Utah, part II

Big news here from Dayton! Nick and I successfully found a sweet apartment and are signing the lease today (Thursday) and moving in TOMORROW (Friday)!! We (I) had centralized our search to the downtown area, with particular focus on two historic neighborhoods, South Park and the Oregon district. I had read a lot about South Park online - it was named neighborhood of the year in '08 and consists of mostly turn-of-the-century victorians and craftsman, many of which have been lovingly restored. The part that really attracted me to the area was the neighborliness: everyone meets on Friday nights at the South Park Tavern (which has 18 taps dispensing microbrews from all over the country), during the late spring through fall they have rotating "porch and patio" parties that migrate from one person's house to another, and everyone knows EVERYONE. We got a real warm fuzzy from the area. Rentals in the district are hard to come by, but we looked at two houses, both of which were bigger than our needs and at the upper end of our price range. I also looked in the Oregon district which is immediately North of South Park and has just about all of the hip restaurants in Dayton ... but no rentals fitting our bill. About three blocks North of the Oregon is a block called the Cannery district, which is a series of several old buildings that have been restored and converted to loft spaces - we looked at a couple of floor plans and really fell in love with one that is a corner/end unit with something like 13 huge windows (5 of which still open!) and a huge open floor plan. If you go to www.cannerydayton.com and look at the floor plans, it's the 3br plan named "Barney Power," which is an odd name for a floor plan but is apparently named after one of the builders, a Mr. Barney, who constructed the building in which our floor plan exists and his company which provided electric power to the other buildings on the block (power). Anyway, the size is just right for us. And the location couldn't be better - we are easy walking distance to the Oregon and to South Park Tavern, our immediate downstairs neighbor is a huge wine shop that also does tastings and is perhaps the only decent wine shop in Dayton (you know, the kind where the owners actually taste the wine they buy), next to the wine shop is a huge art gallery / coop, next to that is the only real nightlife in Dayton (Therapy Cafe), and next to that is the only proper tea shop in the city as well. Oh, and two blocks Northeast of us is the 2nd Street Market, the biggest farmer's market in the region. Those of you who got to hear me whine about leaving San Diego and Be Wise Ranch and all of my lovely farm-fresh produce will realize how big a plus that is for me. (and speaking of farmer's markets, we stopped by one close to Wright-Patt just yesterday in hopes of finding a little something for lunch and perhaps some veggies: it was adorable in that it was only 5 or 6 stalls, but the prices were outrageously low. I got four amazing heirloom tomatoes for A BUCK. Best tomatoes I think I've ever tasted in my life, by the way.)

So we'll have a new address soon. I don't want to post it online for anyone out there in cyberspace to find, but if you need it, go ahead and email me and I'll send it directly to you. Nick and I are keeping our (619) cell phone numbers and probably won't bother getting a house phone in the new place, so we can still be reached at those numbers.

Okay, so updates aside, I wanted to give you the final chapter in our cross-country drive. After a night in Green River, we woke up early and headed right out for Arches Nat'l Park. The drive was, again, beautiful, although we seemed to come upon the scenery much more abruptly than on our previous drives. The road went from vast plains with distant buttes to WHAM! Pillars of gorgeousness!!

(as you can probably tell, these were all taken from a moving car - a recurring theme here. So forgive me if the foregrounds are a bit blurry. Can't be helped.)

We arrived at the park around 9 and couldn't help stopping at every pullout, every scenic point. From the moment you enter the park, you head up a series of switchbacks that end up giving a fantastic view of the road below and, as it turns out, of the Moab fault line that runs along the opposite hillside just up from the road (you can't really make it out by eye, even in person. I just had to trust that the little placquard explaining the whole thing wasn't lying.)

Again, we had frustratingly little time to spend in the park, so we tried to limit ourselves to views from the car or very short walks. The first real viewpoint that you encounter in the park is for what is called "Park Avenue," a series of jutting formations that do sort of resemble walking around downtown New York City (or any big city, for that matter) with skyscrapers on either side of you. Although I think Park Avenue ought to be seriously flattered by this comparison. We were there early enough that the sun was still pretty far to the East, leaving most of Park Avenue in shadow. So no pictures. But we continued on to the Courthouse Towers, which includes the "Three Gossips":

Across from the Courthouse Towers is a formation known as The Organ, which rises out of the surrounding rock and really does resemble the kind of organ pipes you'd find in an old European cathedral or something. This shot was from the car as we approached it (with the Tower of Babel in the background):


Although the sun wasn't in a favorable position, this shot was too tempting to resist. We were the only car in this pulloff to view the Courthouse Towers; the parking lot was at the base of The Organ. I loved being able to get a sense of scale from the Prius at its foot (even though there's a bit of distortion from the wide-angle lens and the picture badly needs to have the horizon straightened):

