Category: Personal

(this post was published a day late because I was dead tired)

Last night I spent most of my time at Starbucks because that’s where I found a power outlet that I can use to charge my gadgets. I didn’t plan to, but fell asleep on the table at Starbucks. Then, in the morning, I booked a room in the New York New York (NYNY) hotel. I got a very nice room at the 40th (out of 45) level. It’s a lot nicer compared to the motel rooms I stayed in so far. I got the room and immediately went to sleep.

Having a hotel room relieved me from carrying my daypack with me all the time. I roamed the strip comfortably and without worrying about all my stuff that’s in my bag. And for the first time since I started my trip I walked around without wearing my thermal underpants. Much more comfortable.

After yesterday’s craziness, Las Vegas looks much saner today – you can actually walk down the strip without constantly running into other pedestrians and saying sorry all the time. Turns out I was overwhelmed for a reason – my first impression of Las Vegas was based on one of the busiest days of the year.

I got tickets to David Copperfield and Blue Man Group. David Copperfield does his magic casually and with little drama. After all he gives two shows every day so maybe you can’t be super dramatic two times a day every day. He does “street” magic along with big illusions. I was laughing in disbelief like a child a for entire minutes after two of the them. That’s what I call a good show. Oh, and he also uses (a poorly edited version of) “Smack My Bitch Up” by The Prodigy for one of his illusions – a nice little surprise by itself.

Blue Man Group I don’t even want to try and describe. Anything I say about that show will be a partial and misleading description. I mean, I can tell you what happens during the show but it wouldn’t make any sense. It is simply pure fun to watch (and participate in… the audience is a big part of the show.)

Tomorrow I have no special plans. Probably go to another show or two and more hotel hopping to see the very extravagant designs.

I’m sitting at McDonald’s on the strip in Las Vegas, using their paid Internet service at 1am. And I have no place to sleep tonight. But we’ll get to that.

I started the day early at Zion National Park. The park is huge and again I went to the visitor center to ask for tips. The ranger there suggested three different short trails (instead of one long one) so that I can enjoy a variety of the things the park has to offer.

I did the first two, but as I was walking them I could feel that, even though I was going through truly breathtaking trails, my enthusiasm was lost. I think after yesterday I got tired of walking in snow (and partially in mud) even if this time it was just a few centimeters of it. Or maybe I didn’t want to see nature anymore after it tried to kill me :) I also had Las Vegas on my mind. I already knew that I’m going to skip the Grand Canyon (something I may regret, but still) so I kind of wanted to get to an urban view.

By 11am I was out of Zion Park, only 2.5 hours after going in. I stopped at a small town called Hurricane on the way and had lunch there at a local cafe. I prefer those small places over the big chains. While I got a small salmon bagel, it was very good.

I drove first to Hoover Dam. Hoover Dam is huge. I mean you have to see it to believe it is man-made. It is simply beyond grasp and an engineering marvel. I was just interested in seeing it, not learning about it. Was it worth the one hour detour on the way to Las Vegas and the 15$ parking+visitor center admission for about 15 minutes of looking at the dam? Meh. Maybe I would have been better off taking a 29$ helicopter ride.

On the way to Las Vegas I stopped for gas and to buy something to drink. I saw a man sitting at a slot machine in the store gambling. I thought this was wrong but I let it go. It was also strange to see so many people, cars, commotion. I’ve been in national parks over the past few days. Today at Zion I felt uncomfortable when I ran into more than 5 people on a trail.

Armed with a list of seven (!) hotels prioritized by a friend I drove to Vegas. The first one was Paris Hotel. I arrived at 4:30pm. The 1 km drive on the strip took 20 minutes. I finally got to the hotel and walked inside. It was overwhelming. They created (presumably) French streets inside the hotel, with blue sky and clouds painted on the ceiling and street lights (because after all we’re not outside.) And there are tons of people. Tons. I became anxious and followed the signs to the registration desks only to find out that the hotel is completely full. And now my GPS again came into play. This thing has all the phone numbers of all the hotels. So I started calling (using my local, prepaid phone – another smart buy) all the hotels on my list by order. All were sold out.

I decided to go wardriving so I could use the Internet to find vacant hotels. I found free Internet access and used it from the car. I tried Expedia and it was pretty clear – there isn’t a room under 400$ in Las Vegas. I then realized something must be wrong and started calling motels. All fully booked for the night. And then it hit me – I should win the prize for the stupidest trip decision of the year (and I needn’t remind you that yesterday I walked a trail a ranger told me I shouldn’t.) Want to know what that decision is? Here you go:

The stupidest trip decision of the year is going to Las Vegas without having a reservation. On a Saturday. That is also Valentine’s day.

