Travels With Auggie: Life on Mars

There was one place that everyone told us we should go, Utah. No matter who we asked, everyone told us that a trip to Utah was neccessary. We were surprised to say the least. Almost as surprised as we were when we came home and everyone chewed us out for not going to the Corn Palace. Now THAT was surprising.

As we were preparing to leave my cousins house in Arizona I realized that I couldn't find my wallet. After tearing apart the house and car I realized that it was more than likely at the Grand Canyon. Credit cards...identification...medical stuff...all sitting out in the open at the biggest tourist attraction in the US. Or worse, hanging out at the bottom of it. I called the gift shop and after identifying myself they assured me that they had it. I inquired about the contents and they said the the best of their knowledge everything was still there. Phew....

Unfortunately this put QUITE the detour in our trip to Utah plans as there is no easy way to get to the Grand Canyon. When we finally made it there I ran in to grab it and noted with relief that my cards were all still there. My cash was definitely missing...but I figured I deserved that.

We took a quick look at the Grand Canyon, still impressive, then continued on to Utah. Ha, no, that would have been too easy. Actually we backtracked back down towards Flagstaff again and went to visit Wupatki National Monument. We had a National Parks Pass and we were damned sure going to use it. Why couldn't we have visited on our way TO the Grand Canyon? I forget, but we had a reason...believe me we had a reason...I hope. Wupatki is a series of ruins of an old Native American settlement (I want to say Navajo but I don't think that's actually correct. I apologize). The National Parks Service site gives vague credit to the Hopi, Zuni and Navajo tribes. Long story short, it's impressive. It is a massive structure with the remains of over 100 rooms. Very cool.

The day was quickly getting away from us and we had a trip to Utah to make so we couldn't stay long. We got back on the road, stopping briefly for "navajo tacos" at the Cameron Trading Post. A navajo taco is basically a giant taco made with fry bread rather than a taco shell. They are enormous and they are delicious. I think I will be able to eat one every 15 years. It was delicious, but I get full just thinking about it.

I had never actually seen a food item that I believed could kill...until I met navajo taco

After eating as much of the navajo taco as we could without dying we spent some time wandering around the trading post desperately trying to digest the beast. Unfortunately time seemed to pass even faster while we were inside and by the time we got back on the road we had only limited sunlight left. We drove up into Utah as the sun set amongst the rocks. I know I've talked about sunsets a lot on this trip, but they really are different everywhere you go...and each place seemed to get more and more spectacular. The rocks glowed red and orange as the sky turned from blue, to purple, to black. Once it went black everything went black. We were at the mercy of our GPS. Crossing into Utah I noticed the time on my phone had changed but thought little of it. I was more concerned when we reached a fork in the road and our GPS told us to go one way, while the paper map we had seemed to suggest a different way would be better. We trusted the GPS. One day technology will realize my dependence on it and start to destroy me by leading me astray. Today was not that day, thankfully.

As we drove through the deserted darkness I was vaguely aware of every 60 Minutes special report I had ever seen. We had the makings of a good one, two girls, setting out across the country to find themselves, alone in the Utah desert at night....choose your own ending. I need to cut off my own Law and Order: SVU access. Eventually another familiar feeling crept over me...that feeling that we were on top of a mountain. Sure enough the road began to twist and turn and scenic overlook signs started to crop up. Great, there's nothing I love more than being on top of a mountain in the middle of the night. I really like it when the roads are narrow and trucks are coming straight at you with their high beams on too.

Utah driving had all of this then threw in the added bonus of deer. Deer everywhere. Lining the roads you could see the light reflect off of their eyes creating tiny glowing spheres on either side of you. Does that sound creepy enough? Because it definitely was.

We pulled into our hotel in Cedar City, UT at around 10 o'clock...or so we thought. We were surprised to find the door locked as we were told after hour check in didn't begin until 10:30 or so. We rang the doorbell and waited before a night clerk let us in. We asked why they had closed early and she said "it's 11 o'clock". We checked our watches and said "oh....we have it as 10 o'clock....". "It's 11." she assured us. Chiz and I looked at each other, each silently pondering what our next question would be...clearly there was a code that we had to break. "Could it by any chance be 10 o clock in Arizona?" Ch'nel asked? "Yep!" the woman eagerly replied. I pulled up the map of American time zones that I keep in my brain and attempted to figure out where I had gone wrong, it was my understanding that Utah sat DIRECTLY to the north of Arizona and thus a time zone change wouldn't make sense. "So....there's a time zone change in between Arizona and Utah?" I asked. "Sometimes!" the woman replied. "But it is now 11 o'clock" Ch'nel asked, desperately trying to get a hold of a crazy situation. "Yes. There was a time change. You're in room 212. Good night!" and with that she retreated back into the room she basically hangs out in all night. Whatever time it was, I was ready for bed.

