#6 - Road Trip

A few months ago, my good friend Chase told me he was planning a cross-country road trip that would take the entirety of July 2018. He asked me if I was interested in joining him. I said yes, of course. Then, on June 30th, we set off: Chase, Raven, Tripp, Curtis and myself piled into a rental Dodge Caravan and began the drive. Chase and Rave were (and are) two of my closest friends. I knew Tripp, but not particularly well. Apparently, Curtis and I had met before, but neither of us remembered. Oh well. We all got to know each other quite a bit better over the course of the following month.

I knew I wanted to write something about the trip - I'd be an idiot not to. Originally I'd planned to just give a summary - where we went, what we saw, etc. But that sounded both vague and dull. I instead decided to share some short stories from the trip: any of the strange or funny things we did, or people we met along the way. If you are interested in more detail, I believe Chase and Curtis are both cutting together recap videos of the trip. So stay tuned for those, I guess.

Canada Lady

On the very first day of the trek, we stopped at a rest stop between Cincinnati and St. Louis. Chase had the idea to take a photo of the five of us. After seeing us struggling to fit five large heads in one picture, a stranger offered to take the photo for us. I handed her my phone, which she managed to insult almost immediately. "I'd have no use for this, my phone is much nicer." Then, framing the photo: "Ok, say something stupid. Like Canada!" A few of us mumbled "Canada," a little confused. She returned my phone and left. None of us were quite sure what her beef with Canada was. But we didn't end up using her pictures anyway.

Marble Falls

Waiting in line for a gas station restroom, Curtis and I met a very nice man who had just come from Sequoia National Park, our next destination. We told him all about the trip, and he seemed genuinely excited. When we mentioned we were heading to Sequoia, he insisted - yes, insisted - that we look for Marble Falls. "The water is so clear, you can drink it," he said. We met a lot of strangers with good advice on this trip, and started to call them "gurus" after a while.
We decided to listen to what the Gas Station Guru suggested. So early one morning, we found the trail and began the hike to Marble Falls. This was not the most strenuous hike of the trip, but perhaps the most tricky. The terrain seemed to constantly change: dirt road, then weeds with brambles that would stick to your legs, then rocks wet from the runoff of some distant river, then back to dirt, and so on.
Finally, after a few hours of trudging uphill, we saw it. A gushing river, maybe 30 feet wide, accented by enormous chunks of marble. Any exhaustion from the hike seemed to evaporate away at the sight of this. We all scrambled up the rocks, absolutely gleeful. At the top, we saw the "Falls" part of Marble Falls. The sight and sound of the waterfall, along with the huge amount of mist coming from it was unlike anything I'd ever experienced. The Gas Station Guru was right. The water was delicious.

Car Crash

One of the campgrounds we stayed in - somewhere in Arizona - was more like a gated community. Each campsite was separated by little stone walls, each about six inches tall. Each site had three walls, forming a square with one side open. It gave the illusion of privacy, I suppose. It was July 4th, and we were all preoccupied by one thing or another: Tripp was grilling burgers, I was struggling to get the camp wifi working, etc. All of a sudden, we heard a strange creaking sound, followed by a scream. Just a few campsites down from ours, a Kia Soul had been unhitched from its camper and was now rolling down the small hill towards another campsite. The kids who had done the unhitching were clearly trying to think of a way to stop it, all doing a sort of frenzied dance around it. Of course, they couldn't. The Kia continued to roll until it smashed into another car. There was a dull crunch of metal hitting metal.
No one was hurt. The cops came, and I assume everything was sorted out. But the events of that night left me with two thoughts: 1) That could've very easily hit our car, and ruined the whole trip. 2) If I had been one of those kids, my parents would've never let me see the light of day again.

Lake Powell

Another guru (this one from the gated community campsite) had the audacity to suggest we skip the Grand Canyon altogether, and instead go to Horseshoe Bend and Lake Powell, claiming they were "better." We, obviously, did not skip the Grand Canyon. But, we still managed to find time to visit both of the places he recommended. Horseshoe bend was a big hole with a river in it. Look, it was awesome, but describing it won't do much. Just look up pictures.
This was during that insane heat wave of early July. The high in Arizona this particular day was 108 degrees. For some reason, it seemed to take us way longer than it should have to find Lake Powell. Everyone was feeling cantankerous, especially me (any of the other four will happily corroborate this part of the story). Finally, we found it. The cerulean lake seemed to pop against the crimson of the rocks surrounding it. Much like Marble Falls, our worries just fell away. The water was the perfect temperature for a searing hot day. We splashed around for an hour or so, then continued on our way.

Paca Pride Ranch

Our trip was 25 nights long, and we stayed in campgrounds for 23 of those nights. The best campground was near Glacier National Park, and it was called Paca Pride Ranch. Now, I don't know about you, but when I first saw the words "Paca Pride" I didn't know what the hell they meant. But it wasn't too expensive, and they had showers (a rare treat), so we were sold.
We show up, and we immediately see a whole bunch of llamas in an enclosure. Or, not llamas, but alpacas, we found out. Hence, "Paca." But where did "Pride" come from?
Our host ushers us into the house near the alpaca area and begins checking us in. He's a slightly older man, but with a very youthful energy about him. He's very welcoming. As he's checking us in, I happened to glance upwards. Looking down at us from a loft were two more men, about the same age as the first. Both were smiling, and neither said a word. What was even more odd was when one of them came downstairs to grab a drink - wearing nothing but a speedo. Once we were checked in, we left the house, set up our tent, and never saw the three men again.
So where did "Pride" come from? We all had theories, but none were were ever confirmed. I'll let you decide for yourself.

Rest Stop Night

"Drew, what happened on the nights when you didn't sleep in campgrounds?" Well, I can't tell you about one of them because it might get my friend in trouble. But here's the other night's story.
On our way towards Jewel Cave in South Dakota, we had a miscommunication about how far we wanted to drive that night. Or we just couldn't make up our minds - I can't really remember. By the time we wanted to stop, there weren't any campgrounds within an hour of us. Curtis and Tripp claimed that we could set up our tent on the side of the road because we were in a National Park, and we almost did. Turns out, we weren't in a National Park. Whoops.
So what did we do? We found a nice rest stop - long closed at this hour of night - and slept in the car. Boy howdy. Not a fun night. Sleeping sitting up is bad enough, but we were also stuck in the smell of the car. I won't go into detail, but Chase always claimed it smelled like tacos. Go figure.

World Cup Final Party

When we were visiting our lovely friends Michelle and Kyle in Portland, OR, we spent some time in an apartment building where Kyle works. The big fancy common room in the building had a sign on the door that read, "RESERVED FOR WORLD CUP PARTY." The final was that day. I hadn't been able to watch many games on the road, so there was no way I was going to miss the final. So Raven and I went in, sat down, and watched. There were a number of people already in there; a few with dogs, some eating, some drinking, etc. Everyone seemed to know everyone else - except us. After a while, and after receiving some odd glances from people, Rave and I began to put together that this was, in fact, a private party. The two of us elected to stay until we were kicked out, and we left before anyone said anything. Not a bad way to spend a morning.

I think that's all I'm going to do for today. I have loads more stories from the trip, so please let me know if you liked this. I'd love to jot more of these down. As always, thanks for reading!