from Vancouver

We started our visit last night to Bandelier National Monument with a hike to an overlook of Anisazi ruins. Today we did a much longer hike in which we got to climb up ladders into alcoves that used to serve as cliff dwellings for the Native American tribe. We then made our way to Santa Fe, which was an awesome city. There were tons of people outside enjoying the day. We ate some really good fajitas, and Meredith got a saint refrigerator magnet. We finished the day in a hotel in El Paso. Tomorrow: Austin.

Yesterday we stopped by the city of Taos and the nearby Taos Pueblo, a 1000+ year-old Native American settlement. The architecture was all real adobe, and there were tons of art shops. Although intrigued by the age of the culture at Taos Pueblo, both Meredith and I felt a certain voyeurism while touring the village, paying $5 to use our camera (and thus agreeing that we wouldn’t take pictures of the natives without their permission), and realizing that most of the white tourists spent their time in the pueblo collecting “real” and “authentic” native crafts. We sped through the village, snapping a few pictures and escaping with the hope (probably unfounded) that we were different than those “other” tourists. We continued this culturally-confused afternoon by stopping at the adobe-style McDonalds, where we cooled down with an ice cream cone.

After sending Bill, Jessie, and Patrick back to the northeast, Meredith and I have continued our travels on to New Mexico and Texas. Two days ago we went hiking at Pike’s Peak in Colorado, which is apparently the second-most visited mountain in the world (next to Fuji). The hiking wasn’t too difficult and we may have seen a wild cat.

Our last stop was Denver Colorado, where we stayed with Jessie’s uncle Mike Rooney in his sweet bachelor pad in the city. The apartment complex had a real nice pool/hot tub and really delicious chocolate mints. It was nice being there for longer then just a day, we were able to explore a little bit more and get a better feeling for the city. We went to the botanic garden (which had a neat urban art exhibit going on in it), the natural history museum, Red Rock concert theater, and we saw some armature improv comedy. Good last stop.

the next 2 days we did a lot of driving. Lake Tahoe to Salt Lake City to Denver. California, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, then Colorado. Lots of dry, deserty landscapes. At one point tumbleweeds were literally bouncing across the road. We caught back up with Britt in Salt Lake City and made our way out to Denver.

after much deliberation between Yosemite and Lake Tahoe we ended up choosing Tahoe because we wanted to swim and because it was closer. The lakes ended up being too cold to swim in, but it was still pretty nice. We went hiking the next morning up to the Angola lakes. They were still cold, but Meredith went swimming anyway.

patrick moberg has joined the road trip! arrived the last night in san francisco to catch the hotel party we crashed.

spent the last 2 nights in San Francisco, a big change from our farming and camping adventures recently. The traffic here is crazy - its very stressful driving around with all the hills and speeding people in convertibles. We had a great meal in San Francisco’s Chinatown and we spent some time in the Golden Gate bridge park and on the actual bridge.

The last two days we camped out in Napa Valley, California. Wine country. All the farms turned into grape fields, long lines of waist high bushes crawling over hills and valleys. Pretty neat looking, it was fun to go taste wines as well. My favorite was Laird Family Estate. Their farm was designed by the same architect that did the louvre.