cheese

Our mother texted us last night to pick up some cheddar cheese and pasta on our 8 hour drive from Los Angeles. She lives two blocks from Vons. Here are the responses we thought of in our trek across Utah.

• Is it okay if the cheddar is aged 2 days with a slight smell of warm car?
• We are over 100 miles from the nearest grocery store...however there are cows nearby...
• Currently in a farming town in the middle of Utah, populated only by motels. Checked the continental breakfast, no cheese.
• We might not be able to, but isn't Daddy flying from Newark today...I'm sure he can pick some up along the way.
• I'm sure we could find a couple of Kraft singles at the gas station
• We could always spend 30 minutes in Las Vegas hunting down a grocery store...or we could wager for some cheddah.
• Maybe Joseph, pop. 57, will have a Ralphs.
• Does it have to be organic? We have string cheese that's been aging in the car since Tuesday.
• I wonder if the Indian reservations have some cheddar on hand....
  

Denver

What did we do in Denver? We visited factories.

1. Celestial Seasonings Factory (AMAZEBALLS) which included a tour of the actual factory floor, where we got to smell all the tea, especially the mint room, and then we sat around and sampled different flavors of tea for an hour. I'm not exaggerating when I say we sampled tea for SIXTY MINUTES. There were no limits on flavors. And I had Kambucha! Love!!! (Yes, it tastes like apple cider vinegar and that's why I like it.) Of course, then we shuffled over to the gift shop and bought boxes and boxes of discount tea. Recommended for every single person who finds themselves in the Colorado area.
2. Some winery which offered a self-guided tour of their wine process and barrels, etc. Very informative. No free samples.
3. US Mint. This is where they mint regular coins for the American populace. I was super excited about this but they didn't show us enough factory -- you could barely see the shiny copper bullions shooting into machines and coming out pennies. The tour guide was enthusiastic, though, and I learned that Utah's state quarter has the golden spike on it, because that is where they connected the transcontinental railroad way back when. No free samples, but free tour. Make reservations ahead of time. I imagine that the Federal Reserved Engraving center in Washington DC is more interesting.
4. Coors Brewery. This tour was a bust. The only thing I learned was that this brewery is the largest in the world. We did not see any factory machines pouring beer into bottles. Their free samples reinforced the fact that I do not like beer. We had to stand in line outside in the sun for half an hour and my shoulders got burnt to a crisp. There were many small children on this tour, which was both annoying and confounding. There were also a lot of beer guts present. Only recommended for college kids who can't go buy their own alcohol and need to rely on free samples to party.

Other than visiting factories, we hiked at Red Rocks (loooooooooooooooove big rocks), did some internet recon on a camp guy we all had a crush on in Mador, brought mac 'n' cheese to Harry Potter, watched The Town for the second time (love), and got pestered by Hugo the dog. He would not stop licking my feet. Oh, and I slept in the walk-in slanted closet of the guest room just like Harry Potter himself. Successful trip!

Denver is great!
Karen and Tyler are even better!

Eff Yeah, Rockies!!!

Utah and Colorado are amazing. Lots and lots of rocks. Lots and lots of sky.



Rocky Mountains!!! We saw all the Coors peaks from miles and miles away. They are huge in the distance. We had to drive over several Coors peaks before going through a long tunnel UNDER THE CONTINENTAL DIVIDE!!!!!



Aaron tied my hair in a ponytail because the wind was whipping it around and I couldn't see.












Right around Vail, there was a car fire and everybody got stopped for twenty minutes. We got to turn off the car and hop around. Here is Aaron looking so cool and enjoying the view. We tried playing around the with radio and hit the scan button. There was exactly one channel.


It did start drizzling at one point which was lovely for both the temperature change and the fact that all the bugs got washed off my windshield and front grill. There was a rainbow afterwards.

Arches pics

The sun high in the sky at 8:00am, Egyptian temple carvings, human arches, jumping pictures, and why yes, I wore the exact same thing I did yesterday.

Arches National Park

We woke up at the butt crack of dawn again, in order to get to Arches National Park before it got too hot and get a jump on the crowds. This was another sleepless night for me on account of the prednisone and caffeine combination. Continental breakfast was your typical motel fare – we stole several packets of mini peanut butter and jelly packets.

