Wednesday, July 15, 2009

i call this one "SUNSHIIINE".

i know, i know, i know.

it has been a long while since the last update.

we ended up spending a few more days in new mexico than we factored in, because new mexico is so damn beautiful. we went on this amazing backpacking hike to a place called macauley hot springs, which i wont write about since aaron has plans for that.

we went to some ghost towns along the turquoise trail... though i have a hard time not putting ghost town in quotes. if you have a petting zoo and gift shop, can you be a ghost town? i know there's a formula out there somewhere for how to figure out if a town is a ghost town versus just dusty and filled with hippies, but i can't find it.

from there we went to the grand canyon (north rim, as i can't be trusted around the combination of screaming midwest children and vast canyon expanses that the south rim promises). the trail into the canyon was lovely when it wasn't, literally, streaming and steaming with piles of mule excrement.
also notable were the signs (with pictures of braying, sinister mule faces) warning you not to touch, talk to, look directly at or make any sudden moves around the mules. shit. i spent a good portion of my adult life without the knowledge that they were fundamentally unstable creatures. i guess there's a reason that they're sterile. that is mules, right? i'm too lazy to look it up.

our first night near zion we tried to find a campsite that wasn't a trailer/rv park and ended up stopping randomly at a motel in orderville, utah called the parkway motel. IF YOU ARE EVER IN UTAH PROMISE ME YOU WILL STAY THERE.
the proprietor was unsure whether aaron and i were boyfriend/girlfriend or brother/sister (he later asked aaron) but he still offered us a special on the "Fallin' in Love" room. the room, people, oh my god. it was decorated with gold trim and fake branches glued everywhere. the bed was supposed to mimic a treehouse and was thus elevated about three feet off the ground, putting us approximately 12 inches form the MIRROR ON THE CEILING. i need to post the pictures from this place because i'm seriously not doing it justice. trust me, it was grand.

incidentally, i later saw the owner pantomime whipping his 6 year old son, who was riding belly down in a wagon in the middle of a driveway with his arms outstretched. i think they are probably both geniuses.

i think the zion hikes were my favorites (again, i'll let aaron write in depth about those), even the narrow river hike was great in retrospect.
river hike...i think that i have great endurance; that i am a fairly athletic person... apparently that goes out the window when i am cold and wet. i ended a six hour hike laughing uncontrollably. i was, for real, standing in a river, shaking and cackling so hard that i almost urinated on myself. people were staring at me and i just laughed. my knees were locked up and i couldn't walk effectively. it was kinda great.

we're more than likely going to be home tomorrow. then we're moving into a house. then we're going to san francisco. then i'm taking pictures for McSweeney's (!!) (and a thank you to Miss Sumerton does NOT seem sufficient, but THANK YOU AMY).

-lauralauralaura

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