Path: orb!not-for-mail
From: li@kryphos.Data-IO.COM (Phyllis Rostykus)
Newsgroups: alt.kalbo
Subject: Road Trip! (4 of 5)
Date: 24 Jan 1995 04:34:22 -0000
Organization: Duchy of Wabesylvan Obspauk
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December 30, 1994

Today was one of those days when I just kept saying, "I can't get THAT!"

Mostly it was 'cause the scenery was just too widespread, too *big*, or 
the sun was right in the middle of it; however, to continue the 
tradition of what I'd done the day before, I tried to catch it anyway.

Lake Powell was formed by Glen Canyon Dam, which is a *huge* dam.  At an 
information center just north of Page, there was a full color spread of 
how the bridge and Dam was built across the red rock, utterly sheer 
canyon.  First, the first cable, then supplies to either side, then more 
strands, the footings, the piece after piece of arch, each supported by 
its own web of cables, then the deck underneath and the finishing work.  
The pictures in the center showed workers on the webs around the bridge, 
completely without safety harnesses.

When the bridge was up, they started working on the dam... running the 
river through the base of the wall in a conduit, which dried and showed 
the river bed at that point, which provided the base for the footings 
for the cement factory and the dam.  The factory started in and would, 
eventually, produce *billions* of tons of concrete for the dam.  

At the base of the dry side of the dam there was a house, a house that 
was about as tall as two 'layers' of concrete in the dam.  There were 
more layers of concrete than I could count.  I lost count around 120, 
'cause the blocks were so indistinguishable from each other. Yeep.

And there was absolutely no way I could take a picture of it and capture 
the height, the walls, and the sheer, insane volume of water the dam 
held back.

Much of the day was like that. 

Some of what made it like that was a brilliantly bright day.

Driving north on 89A there was a lot of Big Sky and mountain ranges in 
shapes I've only remember seeing in pictures, or from distant memories 
of the drive from Indiana to Southern California in 1974.  A long time 
ago.  We headed to Zion National Park, with more colored, sheer cliffs 
than one could aim a camera at.  

The winding road through the red valleys was actually kinda fun to 
slowly drive up and down.  In the middle was a long, unlighted tunnel 
through one of the stone mountains, and the tunnel is so small that they 
have to coordinate wide campers going through it and stop traffic on 
both sides.  It was so dark that the bottom of the walls were painted 
white to help reflect and help spread the light from the cars' 
headlights just a bit more.  The tunnel also had startling 'windows' out 
into the canyon in the midst of the darkness.  At the end of the road 
was a trailhead further into the canyon, but it was closed a mile into 
it due to wet and slick conditions.  In the sun the path was warm and 
easy up to the closing point and felt really good after sitting in the 
car all day..

After climbing back out of the valley we headed to Bryce National Park 
and found ourselves in snow.  In the sunshine it was nearly warm.  The 
main road through the park was closed 7 miles down at the Farview view 
point for construction.  But we got out at that point to take some 
pictures, and it was *cold* on the ridge with the wind whipping through.  
We came back and went out to Inspiration Point which overlooks the Great 
Basin.  John says that the tour books say that the Indian name for the 
Great Basin is 'lots of red rocks shaped like people standing in a bowl 
shaped area'... grin... which is actually very accurate.  Lots of 
hoodoo's (vertical columns of red sandstone) standing all over the 
place, glowing warm red in the sunshine.

We took a little time and got dressed in our x-try gear.  Part of the 
entertainment while dressing was a busful of Aussies out in the snow.  
The bus driver was from Port Orchard, WA and talked with John a little 
bit before picking up a piece of cardboard and sliding down an insane 
slope with it, to the cheers of his bus load of folks.  There was a bump 
just before the parking lot that nearly landed him on his head, but he 
managed to slow the board just before the bump.  One of the Australians 
popped out of the bus saying that he, too, *had* to do that.  Up he went 
with the cardboard, and went down the same slope the driver had; but 
hadn't the sense to stop.  The bus driver tried to catch him and managed 
to soften the impact of the guy's shoulder on the concrete, a little 
bit... Ouch.  But the guy was laughing like crazy as they helped pick 
him up and put him on the bus, where the rest of the tour had come in.
 
We then took a short slide out into the soft snow.  The snow was utterly 
dry powder, lovely stuff when there was a solid crust underneath it, but 
utterly a pain when there wasn't, especially under John's weight.  We 
had a few dozen yards in the packed stuff, and broke out into virgin 
snow.  John just kept breaking through, and any time I tried to really 
push for a full stride, I'd go through, too, to my knees.  At one point, 
I had buried my left ski, so I put all my weight on my right foot and 
then *pulled* at my left leg to free it.  The hard pull slid my right 
foot back and to the side and punched me down into the snow to my hip.  
Ouch.  I was glad that I was warmed up at that point, because I don't 
think that my hip and knee would have taken those bizarre angles so 
placidly if I hadn't. 

Unhappy with that result it took me a while to extricate myself as I 
swore rather steadily.  One good by product of the event was that by the 
time I was back up, I was sweating pretty solidly and warmed through, 
even to my fingertips.  Getting back to the car involved some hill 
climbing, but worked out o.k. with a little extra care and some side 
stepping of the really steep parts. 

The sun had set as we struggled back.  The wind had picked up and the 
dark brought real, bone deep cold.  We patted ourselves off, luckily the 
snow was so dry it just dusted off, on the most part, and I changed into 
dry jeans over my long underwear right there in the parking lot, needing 
the warmth.  We packed everything up, piled into the Range Rover with 
the heater blasting and made it back to the entrance of the park, where 
Ruby's Inn was open, warm, and cheap.

We got a room, unloaded stuff, hung up wet stuff and changed into dry.  
We went to dinner at the Inn restaurant after scoping out the post 
cards.  It took me a while to decide what I actually might want from the 
menu.  After reading that their trout special was made from fresh-caught 
Utah trout, was supposed to be a trout almondine *and* that they breaded 
and fried the poor boneless, skinless fish before adding the sauce, I 
decided that this place probably made an excellent chili burger without 
onions and with fries.

Grin.  The food afaciados in the crowd may follow my reasoning.  For 
anyone else, *anyone* who would *bread* and fry fresh trout should be... 
well... honestly, shot  If you can't shoot them, you'll probably 
find an artist in happily unhealthful, old style, Americana diner food.  
In the southwest, the epitome of said style food is the chili burger, 
without onions 'cause no matter how good the food, I still can't stand 
raw onions. 

I was very gratified to find that the reasoning quite sound.  The chili 
burger was absolutely perfect,  The bun lightly grilled, the burger 
smack dab in the middle and completely hidden by a mass of chili with 
both pinto and kidney beans, slightly spicy, very tomato'y and 
completely coated with cheddar cheese.  The mass of thin, perfectly 
crisp fries soaked up the chili and scooped up the cheese marvelously.  
The tomato, lettuce and pickles sat demurely on the side, not even 
*attempting* to be anything more than an afterthought.  It was a 
deliciously messy, divinely caloric, and utterly marvelous meal, 
especially finished off with a piece of warm pecan pie and a cup of 
coffee with Coffeemate TM in it. <wry grin> 

The rest of the evening was spent planning the next day, writing this 
and watching the Colorado Rams (not the Buffaloes) get slapped down by 
the Michigan Wolverines and looking at dream catchers to figure out how 
they're made.