Looking North from the viewpoint, The Tower of Babel was clearer, and damn if it wasn't ah-maze-ing:


Next up was "Balanced Rock," which is pretty much what you expect it to be, only taller and larger than we expected. This was one of the many formations that has a short path leading to it; in this case, the path circled around the base and allowed us to see it up close from many different angles. Nick decided to wear a shirt that just happened to be the same color as the rocks ... see if you can spot him (sorry for the picture being kind of dark - I edited this one in the car and I don't know why it ended up this way):

Arches, much like Bryce, is accessed by one main road with several short offshoots. We sort of missed the first one. Well, we saw it, but a lot of stupid drivers were turning down it so we decided to keep heading North, away from the unwashed masses. Turns out, that road leads to some of the most famous formations, including the Windows arches ... once we realized this, we made a pact to hit it on the way out of the park. We took the next offshoot, though, toward the MOST famous arch in the park, Delicate Arch. Turns out the only way to really get close to the arch is to take a hike that was going to take way more time than we had budgeted. I was bummed but, as Nick reminded me, this trip was just a taste. And how happy would I REALLY have been, hiking 3 miles with 1,000 ft elevation gain, in 95 degree heat? Good point, husband. Good thing he looks out for my sanity (and his). So we sort of viewed it from a distance, pronounced it lovely, and continued back to the main road and farther North toward the Fiery Furnance (only accessible by ranger-led trails) and the far Northern end of the park.

The views were ever-changing through this part of the park, and we were both startled by the vast array of KINDS of landscape we saw in a very short distance. We saw everything from open, scrub-covered rolling plains to gargantuan formations the size of a city block, and even the types of rock seemed to change. In the Fiery Furnace region, the peaks were small and bulbous and tightly clustered, but just past it the land opened up and there were more individual pillars spaced farther apart. (one theme, however, that was consistent throughout the park were the distinct phallic shapes. I know I'm a bit of a dirty bird who maybe doesn't have the cleanest mind to begin with ... but seriously. Phallis. Everywhere. I mean, c'mon.)

There were also many of these half-caves, half-arches, the result of weathering that will someday result in an arch in the rock.


Oh, and see? I was there! (I love my sideview mirror shots. I actually specifically CLEAN the passenger window and mirror at each gas station so that these shots are possible. Sad, I know. But are you really that surprised?)


Some sweet clouds moved in just as we approached Skyline Arch:


And we continued to the very Northern end of the Arches Drive where the only park campground and the main trailhead to most of the other arches exist. We drove through the campground quickly and were surprised by not only how beautiful it was, with campsites tucked into the red rocks or with sweeping views of the nearby hills, but how well-equipped it is, with dishwashing stations and several toilet and shower facilities. When I told my mom how much I liked the campgrounds, she told me about when she and my dad had camped there in their mid-20s and had to rig their own shower by balancing a bucket with a spout on a rock ledge above their campsite. Of course, back then there probably wasn't an 8-month waiting list to get a campsite ... but some things are just worth the wait!!

On our drive out of the park, we stopped at the cutoff for viewing the Windows. We thought we were being smart by not hitting it first thing in the morning, and by large we managed to avoid crowds in the rest of the park by jumping ahead of the rest of the early morning crowd. But we didn't really expect so many people to be in this particular section of the park, as it was going on noon. Anyway, we took our time along the winding drive toward the trailhead for the Window Arches. We saw the Cove of Caves:

And the Parade of Elephants:

Some more phallic pillars (and the very beginning of an arch):



And sweeping panoramas of the Arches country:


We climbed up on top of a little hump to get those shots, and while we were up there, Nick happened to notice what may have actually been the tiniest arch in the entire park!

And of course he had to say he had "been there" and "done that" and "traversed the arch." I just had to have photographic evidence:


Yes, dorks are we.

