Date: Tue, 10 Dec 1996 22:48:45 GMT Server: NCSA/1.4.2 Content-type: text/html Last-modified: Fri, 22 Mar 1996 17:18:33 GMT Content-length: 9172 What I did on my Summer Vacation

What I did on my Summer Vacation

After spending July through November of 1995 visiting IBM's Centre for Advanced Studies in Toronto, I embarked on a cross country trek back to Seattle. Not believing the oft-repeated rumor that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, I proceeded to drive from Toronto to Seattle via Madison WI, Denver CO, and Moab UT.

My favorite part of the trip was the 5 days I spent winding my way through southern Utah -- well worth the detour if you ever get the chance. I took a number of pictures along the way, but, due to my own stupidity, the first roll of film containing pictures of the Badlands, Wall Drug, Mount Rushmore, and other highlights of South Dakota and Wyoming was ruined.

Destination City Miles Driven Highlights

Ann Arbor, Michigan
299
I left Toronto mid-morning and headed towards Ann Arbor. It was snowing; fortunately, this was the only bad weather I encountered for the entire trip. After some casual pub-crawling, I crashed for the night at the palatial digs of Jeff O'Neill, aka Corny Bennet, aka Willow. Jeff is a former Chelmsdale & Wah-Tut-Ca guy, who has not yet jumped on the WWW bandwagon.

Madison, Wisconsin
420
The next night I headed into the frozen tundra and visited Doug at UW Madison. Doug and I suffered through a whole host of undergrad CS courses together at Yale, climaxing in our semester-long quest to write an adaptation of nethack in Haskell.

Sioux Falls, South Dakota
451
There's really not much to see between Madison and Sioux Falls. Highlights of this leg of the trip include driving across the entire state of Minnesota without stopping (275 miles), playing Red Barchetta at maximal volume, and the incredibly nice state trooper in Wisconsin who only gave me a written warning.

Hot Springs, South Dakota
464
South Dakota is big. And flat. The monotony of the prairies alongside I-90 was only broken by signs for Wall Drug. Around mid-morning I snuck into the Badlands, but wasn't able to see much since the government was shut down and the park was officially closed. Also made the pilgrimage to Wall Drug for a cup of coffee ("still only a nickel"). After Wall Drug, I continued west through the Black Hills, with a side trip to Mount Rushmore. Mount Rushmore itself was fairly unimpressive, but the Black Hills themselves are worth seeing. As I continued through them to Hot Springs, I was treated to a magnificent sunset.

Longmont, Colorado
348
After an uneventful (but fast) drive through the southern corner of Wyoming, I stopped for a couple days to visit family in Longmont (about an hour north of Denver). Fortunately, while I was in Longmont the yahoos in Washington DC got their act together and I didn't have to cancel my plans to take a side trip to visit the National Parks in Utah.

Moab, Utah
466
After spending a relaxing weekend in Longmont, I headed south to Denver and then through the Rockies on I-70. My little Honda was not thrilled about the step inclines and the high elevations, but we eventually limped our way through to the other side. Following the advice of my Uncle Ken, a petroleum geologist who has spent a fair amount of time "well sitting" in Utah, I drove into Moab via the state highway 128 from Cisco. A spectacular drive along the Colorado River; the late afternoon sun really brought out the reds and oranges in the canyon walls. These were the last pictures taken on my ill-fated first roll of file. After finding a place to stay in Moab, I headed out to Dead Horse Point State Park to watch the sunset over the canyonlands.

Bryce, Utah
312
I spent the morning tromping around Arches National Park. Arches are formed when wind and water erode the centers of fins of sandstone. Landscape arch is the longest arch in the park, with a span of 306 feet. Double Arch and Double O Arch are fairly unusual formations. To give you an idea of the scale, the small white blob is a person standing under the lower arch of the Double O. I stopped for lunch at Partition Arch with its spectacular view out across the Devil's Garden. Some other arches in the park are South Window Arch and Wall Arch. After leaving Arches, I headed west towards Bryce through scenic, but virtually uninhabited, south-central Utah. There is a stretch of I-70 here that has no exits for 100 miles.

Zion, Utah
160
I spent the whole day exploring Bryce Canyon National Park. Overall, this was my favorite day of the trip. Two very special aspects of Bryce were the incredible atmospheric clarity (the day I was there, one could see clearly for 75 miles) and the quiet. Hiking along the base of the canyon, I could hear the wind blowing through the trees along the canyon rim, 1500 feet overhead. In the morning and early afternoon, I hiked the 8.5 miles of the Fairyland loop trail -- an experience I'd highly recommend to anyone with the time to savor it. The trail descends from the canyon rim into an incredible world of delicately shaded pink and orange limestone 1 2 3 4 and fantastic hoodoos 1 2. The serenity was indescribable; during my entire hike I only saw three other people.

Later that afternoon, I hiked along the rim of the main amphitheater and visited a number of other scenic viewpoints along the canyon rim 1 2 3 4. I think this picture came out really well. After sitting and watching the sunset over the canyon I reluctantly left Bryce Canyon and headed towards Zion.

Cedar City, Utah
143
Zion National Park was surprisingly busy, considering that it was Thanksgiving Day. After taking a quick hike through the constricted depths of the narrows, I set out to climb to the top of Angels Landing, a spire of rock that towers 1500 feet over the base of the canyon. After a steep, but routine, climb I reached Scout's Lookout, located about 1000 feet above the canyon floor. The last half mile of the ascent to Angels Landing consists of a harrowing traversal of a narrow ledge, with a 1000 foot drop to either side, followed by a scramble up the backside of the spire itself. The view from the top was breathtaking 1 2 3. 4. After descending from the heights of Angels Landing, I checked out several other close-to-the-road scenic viewpoints in the park. 1 2. The late afternoon sun highlights the reds and oranges in the canyon wall in this picture.

Boise, Idaho
604
Drove over 600 miles. 'nuff said.

Seattle, Washington
532
Appropriately enough, as I started to drive through the Cascades, it started to rain. For the last 4000 miles, the weather had been great; the closer I got to Seattle, the harder it rained. Despite the lousy weather, after almost two weeks on the road it was nice to get home.


grove@cs.washington.edu