July 24th-26th, 2017 - Red, Rock, Rain (pt. 2: Zion Canyon National Park)

G & C Summer 2017

Blogpost 021

July 24^th-26^th

“Red, Rock, Rain”

pt 2: Zion Canyon National Park

Zion was next on our list, and Charlotte could not have been more excited. Three years ago when she moved out west she took a detour to Zion with her siblings and had what she referred to as, “the best national park experience” of her life. My fiancé wished to share this experience with me and seeing as how Zion is a mere 70 miles away from Bryce it was a convenient addition to our schedule. At the cost of potentially repeating myself I’ll say again that Chot, with regards to planning, is always thinking one step ahead. Like a carpenter who specializes in stairs, not even the most clairvoyant of contractors possess meteorological future-vision.

            As we drove down into the bowels of Zion my fiancé was vibrating with nostalgia; telling me about how she and her siblings hiked the Narrows (which is Charlotte’s favorite hike of all time, apparently) a hike where one’s recommended to wear closed-toed shoes as you’re trudging through a watery currant the whole way, and don’t want to stub a toe. This makes the Narrows a perfect excursion for a hot summer day, except for it’s habit of flash flooding. I believe a gang of hikers were swept up and drowned in one a day or two after Charlotte’s experience, so it goes.

            The drive was similar to Glacier’s Journey to the Sun in that the road taking us to our destination was paved with scenic vistas, showcasing the enormity of the treacherous mountains of Zion. Our car was like a Tonka truck rolling between the toes of the Rock Biter fromThe Neverending Story, with rolling slabs of earth that could give the Empire State building a run for its money. We were to spend two days here with each day dedicated to as many hikes as our bodies would allow.

            We set up camp alongside the river that flowed from the Narrows. We were both still sore from our twofer day hikes, so as soon as the tent was pitched, we napped inside. Well, Charlotte napped while I continued reading my Vonnegut, getting lost in the pages of time, space, and fantasy. Later on, we decided to try and knock one hike out for the afternoon, so we hopped on the next available bus to the Narrows (as was the only way to travel at Zion due to the narrowness of the motorways and lack of parking), which was the last stop out of eight.

            As soon as we were let off we noticed rainclouds hovering overhead and could see from the flash-flood warning sign at the trail’s entrance that today’s danger was marked at a threatening-orange, just one color away from an imminent-red. Wet tourists from every corner of the world were vacating the trail but my fiancé was determined to get at least the entrance to the Narrows. We reached the section of the hike where the dirt trail leads into the river and were immediately told to bugger off by a disgruntled park ranger trying her best to coax a Brazilian family out of the water. Her warnings may not have been taken seriously but a poignant crack of thunder just up ahead struck the final nail in the coffin, sealing off the watery trail for everyone with enough sense not to parish that day. We walked back to the bus just as the rains decided to egress from the heavens soaking us to the bone. At this moment the rain was actually a blessing for neither of us had showered for a number of days. The bus released us back to our camp besides the river; which had increased drastically in speed and volume, a flood was certainly underway. With nowhere safe to hike we settled in for the night, listening to the sound of raindrops plunking over our rain sheet in a gentle aqueous symphony.

The Virgin River flooding right next to camp

            When we awoke the following morning still to the sound of raindrops. We’d realized that our vicissitude of weather-related fortune had finally turned. Zion is one of those places in America that rarely sees any precipitation whatsoever with it being a desert. It would seem that our visitation to the park was on one of these days and according to the storm cycle my fiancé continued to track throughout the day, we were scheduled for an all-day storm. Because we couldn’t hike, we spent the remaining hours of gloomy daylight focused on productivity. We holed up in a local café where I primarily focused on writing while my fiancé edited and read while sipping hot coffee.

Damp Camp

Just a little flooding in our tent. 

            This cycle persisted into the night until the rains finally stopped. But by that point it was too late. All aspirations for actually seeing the national wonder where we were had evaporated back into the stratosphere. I don’t think either of us would say our time spent was wasted. We got a lot of work done and I even managed to finish The Sirens of Titan, which was a blast to read and made me realize that Alan Moore’s critically acclaimed graphic novel, Watchmen (while still impressive and well written/illustrated) owes much of its story to Kurt.