Our Arches detour was a bit longer than we'd orginially intended, and we still had some long hours in the car ahead of us before getting into Denver. I took over driving shortly after Arches, and we really enjoyed the Colorado country. By any other standards, it was spectacular. After just driving through Utah's most lovely and impressive land, though ... it was just ... nice. But the skies were clear (although obscenely hot the entire time. Leave it to us to find the heat wave and go straight toward it!) and we followed the Colorado River almost the entire time. We started to notice some ridiculously nice-looking homes and realized we were nearing Vail - I figured we must be getting close to the mountain passes that would take us over the continental divide. And yes, we were soon at 12,000 ft on a very steep road with the poor Prius loaded to the absolute gills ... guess what? I found the limits of my car! Now, this is kind of a point of pride for me, as I often jump to the defense of my hybrid when people joke around about how it must "putter" or "whir" or whatever other misconceived notions they have about it being slow/dottery. 'Cause I'M not the one who's merging onto the highway too slowly or who can't find the gas to escape nasty traffic situations. I MAY have told someone that if I ever found 'em on the road, I'd smoke 'em. And, largely, that's true. The Prius has some zip. But not at oxygen-starved 12,000 at Loveland Pass. And not full loaded. And certainly not when I'm stuck behind a camper-towing SUV who decided to slow down to FORTY-FIVE mph at a whim. OFTEN. I was actually screaming at the d.b. "DON'T YOU KNOW I CAN'T ACCELERATE?!?!" Oh well. My pride may have been wounded, but we all made it through without a problem and enjoyed our descent into Denver. We wanted to stop in the city for dinner, and Nick had picked out a brewpub that's right across from the ballpark. Only after exiting the highway did we realize that it was a game night ... and that the game would be starting in just over an hour. Thankfully, once we got through dealing with pedestrains and dumb drivers, most of the parking in the area was just 2-hour and therefore empty. We parked, we ate, we had a beer, and we continued to the old, odd, and somewhat seedy town of Limon. We were EXHAUSTED and it was late, so we picked the cheapest AAA-rated place that had WiFi and crashed for the night. We didn't get in til well past dark, but we saw a beautiful sunset. Here are the last moments of light:


The rest of our trip was more about family and friends and less about scenery - especially since we had to drive through the length of Kansas. I mean, Kansas was nice enough. It's a lot like Illinois, only less flat. And more bugs. And SO MUCH HEADWIND. I actually got the lowest mpg I've ever had in the Prius. We stopped for a couple small meals in Hayes (at Al's Chickenette, a famous bastion of fried-chicken amazingness) and Salina (at the Cozy Inn, where sliders still get made the way White Castle used to, before they were corrupted by gross grease and corporate greed). These towns were fascinating to me, because they were obviously centered around the grain industry and the huge grain elevators lining the train tracks through the hearts of the towns. But ... everything just seemed ... dead. The elevators didn't look like they'd been used in 50 years (and we saw plenty of active elevators as we drove through the state). The train tracks looked to be in disrepair. The old buildings around the tracks, such as train stations, old city halls, etc, looked like they hadn't been touched in decades upon decades. And then, you drive three blocks over to the part of town they've (tried to) revitalize, and you see men in suits with briefcases! It was just ... bizarre. And now that we're in Dayton, I can see how this town, not only having lost the big GM plant about 8 months ago but also several huge long-standing corporations that employed thousands of Daytonians in the last few months, could have that kind of future. I sure hope not - I am growing fond of this little city. But you see how an industry dies and the city sort of tries to exist, tries to hold on, and tries to act like those brick or concrete symbols of the industries on which the city was founded are just OKAY THE WAY THEY ARE and that they need to be there JUST IN CASE. I have seen so so many beautiful brick warehouses here in downtown Dayton that are just sitting empty, totally and completely EMPTY and have been for years ... and there are just more and more added to the rolls every month. As the economy evolves it'll be interesting to see how Dayton rides the wave.

Anyway. We spent the night in Kansas City and got to spend time with Nick's high school friend Scott and his wife and daughters, then rolled on to St. Louis the following morning to spend a day and night with Nick's brothers Matt and Chris, my sister-in-law Kate, and our nephews Braydan and Josh. After days of eating in the car or at odd hours, it was nice to just sit and relax and have a home-cooked meal! We drove out to Edwardsville to have breakfast with Matt and Braydan on Saturday morning and then continued up to Chicago to first spend some time with the Braces (Randy and Jenni and Kayla drove down for dinner, and my aunt Jo Ann, uncle Peter, and their kids Alex, Peter, and Ashley all came by for the festivities, too!), and then we moved on to my in-laws' house in Homewood for the night. Bob and Lynda have temporarily adopted wee Natasha and Naski during this transition time, and it was fun to spend time with them and see how they've acclimated to their new surroundings. Natasha loves having space to escape from Naski's irrirating stalking behavior, and Naski has most definitely warmed up to them both, especially Bob. He was a little wary of us ... but soon figured out that we were pretty much okay. I loved having Natasha realize "OMG! It's MOM!" but she wouldn't leave me alone ALL NIGHT, constantly jumping onto the bed, nuzzling my face, and pestering me for love and attention. I miss my kids.

Sunday morning we enjoyed brunch with the Sinnokraks and then had to bid adieu to Chicago to start the first of many road trips between Chi-town and Dayton.

And now we're HERE! And finding things to like about Dayton. Still haven't found a JOB, but you know ... all in good time?