Oh yes… that’s what I did. For a while I was in denial. Calling more hotels and motels. It was either 400$ or more for one night on the strip or 80 km away from the strip. I won’t pay 400$ for a night, so basically I’m now homeless in Las Vegas for one night. I decided not to worry about a bed for the night and try make the best of my time. My car is parked in the Paris Hotel parking and I’m sitting in McDonald’s because a friend of mine told me Internet access would be free (it’s not.) At least I know where I can charge my gadgets later – at the “business center” in the Mirage Hotel that gives you Internet at 1$ per minute. Yeah, like I’m going to use that. But electricity is free. Also in Starbucks, which is closer. Bu tI can’t find a place with both reasonable priced Internet access and wall sockets.

After a while my initial culture shock subsided and I started walking around. I first went to the casino at the Paris Hotel. The people playing the slot machines looked like zombies to me, sitting there with expressionless faces, pushing the same buttons again and again and feeding the machines more money. And I always thought I’d enjoy that the most (later I spent an entire 4 Dollars on these machines.) And the gambling people – I like watching them… seeing the expressions as they win or lose – some don’t hide their feelings and others are so cool about losing their money. I don’t think I’m going to gamble – it just doesn’t excite me to throw my money away when the odds are so against me. I would rather spend my money on a Pinball machine at Gameworks, where the kids go to play in Las Vegas. Maybe it’s a kind of “I have my life in perspective now that I went through an I-think-I’m-going-to-die type experience”) And suddenly drunk-guy-in-otherwise-inappropriate-clothes smiles at me. I smile back. It’s all very weird.

I decided to try and find a show. At 9:05pm I got a ticket to a Jay Leno show that started at 10pm. Again, the power of one proves very strong. On the way to the show I saw the beautiful Bellagio Fountains (also: YouTube videos of the fountains) – truly a pretty sight. Prior to Leno’s show we saw The Alleycats, a Doo-Wop quartet that are very good (doing 50s and 60s songs) and funny. Jay Leno was funny – it’s like watching the monologue of The Tonight Show, only for an hour and a half. And there was an exciting part when he took on stage this guy from the Air Force and his girlfriend and the guy proposed. I guess that happens a lot in Las Vegas but it only happens once a year on Valentine’s.

I took way too many pictures today at Zion. For every picture that you see here I threw away three. Still, there may be a lot that look very similar. I still included them because I couldn’t decide between them. Also the panoramas (that are composed of more than one picture) are a bitch to create and manage. Today there are many of those.

Today I had a bad experience. Since I’m OK now, I guess I can call it a good experience. But let’s start from the beginning.

I got up at the motel I was staying in. It wasn’t such a good motel, although it was supposed to be better than the ones I stayed in so far. Anyway, the deal included breakfast but turned out to be a load of stuff that I don’t eat (I’m really trying to watch my weight here.) I just got half a cup of orange juice and went on my way to Bryce Canyon National Park. I arrived after a short, 200 km, drive. To continue reading you’re going to need to use this picture:

Learning from my experience with Canyonlands Park I went straight to the visitor center for advice. I requested a 3 to 4 hour hike and the ranger there told me that I can do the rim walk from Sunset Point to Sunrise Point then continue to Queens Garden and then do the Navajo Loop. He also said that this wouldn’t take as long as I requested and that normally he would recommend Peekaboo Loop, which is an additional 5 km, but because snow covers the trail it would be hard to follow (he also mentioned 2 women that tried it 2 days ago and had a rough time.) Here’s lesson number 1: when a ranger tells you something like that he basically means “you’re going to lose the trail and die.” I didn’t pick up on that so I told him I might try Peekaboo Loop and if I see that I can’t find my way I’ll just head back the same way I came in. He said “OK” or something similar which, in ranger jargon, means “crap, we’re going to have to get that guy out. I’ll call home and tell the wife I’m going to be late.”

So I went on the trail, which was amazing (see pictures below.) Since it snowed, I couldn’t see the trail but it was easy to follow the footsteps of the people that walked it before (this is basically what everyone does.) Then I got to the point where I needed to decide whether I’m heading up to the starting point or trying Peekaboo Loop. I felt like I wanted more, so I went on the Peekaboo Loop trail. At that point the sun was shining and I was sweating lightly under my coat and gloves. It felt nice and warm.