            We finished off our final night of Zion watching a Pixar movie off Charlotte’s laptop, during which, I thought of a word that I’d read earlier that day that I’d never seen before. The word was sonder, which is the realization that each and every random living creature on earth (and beyond) is experiencing a life just as vivid and complex as our own; complete with their own ambitions, companions, routines, fears and inherited craziness that make for an epic story that continues invisibly around us all with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives and stories you’ll never know existed. In the end we’re all the heroes of our own stories and the background extras for countless others all happening simultaneously. Our life’s journeys are far from over, and I know that Charlotte and I will come back to Zion one day to see it when it’s not raining cats and dogs.

Beautiful Rainy Zion

July 22nd-24th, 2017 - Red, Rock, Rain (pt. 1: Bryce Canyon National Park)

G & C Summer 2017

Blogpost 020

July 22^nd-24th

“Red, Rock, Rain”

pt 1: Bryce Canyon National Park

After the long cascade down the ghost mountain Mingus, we drove north to Utah. At this point we’d been in and out of more states than we could remember so I honestly couldn’t tell if this was our first or seventh time. We stopped for the night at a “hotel,” which was not a hotel in the slightest. It was a person’s house.

            While driving through the middle of nowhere, we found a listing for a cheap room from a place called the Manor. All other nearby lodgings had been busy jacking up their prices all summer. They were all competing for tourists visiting the hidden natural wonders in the area. Despite it being the cheapest roofed option for the night, it still made us regret not getting to our destination sooner to set up camp.

The Manor was located in a dirt-road suburbia with rusting cars pilling up alongside the driveway. As soon as we arrived, two large and notably un-neutered dogs greeted our crotches, after being released by the hotel manager/home owner, I’m assuming, to deliver our key. Our room was on the second floor of the house but was to be entered from and outdoor balcony atop a set of recently constructed stairs. It looked like somebody had made this architectural addition by themselves using a do-it-yourself tree house manual. The wood wasn’t even painted or stained yet. 

            My mistrust in the establishment doubled when we finally arrived inside our room, for the armoire across from my side of the bed was lined with a regiment of glassy-eyed china-dolls; just like those living baby dolls so popular/terrifying in pop culture but wearing little traditional Chinese dresses. A framed picture of Japanese letters informed me that this was a themed room, and by the looks of things the theme was Asia. However, the miniature Eiffel tower on the nightstand confused us a little. I did have to turn the dolls around so they wouldn’t be watching us all through the night. We have enough imaginary monsters lurking in our heads as it is and recalling that childhood memory of being six and having a fellow classmate tell you the story of a little girl’s glassy-eyed doll with a nail lodged in its palm. "And I still don’t believe you, Todd!" Despite all of this, we had a lovely night of sleep.

            We awoke to the China dolls facing the wall like they’d done something bad and we, still un-murdered, so the day was already off to a good start. Our destination was Bryce Canyon National Park, the second-to-last National Park of our western road trip, home of the hoodoos and the red rock amphitheater.

Camping at Bryce was by far my favorite camping experience during our trip. We camped right on the rim of the canyon, overlooking hoodoos and caves. The climate was modestly warm but dry enough so that there wasn’t a bloodsucker in sight and chubby squirrels were absolutely everywhere and had no fear of humans at all. You could be sitting outside and they’d just scamper all around you, chattering amongst themselves as if you weren’t even there. There was one squirrel so bold that my fiancé found him rummaging through her backpack that was resting on her leg. We named him, “little-trash mouth.”

"Little Trash Mouth"

            As for the canyon itself, Bryce is world-famous for it’s strange, alien-landscape that more so resembles the cover of a retro science fiction magazine than an act of nature 130 million years in the making. The geological sedimentation of the rock itself mixed with the harsh regular winters in the valley (resulting in frost-wedging, which technically voids Bryce of it’s “canyon” as canyons are carved by flowing wind/water) which make for a distinct pattern of erosion responsible for the hoodoos. Red sandstone chimneys scattered throughout the canyon ranging from 5 - 150 feet in height (about as high as a ten-story building for you urbanites) which makes for a most impressive stone-forest.