We checked the internet and discovered that Arizona does not observe daylight savings and is thus sometimes on Pacific time and sometimes on Mountain time. I remember my friend Megan telling us about this but I always assumed it was some sort of Wild West folklore.

The next day I woke up and decided it would be a good day for my Red Sox t-shirt. This was a great decision as nothing attracts friends better than a Red Sox shirt. Even in Utah they started coming out of the woodwork. The man sitting behind us in the pancake restaurant wanted to know my feelings on the day's Patriots game (my response: Wait....is it Sunday?!?!?! What time is it again?). We hit the road and went to Zion National Park where a couple from San Francisco (by way of Brookline) were interested in my feelings on what went wrong for the Sox that year. I stuttered through it the best I could (team wasn't cohesive...no clear leader...blah blah blah) before Ch'nel was able to distract them with tales of our road trip. No one is better at changing the topic of conversation than Ch'nel, and that's a fact. Whether she intends to or not....she is quite good at getting me out of sticky situations.

The entrance to Zion National Park marked the last time for the next 48 hours that my mouth firmly closed. From that point on I was in a constant state of amazement. Every twist and turn throughout that park and Bryce Canyon, which we hit up later in the day brought a new mesmerizing sight. We had seen some awesome things on this trip, Yellowstone, Yosemite, The Grand Canyon, but the parks of Utah were out of this world. I actually thought we might have left earth. You could blindfold me, put a spacesuit on me, fly me to Utah and tell me that I was on Mars and I would totally believe you. I am that gullible. And, it's like nothing else on Earth.

As I mentioned after we left Zion National Park we went over to Bryce Canyon National Park. Bryce was awesome, however we didn't give it nearly enough time. In order to fully experience Bryce we would have had to have at least a full day and probably a little more hiking experience. Bryce looked like a giant child (imagine the kid in Honey I Blew Up the Kid but BIGGER) had taken all the wet sand in the world, dyed it orange, and made drip castles like you make at the beach. Also imagine that kid had an advanced degree in architecture and was able to make arches out of said sand. It was cool to say the least.

Once again we were fighting the sun. It was clear that fall had come and we were now working against daylight savings. We had to make it to the other side of Utah for our next days adventures and while we were pretty sure there were no sudden mountains in our way, we definitely wanted to avoid midnight desert driving.

And so we took off across the open desert. Once we reached the major highway signs began to threaten us that we were about to reach a 100+ mile stretch without a rest area. We decided to play it safe and pull off at the last gas station/Subway sandwich shop. Here we also stocked up on CDs and cassette tapes, a steal at 3 for $5. As Chiz painstakingly sifted through her selections I went to go pay for my sandwich.

Cashier: Whaddya have?

Me: Just half a hoagie

Cashier: A WHAT?!?!?

Me: Sorry, sub, half a sub

Cashier: No, what did you call it?

Me: A hoagie? Sorry, it's a...

Cashier: That's crazy. $3.75.

I met back up with Ch'nel at the car and asked her what she picked. She eagerly pulled out The Prince of Egypt and Hercules soundtracks, a CD of patriotic music and a cassette tape of prank calls. Awesome. This was going to be an fun 100+ miles. We threw on The Prince of Egypt and settled back to listen to our first new music in a month. We love Party in the USA as much as the next person (probably even more than the next person) but we were glad to get the opportunity to put our well worn CDs to rest.

We made it through the 100+mile stretch and were just ready to pull into Moab, our base for the night, when lights began flashing behind us. Dammit. Chiz pulled over and we were met by our second state trooper of the trip. This state trooper was infinitely better than our first state trooper as:

1. He pulled us over for a legit reason (our taillight was out)

2. He didn't charge us anything ("Not a problem, but it is a safety issue so if you could get it fixed I'd appreciate it")

3. He really wanted to hear about our road trip ("You're from New Jersey? So where are you going? Moab? Oh you're really going to like Moab. Where have you been? Oh wow, everywhere then. This sounds like a great idea you must be having so much fun!" sadly he was then almost hit by a car and realized he should probably finish up his paperwork)

4. He was hot.

Yes. He was very, very attractive. How attractive? Very. Classic clean cut American male. My type. Loved it. I tried to hand over my own license just so that I could give him my name and address. He thought I was nuts. After Chiz gave him her information he went back and finished up the paper work. When he returned he had a friend with him. Apparently he told his patrol buddy that they had a car with two girls in it. I know I should be appalled by this...but I liked it. I cannot stress how nice and attractive these cops were. Like everything else in Utah, they were gorgeous.

After we finished with social hour we bid adieu and went on our way. Day one in Utah had been an overwhelming success. Nice views, nice people, nice weather...we couldn't wait to see what day two had in store.