Walking in the snow isn’t easy. At many points the snow was knee deep and at some my entire leg was submerged in it. When you’re going downhill it’s not that bad but when you go uphill that’s an entirely different story. Considering that the elevation was about 2.5 km, I was struggling for oxygen and my heart was pounding like I was doing a tough aerobic workout at times.

There were tracks that showed me the way on Peekaboo Loop. After a while you kind of pick up how the trail goes even if there are no footsteps. So in some points where I lost the track I was able to find it a little after. The trails in Bryce Canyon go between rocks and loop around them so you can’t see the trail far ahead. But then, after walking quite a long way (I’m guessing around 3 km), I lost the trail completely. I thought I was going the right way because, just like before, I found some tracks to follow. I noticed they weren’t human tracks and they looked like horse tracks (I could see the hooves markings in the snow at some points.) I followed them for a while and then they split into 5 different tracks to 5 different directions. I tried to go in the direction that seemed reasonable but it led me to a place where I couldn’t walk anymore.

I was exhausted. I felt that by now I should have arrived at the beginning of the loop and started my way back up. I even decided to give up my male pride and was willing to ask for directions. I’m just kidding – there was no one there to ask. The parking lot had one other car when I arrived at the beginning of the trail and no one else tried Peekaboo Loop. I knew I was going to pay a heavy price going back the same way I came in but I had no choice – I had no idea where I was. But then… I couldn’t find my own track going back because of the other tracks in the snow. Here’s lesson number 2: when you try to track back your footsteps remember that you’re creating more footsteps tracks that may confuse you later (as they did me.)

And that’s when I panicked.

I honestly thought this was it. There was no one around and I couldn’t see a way back up – the rocks block the view so even if the trail to go back out is right in front of you, you can’t really know that. Also – that same warm sweat from earlier started freezing my body. Lesson number 3: the sun will only warm you while you’re in sight. When you go down the canyon and the rocks block the sun it’s going to get cold, especially if you’re standing in one place trying to decide what to do. I considered my options and initially came up with two: calling for help and shouting for help. I tried calling 911 but there was no signal, not even for emergency calls. Before I started shouting I had another idea – I’ll use my GPS device to tell me what my coordinates are and then see how far I am from the visitor center, which was saved on the device. At least this way I can get a general direction. So there’s lesson number 4: if you have a GPS device, you should save the locations which you know are on the trail (like the beginning of the trail and maybe places where there is a sign or a bench.)

But then I found my own tracks. Already exhausted, both physically and mentally, I started my way back. By the time I got to the car I was stumbling on almost every step. I was cold, out of breath (I had to go all the way back up the canyon, a few hundred meters above where I was) and hungry. Lesson number 5: take food, snacks, anything. Not just water (which I had), even for a short hike.

I drove to the first store I could find (right outside the park), ate 6 granola bars and drank disgusting Starbucks Mocha, trying to get carbs into my bloodstream. I started feeling better and drove to Zion National Park, not before I changed to a clean, dry and non-freezing pair of socks. I got to the best motel I’ve stayed in so far – Canyon Ranch Motel. The managers, Karen and Mark, are extremely nice – I told them that I started feeling sick so they gave me all kinds of natural medicine and I feel much better now. Also, the room I got is the best I’ve had on this trip (I was in 4 other motels on the way.) They wouldn’t accept payment for their help. I think I should send them something when I’m back in Israel.

Zion National park is huge. I’ll just do one easy hike (don’t worry, I’ve learned quite a bit from today’s experience). I found out that the north rim of The Grand Canyon is closed and the roads to the south rim are snowpacked and icy in places (I’ll make sure tomorrow with the Zion park rangers) so this means I might try to go all the way to Las Vegas tomorrow. I’m not happy about it because I didn’t plan my stay in Las Vegas yet. We’ll see.

Other small lessons I’ve learned today:

• When you take off your gloves don’t make another step until you put them back on – you might trip on that next step and to stabilize yourself put your hand in snow, which isn’t a nice thing
• When you put your gloves on the snow – put them with the open part facing downhill. Otherwise snow may get into your gloves and you’ll have an unpleasant surprise putting the gloves back on.
• If you’re going a long way down, remember that you’re going to have to go all that way back up.

And finally,here are today’s pictures:

My camera sucks. It adds a kind of a rainbow to all photos. I’m going to replace it when I get to Hong Kong, but for now I’ll have to live with it.

Anyway, today I was supposed to drive from Denver to Richfield today. The drive was going fine and I was well on my way to arriving around 3pm. I-70 West in Colorado has amazing views. Imagine a road curving around snowy mountains with a river flowing on the side of the road, lakes and tunnels going through the mountains. The best scenic road I went through so far on my trip.