            Once we’d finished our camping setup I crawled into a hammock to finish Dostoyevsky’s House of the Dead, which was incredible as a brutal report on life in a Siberian labor-camp of the 1850’s (proving once again that Russian history can easily be summed up with, and then it got worse…) but Charlotte, in her typical alacritous nature set off early to get a lay of the land. After a stovetop black bean and teriyaki-spam dinner (made by yours truly) we set off for our first hike together along the canyon’s rim to see the hoodoos at sunset.

George reading 

Hiking the Rim to see the sun set over Bryce

            Apparently, sunset around here was just as popular for the tourists as the skinny spires of iron-red rocks themselves. We teetered atop the rim at a brisk pace through a swarm of khaki shorts and Whangee walking sticks. My eyes were fixed on the hoodoos; their towering human-shapes made me think how people over a thousand years ago must have seen these blood-colored obelisks as spirits not to be trifled with. My fiancé’s eyes, however, were focused on the perched asilid on the railing of the rim, as any inveterate bug hunter will do. At last, we reached the amphitheater, which to Bryce is what the Ziggurat was to Mesopotamia.

"Ryan" enjoying the view

            The hoodoo amphitheater of Bryce looked like a backdrop for a classic Star Trek episode (or Adventure Time serial if that’s too dated). You feel like a star-struck space-wanderer coming face-to-face with a brand-new intergalactic empire with buildings, temples, and idols all chiseled out of the same solid earth by which you stand. A better comparison would be the matte painting used on Jim Henson’s Labyrinth where David Bowie (playing the proud, groin-bulging Jareth, king of the goblins) shows Jennifer Connelly his labyrinth for the first time; mysterious, beautiful, and subtly foreboding.

The Amphitheater

            As the sun finally settled beyond the outer walls of the canyon we witnessed the famous iridescent lights of Bryce. Literal beams of waning sunlight shot out over the rim’s edge, stretching across the entire field of hoodoos, leaving every Whangee-wielding tourist in unabashed stupefaction, just as we were. At a moment like that, it’s culturally acceptable to express one’s joy through tears. Charlotte had said something earlier that day that rang in the doldrums of my mind as we watched the landscape transform around us; it was a quote from a book she was reading, Half-Earth by E. O. Wilson, “the most dangerous worldview belongs to those who have not seen the world.”

Pretty sunset colors

            We stared in silence until the sun’s distance ultimately surpassed the curvature of the earth and the evening’s sky steadily turned purple, growing darker with each passing minute. By the time night was in full effect we’d made it back to camp. A gentle storm accompanied us that night and a small family of friendly squirrels took refuge under a cavernesque fold in our tent. I then started a new novel, a Kurt Vonnegut, his first book, The Siren’s of Titan.

Enjoying the view and each others company

The next morning was an exercise in limitations for our physical endurance. Specifically, we’d both been feeling a bit blobbish as of late, on account of our recent prolonging car travels, so my fiancé suggested that we take this time to gain as much trail-distance as humanly possible. We planned on hiking two trails; the Navajo Loop Trail, which was a mere 1.5 miles in full and the Peek-a-boo Loop Trail which was closer to 6.

Navajo Loop Trail

Thor's Hammer

            The Navajo Loop Trail was our first exposure to the hoodoos up close. Because of it being one of the most popular trails in the park; we were surrounded by flip-flop wearing, and selfie-taking tourists. However, our attention was scarce on them because our heads were constantly tilting back as far as our necks would allow to see the bulbous stone nips at the top of each red column. I believe it goes without saying that if it wasn’t for the manmade paths, signs, and currents of amateur nature photographers we’d probably still be down in the amphitheater, lost, and in search for David Bowie’s magical Escher palace at the center of this insane, stone-warren. The Navajo Loop Trail was a lovely morning warm-up with enough elevation going in and coming out to give one’s hams the attention they deserved after days of long drives. The Peek-a-boo Loop Trail was slightly more strenuous.

