Beginners Guide to Waking Up

Alright, while I am trying to sort through photos and get everything uploaded, here is a little something to read.  I wrote this in response to a writing prompt, essentially designed to stop writers block.  So, the challenge is to determine if I pulled these ideas from some external source, or pulled them out of my arse.  You decide.

A Beginners Guide to Waking Up

The first, most important, and most difficult part of getting up in the morning is moving from the asleep state to the awake state.  Most people like to move from one state to the other based on a clock, and that will require an alarm.  There are two schools of thought about alarms, the heard of mice and the heard of elephants.

Heard of mice practitioners like to wake up slowly.  This is generally done with music, or an alarm that crescendos slowly from the edge of hearing to rattle your fillings.  The herd of mice prance slowly through your mind, bringing you kindly and gradually from sleep to wakefulness.  In this way, you can make the waking journey slowly and be in a better state of mind once they arrive.

Heard of elephants practitioners like to move from one state to another instantly, without all of the wibbly-wobbly half awake that comes when a heard of mice wanders through your dreams.  Loud buzzers, jackhammer recordings, or attaching your house to a train track tend to have the appropriate heard of elephant effect, and will allow you to awaken quickly, promptly, and with no muss or fuss.

The next step after waking up is easy, and only requires moving your feet from the bed to the floor.  It is the last step, the standing up bit, that can cause true problems.  You must first query your legs and feet and be sure they are also awake.  A simple, out loud, "feet, are you awake?" tends to be effective, but can bring your sanity into question.  A test step, where you stand upright, wobble around a little bit to test the levelness of the floor, and then begin moving will tend to save many questions about your sanity.  However, if your feet are not fully awake, this method can cause problems with the arrangement of your face. 

At this point, you are awake!  Welcome to the day, and make sure you make the most of it!

Lake Powell

Well, I guess I am just really bad at writing a regular blog.  The past two or three weeks have been utterly amazing, I have hung out with so many good friends and seen so many amazing natural wonders.  There is just so much to see in America that it is almost overwhelming to try to tackle it all in one go.  I have seen so many panoramic vistas that I am starting to lose the wonder of them.  But meeting new people and new friends always makes up for it.  Getting to share the energy and vitality of others while looking out at these epic views truly makes up for everything.

Right now, I am in the mountains in southern California (on top of Frazier mountain).  Since I am so far behind, I am going to start with Lake Powell and let the pictures speak for themselves.

Yea, I woke up the first day to this view... Life is good.

Solid breakfast

Lone Rock from a distance:

Then up close:

Amazing camp site, I spent two days here.  You had to be 4 wheel drive and have good tires to get there.  I didn't see a single other vehicle for the two days I was there.

This might be my favorite picture of my truck of all time:

I even have the christmas lighs!

Packed for a long day

This was a HUGE dam!

With a well manicured lawn!

And that was lake Powell.  So very beautiful.

Moab Part 1

So, having had quite a lot of fun in Albuquerque, it was time to head to Moab.  Mandy decided that she had enough time off to join me for a few days in my quarter-life crisis (sweet!).  Well, this was going to be a lot more fun with a second person along, so we packed up everything we thought we would needed and pointed our convoy to Moab.

Of course, our plan was to drive to Moab that day and camp at night once we got there.  Of course, like any good plan, we didn't follow it.  We made it as far as southern Colorado, got distracted by all of the trees, and decided it would be a good place to camp.  We found a sweet little campsite and setup shop.

 Of course, we tried to go hiking that evening.  That didn't work out all that well.  The trail we chose immediately crossed a river, and of course there was no bridge.  Oh well, at least the rocks are smooth, lets just try to hike it!  Well, eventually we made it across without anyone really falling in the water, only to be greeted by a private property sign.  Huh, where does the trail go?  Maybe around the sign?  Nope that just turned into a driveway.  Dang it, fine, we have been defeated by the trail.  After about 45 min, we gave in, took the bridge (which turned out to be part of the driveway) back across the river, and headed toward camp.

The next day, on the way to Moab, we saw some pretty spectacular vistas.  I had to hike up a hill at the side of the road to take a few pictures.  Man, was it worth it.

 Once we made it to Moab, it was time for some hiking and off-roading in Arches national park.  The park just blows my mind.  The forces required to chisel out all of that stone and leave just an arch standing is amazing.  The iconic Delicate Arch is crazy, just hanging out on the side of a cliff, nothing at all to support it.  How in the world do you get a structure like that from random natural forces?

Yes, I was rocking a bandana.  Yes, that might make me sort of redneck.

 The next day dawned, as any good day should, without any plan.  After some wandering around and talking to the tourism center, we settled on renting a kayak and floating down the Colorado.  The views were epic, and the water was awesome.  The part the we floated, just north of Moab, was only class 1 and 2 rapids, but still enough to be interesting!  The second half of the day was spent trying to make headway into what felt like a 100mph headwind.  It was probably only 20-30, but still enough to bring you to a dead stop when you quit paddling.

 Once we made it down the river, we still had all afternoon to kill.  I had heard that the sunsets at Arches are spectacular, so off we head for a little more hiking.

 We met a very interesting group of people, and apparently their thing is to go around the country and come up with interesting poses for pictures.  They were a lot of fun to talk to, and made the evening quite entertaining.

Mandy was headed back to Albuquerque the next day, but I am staying for a little bit longer to enjoy the mountain biking and hiking.  More pictures to come!

Oklahoma and New Mexico

Well, I am getting further west.  I am slowly starting to get into the traveling groove, not needing to be on the move all the time, and trying to slow down and smell the roses.  It is a good feeling, and I have seen some pretty sweet sights so far.

I camped at a small lake in Oklahoma.  The mosquitoes were pretty nasty, I was convinced they were going to just carry me away.  However, I did get to kayak out onto the lake and watch a really spectacular sunset.  Camped the evening, and then trucked for Albuquerque the next day.  On the way to Albuquerque, I saw a little crop duster buzzing around over the fields.  Man, they look like fun!

Hung out for a few days in Albuquerque with a good friend Mandy.  We went hiking at Tent Rocks national monument, there was some really cool stuff to see there.  We also saw Man of Steel (good movie!) and I caught up on the latest Dr. Who.  All kinds of fun!

Chilling in the shade.  This is the way to hike!

The next day, I went out to White Mesa mountain bike area.  It was a spectacular trail.  About two hours getting around the trail (I am still getting used to being at 6000 feet in 100 degree weather!).  The trail ran about 4 miles down a ridge and then turned around and ran back up a parallel ridge.  There were some pretty interesting edge of the cliff sections, but the views were worth it!

There was a really cool 30 foot deep pit along the trail.  It was the only place the whole ride I saw any water!  And it was at the top of one of the ridges!  New Mexico has some pretty spectacular geological formations.  Between the colossal ridges, buttes, mesa, and everything else, there is no shortage of places to explore.

All in all, New Mexico is pretty spectacular!