Then I got closer to Utah. The view changed into desert-like plains with rocky mountains erected on both sides of the road. I kept taking pictures and then I saw a sign that directed me to Canyonlands National Park. For the first time in my trip I took a detour and went into the park. It was quite a long detour but was worth it as you can see in the pictures. Canyonlands Park is exactly what the name suggests – a bunch of amazing canyons, each one with its own unique appearance. I went on a short walk on the rim (edge) of one of the canyons. It took me a while to realize that I was having trouble breathing because I was at around 2 km elevation.

I decided to get back as the sky became darker. It was a good decision to go back because on the way to Utah I had to drive through a snow storm. Not a nice experience, but I just followed other cars and arrived safely to Richfield Utah. I estimate today’s total trip at around 900 km with the detour to the park.

Tomorrow: Bryce Canyon National Park. It looks like it’s going to be nice tomorrow – as high as 1 degree Celsius.

Today we had an amazing trip to The Rocky Mountain National Park, which is not far from Denver. The park’s scenery is really breathtaking, even if you just drive through it. It was basically a sunny day but as we drove further into the park, the snow was coming down heavy and the roads became harder to drive through. Inside the park lakes are frozen. As you drive through the park you can see why it’s called The Rocky Mountain – the rocks are towering on both sides of the road and looking beautiful.

Tomorrow will probably be the longest drive I did so far – about 750 km to Richfield, Utah, where I will spend the night (no special plans there) and on the next day continue to Bryce Canyon National Park.

A relaxed day in Denver… today we went to the Denver Art museum. One of its most known features is the architecture of the building itself, created by Daniel Libeskind, who also designed the Jewish Museum in Berlin. Other than that… well, I don’t really know how to appreciate art. It doesn’t create any emotional response in me. Some of the stuff is very beautiful and I can appreciate the work that was put into creating it and the creative thought required to come up with a piece of art, but that’s about it.

Today I also had one of the best meals ever – real, home-made Chinese food. It was unlike any other restaurant-type Chinese cuisine and easily the best meal I had since I started my trip. Later on we went to see the new Underworld movie, which was fun and, in the spirit of the day, relaxed. Tomorrow we will try and go to The Rocky Mountains, which are supposed to be a nice place to visit.

On Thursday morning I will leave Denver to start my trip to Las Vegas. I’ve started planning the trip and I think it will be as follows: One day drive west to Utah. The next day a short drive to visit Bryce National Park. I’ll walk around there a bit (a friend told me it’ll take a few hours) and then drive a little more south-west to Zion National Park, which I will visit the next day. The day after that – a drive to The Grand Canyon. Still not sure how long I will spend there but it will be either a day or two. The day after that – a drive to Las Vegas through Hoover Dam, which a lot of people recommended. So all in all – probably five or six days until I get to Vegas, where I intend to spend three days and then drive to San Fransisco for the rest of my time in the US. I travel to Hong Kong on March 1st.

The drive from Salina to Denver was surprisingly easy. It started with a cold rainy weather in Kansas and ended with a sunny day in Colorado (you can see in the pictures below.) On the way I stopped in a rest area (there’s one every 80 km or so on the freeway) and there I met Carl, the guy who maintains the rest area and participated in the Korea war. He warned me that if I want to take a nap I should probably do it in an open well-lit place with the doors of the car locked. He even offered to keep an eye for me while I sleep.

He also told me about a stabbing and some rapes and robberies that occurred in the resting areas near by. I had no idea it was worth for someone to actually wait for people to arrive to these places and rob them, but I guess it is. Later I told him that I’m from Israel and he said he had some friends from Israel in the past and that he remembers them as “fearless.”

I got to Denver and finally got to meet my friend and her family. It was a very exciting moment for me – meeting her after all these years. Pretty amazing, if you ask me. I’m enjoying my time here a lot so far… I think we’re getting along very well and I hope I’m not weird in any way (you know… cultural differences and stuff like that.) Tomorrow we’ll spend the day together. Still haven’t decided what we’re going to do, but at the least I’m happy it’s not more of that endless driving (I will do that again in a few days on the way to Las Vegas.)

Here are some pictures I took while driving:

(This post is a day late because I didn’t have a connection last night)

Another long drive, more great scenery, no special events. Except maybe that I nearly ran out of gas. The Toyota Yaris is funny that way – the odometer, fuel meter and the rest of the indicators are not in front of the driver. They’re in the middle of the dashboard between the driver and the passenger. So to see how much fuel I have left, I need to look to my right. It’s just not in front of me to see.