Peek-a-boo Loop Trail

            The first mile was spent climbing down across winding pathways carved into the wall of the canyon. Last night’s storm was one of many that summer and so the ground was lumpy with erosion-marks and flooding-scars. When we made it to the bottom, the trail turned into a loop that resembled a three-dimensional diagram for a transverse wave; not once had there been a flat surface along our hike, just up and down, up and down. “Peek-a-boo” was named perfectly, the whole time it felt like we were on a roller coaster ride in the Flintstones’ car. That doesn’t take away from the fact that the trail itself was just as, if not more inspiring as the Navajo Loop, but after four miles of altitude adjustments and another mile straight up the canyon wall, our energy levels were thoroughly tested. Fortunately, because neither of us collapsed or became delirious enough to babbling in parseltongue we knew that we passed and rewarded ourselves with a mushroom pizza. Yes, Bryce has a pizzeria next to the rim, as if I needed more proof that it’s the best National Park America has to offer. We later found out that we had completed the hike about an hour faster than the estimated average… no wonder we were a little winded.

Charlotte's favorite picture of George!!!

July 20th, 2017 - Ghost Stories of Jerome: "Lady Jane", "The Boogeywoman of Jerome", and "The Smelter"

G & C Summer 2017

Blogpost 019

July 20th, 2017

Ghost Stories of Jerome: #3

“Lady Jane”

United Verde Smelter, Jerome AZ 1909

I’ve mentioned before that Jerome’s popularity was in part due to its lax prostitution laws, which gave rise to a sprawling red-light district. The next stop of our tour was in said district, which hasn’t been active in decades, save for a repurposed building and an abandoned tin-roofed shack. The brothels stood on either side of the same street; the “skinny girls” were in the tin-roofed shacks as one’s worth in such an industry was consequential to their weight. It might seem topsy-turvy now with today’s beauty standards, but back in the day, sexy wasn’t starvation. Women with meat on their bones were known as the, “French girls,” not because any hailed from France but that such was a euphemism for “experienced,” who would see a maximum of three-five clients a day for a dollar a visit. To put in perspective the “skinny” girls were expected to see up to thirty clients a day for a couple kopecks apiece.

            Lady Jane was a “French” girl and a rather successful one at that. Story goes that later in her career she started losing weight from contracting a virulent disease, possibly lupus. Back then treatment was expensive, painful, and often just as fatal as the infliction itself. Jane didn’t see much hope for her future and knew that when she died she’d probably be forgotten so she devised a plan to leave this world in an act of impeccable infamy.

            Her plan was to throw the most over the top funeral anyone had ever seen in all of Jerome’s short yet prominent history but in order to pull it off she’d need a lot more money and in not much time. To achieve this Lady Jane handed in her letter of resignation with the mistress of the “French girls,” bought a shack for one, placed it in the middle of the street between the “big” and “skinny” girls, and became an independent contractor for five dollars a session. Lady Jane became quite successful in her short yet prominent time as Jerome’s most expensive workingwoman and she managed to reach her monitory goal with just enough time to make the arrangements before her passing.

            Lady Jane had purchased a slick ebony casket for her body, paid in advance for embalmment services, paid off the preacher for a plot in the “executive” cemetery, arranged for a jet-black hearse from the next town over (the one in Jerome was alabaster and unsatisfactory to Jane) to carry her coffin through the town, and hired six of the most handsome men in Jerome to be her pallbearers for the procession. I’ve never heard such a story that better personifies the American Dream.

            There was just one, tiny, issue in Jane’s plan. Upon her death the town’s coroner had discovered that there was a “stem attached to the apple.” Lady Jane’s real name was Tom, which was more than a little controversial at the time. Sadly, Jane never got her big, expensive last hurrah but there is a silver lining; Lady Jane did receive her wish to live on in infamy and has since become one of Jerome’s most popular spirits whose deeds and exploits live on non-corporeal eternity.