It took much longer than I was expecting to get to Moab, but BOY WAS IT WORTH IT. Arches National Park is impressive. Huge red slabs of rock shaped into thin walls, towers, and rainbow shapes by wind and water erosion. The redness and smoothness of the rocks reminded me of Uluru in Australia. The surrounding scenery was like Arizona's Painted Desert – makes sense because they are in the same geological region. I think.

The huge walls of stone have their surfaces rubbed away in some places, resembling the carvings and bas reliefs of Egyptian temples. You know Ramses' huge temple or Hatshepsut or something like that? I don't know either because i'm driving on a road in the middle of Utah, but I have the picture in my head of huge, majestic, carved stone walls. This was like that, but red. I keep staring at the carvings to discern their design but mother nature doesn't plan like that.

The arches themselves were pretty cool. We spent about two hours driving and walking around and took roughly eight thousand pictures. Everything was stunning. The feeling of awe in the presence of big rocks cannot really be explained in words.

Rock fatigue set in right before noon and we went on our way to Denver.

california ---> utah

Let me start by warning everyone what they probably already know: Do not go to sleep at 2am if you are planning on picking up your brother at 6am to embark on an 8-hour car ride. I am such a procrasti-packer! There we are on the right, me enjoying my canned coffee beverage and Aaron doing his trademark smile. Don't we match the wall so well?!

We got out of LA with no traffic problems. The weather was overcast and pleasantly cool, which was awesome. Aaron said something funny about being on the 15 north for 500 miles, but in our sleep and carb deprived states, neither of us could remember it. IMAGINE IT WAS HILARIOUS!!! 61 miles from Los Angeles, we were still seeing signs for Carmaggedon. The drizzling started just as we finished listening to the South Park soundtrack and then the visibility drops dramatically. We are in a huge cloud of fog!! M'kay?

We switch over to some tribal A Capella and I really wanted Aaron to hear my most favorite song ever, the one I have described as sounding like the exploding of the cosmos and beginning of the world. I have lain on my floor listening to this song on repeat, I find it that amazing. I hear God in this song. Aaron reports that it "sounds like yelling."

At the rest stop we do some tabletop yoga.


Next, we drive some more and stop in Baker to buy some Coke. Baker has the world's largest thermometer! Thermometers, however, are pretty boring. And this one is broken.

The drive to Vegas is long and hot. The most exciting part is when we pass by fake Vegas which is really the city of Primm, right on the border between California and Nevada. It is called fake Vegas because from a distance it looks like an awesome place with big hotels and a roller coaster, but from up close it is small and not shiny.

Neither of us has any desire to drive through the strip, on account of Aaron being here a few weeks ago and me planning to come at the beginning of August. So we drive past all the tall, shiny buildings which are still impressive via the I-15. So are all the matching parking lots. I love that Cesar's Palace has built a Greco-Roman building with fake marble in which to store modern vehicles. Klassy! We find a park north of the strip (ghe.tto), lay down a blanket, and snooze. I am so hyped up on caffeine that it takes half an hour to fall asleep. Still, that 20 minute catnap is amazing. Then we do a pit stop, load up on gas ($3.35/gallon!!!), and get out.

Here are some things that happened between Las Vegas and Richfield, Utah:

• We drove a lot.
• The scenery changed from flat and brown to rocky and red.
• The scenery changed from rocky and red to rocky and red and green and lush.
• We oohed and aahed at all the changes and took a zillion pictures through the front windshield, which all turned out crappy because my front windshield is covered in bug guts.
• We drove through a mountain! Right as I-15 goes through the northwest tip of Arizona, the road appears to go on and on and on straight into the face of a rock mountain. The road veers sharply at the last minute, and winds its way through a narrow channel. It was like driving through the rocky canyons of Petra. I cannot convey how awesome this was. Aaron and I were freaking out and exclaiming loudly and holding up traffic with our slow, gawking driving. We took a video of the experience but the video is L.A.M.E. You will have to drive to Utah yourself to see this awesome mountain pass.
• Utah has lots of little churches with Mormon looking spires. (We think.)
• We eat lunch at a McDonalds.
  
• I pee on the side of the road.
• We check in at Super 8 Richfield. Richfield is a town of 6,000, all of whom must work in the service industry because motels are the only thing around. My goal is to go to be asleep by 10:00 pm.

road trip to Denver, CO begins in 11 hours.

With Aaron Ackerman.