Tuesday, April 30th – Wednesday, May 1st, 2013
It had been 13 days since we last showered, and man, were we happy to finally get one! Baby wipes only go so far. After we freshened up, we drove the van to Rainbow & Yovimpa Points. Our first hike was along the Bristlecone Loop Trail which smelled like Christmas as we passed underneath all the spruce, fir, and aspen trees.
We worked our way back and stopped at the Black Birch Canyon and Natural Bridge view points before pulling into the parking lot to Bryce Point.
Trevor was preparing to back into an empty parking spot when an angry old man came out of left field to stop him. Trevor had driven work vans for over a decade, so he’s quite capable of backing a van of equal size into a parking spot. The grandpa yelled and waved his arms around insisting Trevor didn’t know what he was doing. Trevor is one to respect his elders, but I could tell this guys was starting to get under his skin. Trevor calmly told the man, “Don’t worry, I got it.” The man asserted, “No! You don’t got it!” The crazy guy decided to stand in the parking spot to block us, so Trevor warned him he was going for it anyway and he better move. The old fart dodged the van, but insisted on supervising as Trevor backed into the spot with not issue. When Trevor asked the old man if his parking was done up to his standards, the man walked away looking defeated, probably searching for something else to b*tch about. I really hope by the time I reach that guy’s age, if I’m lucky enough to live that long, that I have better things to do with my time than try to feel important by bossing complete strangers around. It’s sad, really.
We started to hike the Hat Shop Trail, named after hoodoos with rocks balancing on top of them that look like hats. In my opinion, they look more like dongs. I’m sure Freud would have some strange insight for that observation.
The soil kept changing colors from pink to red to yellow to gray and then to white, which was also the color of Trevor after we got about 2 miles in. He was either dehydrated, suffering from altitude sickness, or both. He had been drinking more coffee than water lately, but we also had made a 1,075 foot ascent. We took a break in the shade, I gave him most of my remaining water since I felt fine, and we returned to the van.
After he got some fluids in him and recovered, we returned to camp, and saw a bunch of prairie dogs along the way. We paid a short visit to the gift shop before returning to camp for some post dinner entertainment as we watched three RVs full of Europeans trying to back into their spots. It was long and painful, and I felt bad for them, but it was very amusing.
It’s been 2 months since the start of our journey and it’s chilly out, so I’m slow to get out of bed. We walked to Sunset Point where we started the Navajo Loop Trail. We were unable to complete the loop since part of the trail was closed, so we continued along the Peek-a-boo Loop Trail which branched off from it. This was probably my favorite trail in the park so far. The landscape was stunning!
We took a short trail that branched off from where we were called the Queen’s Garden Trail where people had set up a bunch of mini cairns, then we hiked back up to Sunset Point and returned to camp.
We got a better look at some prairie dogs on our way to town to grab some food, then returned to camp to dust off our legs and bundle up since it was starting to get chilly.
We ate jambalaya rice with beans and sausage, cleaned up, made coffee, then took a tour of the campground. We met a man named Ben who also went by the name “BMW” (his initials), who was riding his motorcycle from Sacramento, CA to Arlington, VA to visit his father’s grave (his dad was a Vietnam veteran). He told us how he enjoyed fishing in Missouri and highly recommended we visit Glacier National Park during our journey.
It was supposed to be 19 degrees Fahrenheit (-7 degrees Celsius), so after wishing him a safe journey, I started to worry about him since he was tarp tenting with limited clothing. I expressed my concern to Trevor and he mentioned to me that we still had “Hot Hands
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Stubbs Rambles On 