Ghost Stories of Jerome: #4

“The Boogeywoman of Jerome”

The next location our guide brought us too was of an old collection of historic buildings that had been left unscathed by modern renovation. It is separated from the public with the addition of an iron gate. One section of this collection was of an empty lot overgrown with grass, yet surrounded by walls on three sides minus a ceiling. This was where the printing press of Ann Hopkins was stored and used by the boogeywoman herself.

Ann Hopkins work apartment

            Ann Hopkins was wife to John Hopkins who’d given her a printing press for an anniversary gift, as one does, and she used it to great effect. Ann was a literate lady and began printing newspapers that highlighted all the depressing facts of life the real commoners of Jerome were experiencing in their day-to-day lives. Ann was a proud, vocal feminist and focused heavily on subjects pertaining to inequality and the hard truths of the world they lived in, which did not settle well for the people. Needless to say, her paper didn’t sell very well. But Ann had a clever head on her shoulders and figured that if the public despised her paper that much, they would pay good money for another paper making fun of her ramblings. Ann continued to write, print, and sell her down-to-earth papers in the morning but this time she also wrote, printed, and sold opposition papers in the afternoon; papers that were dedicated to bashing her morning papers which were written “anonymously” and flew off the racks like vultures to road kill. The kicker is that once the good people of Jerome bought one of Ann’s argumentative papers in the evening they’d have to buy her truth-papers from the morning to make sense of it all. Ann Hopkins ended up doubling her profits and readers and set the example for future mass media outlets that revel in pinning both “sides” against one another.

            Unfortunately, this was the height of Mrs. Hopkins’ fortune. Not too long after her new found success as a journalist did she find Mr. Hopkins leaving the Conner hotel in the arms of a young, blonde schoolteacher. Understandably, Ann was set into a furor of immense proportions. She later found the two again having a meal back at the hotel when she calmly approached the schoolteacher and threw diluted carbolic acid taken from her press and threw it in her cuckqueen’s face. 

            Ann was sentenced to 14 years in Yuma, a female penitentiary that was Arizona’s most dangerous women’s jail. Most inmates died only after six months. Against all odds, Ann completed her sentence and returned back to Jerome but in doing so discovered that she was no longer married, her only daughter was dead, and her grandchild born while she was imprisoned had been sent off somewhere that no one knew where. She continued to live along on the streets of Jerome penniless and insane until her death one year after her release. Ann continues to walk the streets of Jerome in the pitch-black hours of the night as a vengeful banshee who scratches off the face of unfaithful lovers.

            I’m downright appalled by the lack of any films based on Ann Hopkins or for the whole of Jerome for that matter.

Doorway to abandoned building

Ghost Stories of Jerome: #4

“The Smelter”

The last part of our tour was taken to ye old historic smelter of Jerome which was very much the heart of the town in that it was where all the minerals of the mountain were purified and pressed into ingots. It was also the primary tool used in the town’s mortician services for Jerome’s poor, social rejects, and disenfranchised. Because the smelter’s flames were always a-blowing bodies could be cremated for cheap and with Jerome’s super high death toll most were subjected to this fate.

            The bodies were stuffed into the iron dome of hellfire and incinerated into a mineral-ash mixture called “slag.” Slag is a malleable stony material, which at first was just thrown off the side of the mountain, but as persistent fires leveled streets and buildings the town needed new and inexpensive material to replace the foundations. You can guess where this is going.

            Every deceased citizen of Jerome AZ who was not well off and buried proper would become apart of the town, forever. Betty Gotly, Lady Jane, Ann Hopkins, the victims of the Conner hotel, and the thousands upon thousands of ill-fortuned miners were literally beneath our feet the entire time; making Jerome a town literally built on death. I suppose one shouldn’t be surprised that there’s so much paranormal activity in this quite mountain town but rather that it hasn’t flat out become an open portal into the valley of the dead (Poltergeist style).

An outhouse tourists throw coins in 

(inside one of the abandoned buildings)