Finally, another update. More to come, soon.

Warning: I wrote a lot of this with the screen turned off in the car while Kyle drove at night. If I looked at the screen I got carsick. There may or may not be a lot of typo's, it should be an adventure, I didn't proofread. Enjoy

(I will proofread and repost when I get back to st. louis)

UPDATE: I decided against proofreading because the typos entertained me when I read through it. (And I really didn't want to fix everything)

Day 14

After waking up in Ely, we make our way towards Las VBegas. On the way we stop at Great Basin NationalPark, something we weren’t too thrilled at bisually, don’t get me wrong it was beautiful, but we had just come from the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone, and before that Beartooth Pass. We decided to take the cave tourt here and as little as the caves are advertised, we found out that the caves were really why the park was named a national park, they were beautiful. Incredible draperies of minerals the water had depositedin the vaves dripping over millions of years. They were my favorite caves I’d visited so far on the trip and I really

Something we did learn about the vac about the park while in the ccaves weasw that the oldest tree in the world had exidted in the park, I believe the tree was Prometheus, bristlecone pear ws the name of the species. It was 5000 years old… it got cut down by a guy that wanted to bore the tree to lean about it.. he got his bore stuck and asked if he could cut the tree down to receive it, they let him, only to find out the tree was the oldest living tree. They still have bristlecone pines there that are over 3000 years old, but none as old as promethius at5000 ears.

We left and went to vegas, which is a story of its own.. we get there, not knowing where to go, so I see a free parking sign and take it, not knowing it was 3 miles from the mainstrip. Well we walk and walk and get to the strip… we got there at 8 and it was now 9:30 we’re at the strop. We wandered going in and out of casinos, stopping to watch little fire shows aand see peole on ships dancing and as we did this and wandered the odds at the casino, debating whether a casino could make money even if the odds were against them, si in things like roulette, simply because people tend to camble till ehy have no money left.

We explored the Luxor and the other famours casinos and were offered many free drinks as we wandered through. We eventually, at about decided we should head back, the casinos were closing down the restaurants and people were heading up to their rooms… so we started the walk back… a walk I though was going to be a mile or two tops. We got to the car at 4:30. At the car I was so tired I could think of nothing but calculating the exact distance that caused my exaustion and psined my feet. … so I did, driving to the Luxor. In the course of the night we had wandered six and a half miles away from the car straight down las vegas bullevord as measured by the car’s odometer. We slept for a couple hours and,,,

Day 15

Decided to take the day off. We relaxed till 11 and then headed toward the stip again. I called my parents to see if they could help us locate some good vegas bbuffets. They did. We found one at the Palace Station and stayed there for 5 hours, eatind, reading, usimg internet, and recovering from the night before.

That night we took off towards the National Parks in Utah, stopping in Georgetown. We found a nice hotel with an outdoor pool and hot tub, which were easily accessible to the public, Kyle got in and I changed. When I got back Kyle had chatted up a local who had been using the pools for the past 4 months without conflict. Unfortunately before I could get in, they heard lightening and came and kicked us out. The local told us we could go to the hotel next door because it was owned by the same guy and say we were staying at the first hotel, and use their indoor pool and hot tub. We did. We were confronted by there management who harassed us about our staying at the hotel, we said we were staying at the one across the way. For something that seemed like a very small deal, they were becoming very upset and started calling the other hotel. When we agreed to leave, we found out that the police had called not 5 minutes before we had showed up warning them of two escaped convicts on the loose. The guy took our license plate number and we left.

Day 16

Started off the day with Zion National park, an incrediblely beautiful place and well worth the $25 to get in that we didn’t pay because we bought a national park pass. We did the scenic bus tour and did little hikes off the tour stops, one to seeping rock, my favorte place in the park. Aside from it being incredible that water just flowed out of the sandstone allowing ferns to grow in really strange positions, the view was incredible, it looked like a prehistoric landscape to me, untouched, tropical, yet still resembling that of an arid place merely because of the huge sandstone bluffs that acted as the backdrop for the river trees and small incredible rcok formations.

We then went up to a point that was an old fire watch point and, from there we were promised we could look over the entire park. We could, and we did, meeting a ranger who was communicating the most recent visual on the two fires spreading across the park. The night before, they had more than 200 lightening strikes in the park and two fires had been started, one near the tourist area, one outside it. We watched planes and helicopters drop different chemicals and water to estinguish it with little effect, to what we could see, but it was interesting. We learned that we bring all of the huge forrest fires upon ourselves. When small forest fires start, the natural ones that burn the brush away, but are too weak to take the trees, we stop them. By doing this we force the buildup of brush, eventually leading to a fire with significantly more fuel, enough to kill and light the trees as it moves. Although never explained to us, we figurered they decided they needed to control the fires because of ignorant liberals protesting in favor of eliminating forest fires, and because people would build their houses in and near forests. In the later case, if they were to let the fire spread, even a small brush fire, it could endanger the people and their houses.

We ate near the lookout and I checked up on the fire periodically. As we left, three more fire patrol rangers had made it to the point and were discussing the fire. I hope everything turned out well.

Day 17

Today we briefly toured Bryce Canyon, making it to the famous Susnet point. Even in the morning light it was spectacular. In our short time there I talked with a man who was doing three dimensional photraphy there, both film and digital. I could tell he was in heaven when he walked up, his eyes lit up and a huge smile broke across his face. It was a perfect place to do 3d photraphy, there were hundreds of monuments (interesting rock formations) sprawled along the canyon.

From there we went to Capital Reef national park. This park is a great place because you can drive down the canyons and watch the walls close in on you. There was a huge storm going on nearby, so when we saw the “Warning: Do not enter canyon drive if storm visible. Flash floods are frequent,” we rushed into the canyon drive. We hiked around and after some time found ourselves really high up, but close to our car, without a trail. We decided we would rather climb down than walk the mile or so back around and hope to find the trail, and we did, with little difficulty, but a lot of strange looks.

Pictures will be up in the next few days. Thanks for reading.

Eric