our own shade while waiting out the heat of the day. Jaimee and I hadn't used the Carport on this trip yet, and it worked great. In fact, we were able to rig it to cover the picnic table and even slept under it instead of pitching the tent.

The next morning we got up and headed further south, going to San Diego where we are now. We're staying with our friend Jennifer, whose family lives in Seattle. She was kind enough to host us even though we gave her very little notice. We're having a great time here, and will post about it with some pictures soon.

Here are the rest of the photos from Death Valley and Joshua Tree:

Death Valley and Joshua Tree