I was tired when I got to the motel and I already knew there was nothing exciting I wanted to do around Salina KS. The wireless connection in the motel didn’t work, so I just had a quiet evening.

I forgot to mention that yesterday I met this very nice St. Louis couple in the Jerry Seinfeld show. Cathie and Jim used to go to the Fox Theatre when it was still a movie theater (and they were kids). They were very nice and showed me around the beautiful balcony of the theater. When you travel alone even a simple conversation goes a long way, let alone when someone “adopts” you for an hour or so :)

Tomorrow: finally getting to Denver CO to visit a friend. I met this friend online about 13 years ago (on IRC) but never met her in real life. So it’s going to be exciting just to meet her in person. I plan to stay there for a couple of days and then drive to Las Vegas and see some parks on the way. I still need to plan the route.

I can’t believe this is the 2 weeks mark of the trip. Everything seems to have happened so long ago – New York, Canada (4 different planes total), Washington DC, the drive over here. All this happened in 2 weeks time. It’s a strange feeling. Still 71 more days to go on this trip. Wow :)

Today I went again into St. Louis. I thought since the Jerry Seinfeld show is in a place called Fox Theatre, around it must be some stuff to do in the hours prior to the show. I was wrong – while the architecture is very nice, the place doesn’t offer many attractions during daytime (at least not on a Saturday.) Just a few art galleries (some are open, most are not) and that’s about it.

I was hungry so I went into a place called “The Best Steak House.” I feared this would be a place where I will be forced to order an 80$ steak that I can’t appreciate, but instead was met with a long line of people with trays. I thought it was strange but nothing prepared me for the next thing that happened – the person operating the grill (let’s call him the griller) yelled “NEXT!” and then some people in the line started shouting their order for the griller to hear.

I started to get nervous as I didn’t know yet what I was going to order and didn’t feel comfortable shouting my order for everyone to hear my funny accent. It turned out, though, that it was a first time (and therefore an embarrassing) experience for many of the people in line so eventually I said my order out loud to the griller when it was my turn. The food was very good and later I realized that this is some kind of a local establishment since 1968 or something like that. It’s nice when a good meal is also a cultural experience :)

One good thing about St. Louis is that all restaurants have free Wi-Fi access. This way I could pass the time before the show catching up on my RSS feeds and writing this post.

Fabulous Fox Theatre is a very beautiful theater. Originally a movie theater, it’s preserved from 1929 and has a long history of famous shows which you can see in posters and pictures on the walls. Before Jerry Seinfeld went on stage, Tom Papa came on first. Tom Papa was very funny, but Seinfeld was hilarious. At one time I had tears coming out from laughing so hard. I always imagined that Seinfeld stands in one place on stage and doesn’t raise his voice, but he actually moves a lot on stage (for one joke he lay flat on stage) and would occasionally raise his voice for jokes.

After he was done with the stand-up, he came back to answer questions from the audience. I really liked that. He answered questions like “what’s your favorite Seinfeld episode?” to which the answer was it’s not an episode as much as it’s jokes from episodes like Kramer managing to hit the golf ball into the whale’s blowhole, George killing his fiance with the poisoned envelopes and Jerry stealing the rye bread from the old lady. Another question was what happened to the puffy shirt. It turns out the shirt is in the Smithsonian (where I was a few days ago.) And finally someone asked about future projects. Unfortunately the exact answer was “I’m old, I’m rich and I’m tired… [pause for audience laughs]… This is not a motivated person.”

Tomorrow: driving 692 km to Salina Kansas. I don’t expect to have much to do there, being a small city and all. But it’s half way to Denver CO and that’s where I need to go.

Today I drove the long way from Columbus OH to St. Louis MO. The drive itself was uneventful and the scenery on the way very beautiful. I didn’t have anything planned out for the night so I decided to go to downtown Missouri and see what I can find to do. The metro into St. Louis from the hostel (in Illinois) goes on a bridge over the Mississippi river – an amazing view (for about 10 seconds.)

When in St. Louis I first went into Hooters where my waitress recommended some hang-out places for me to go to. I walked around a little and couldn’t find any place interesting (I guess I needed a guide) and I was tired so I went back to my hostel and I’m calling it a night early (it’s 8:30pm). The lesson is that I should have something planned up ahead for these nights. Therefore, today there are no pictures.

Tomorrow: Jerry Seinfeld. Woohoo! I also need to plan the drive for Sunday and Monday. The problem is that there is no big city half way between St. Louis MO and Denver CO (Kansas city is the only big city on the way, but it’s too far east to be a good stopping place.) I’ll plan tomorrow.