ET phoning home...

Hello again!!! We've ventured into the land of no internet access, so it's been a while since we could write...LOTS to talk about now!!



Let's see, we left off when we were on our way to Napa...such a cute place! We decided to rent bikes and go on our own little bike tour of the region, SO fun. It was a super hot, yet very nice day, and we rode ourselves to 5 different wineries for tastings (we decided to split tastings so that we would be able to stay on our bikes!) Only a few bike-related mishaps...Andrea managed to have her chain fall off within 5 minutes of riding, Susie had a little trouble around a sharp bend with cows all around distracting her...but overall, we did quite well and had a great time. Not a big suprise to anyone--Andrea's fave wine was a $150 merlot (Pauhl Mayer, should anyone ever want to buy it for her!! haha...), while Susie's fave was a fraction of the price, a bargain really at $65, a zinfandel called HOOPS!!! so appropriate...



The next day we got up nice and early to drive to Tahoe, only for Susie to lock the ONE key in the trunk of the car. Thank Goodness for AAA, they had a tow truck guy over to us in 15 minutes!! Disaster averted and we barely noticed...but now, we double check where the keys are every time we close the trunk :) We drove over to Lake Tahoe and took in the beautiful vistas of the lake--the water is insanely blue! It looks like the Carribbean, but with mountains all around...and it's colder! We found our way to a nice sandy beach, rented kayaks for the day and played around on the lake for a while, and then made our way to a beach bar that had a live band, and "world famous rum runners". We had to try a world famous rum rummer...or two. We soon made friends with a couple of local gents who were kind enough to hang with us all evening discussing the "rad" ski mountains of the west, and then we followed them to a local dive bar at the promise of free hotdogs (they were gone--boo!)...don't worry, we drove while they biked with headlamps on...seems to be the "thing" that people do there...we think Andrea would look killer in a headlamp...



We had a fun night with Greg and Matty and the other Tahoe-ians, and quickly realized that our plan to stay over in Yosemite without a reservation the next night would be foolish, so we hatched a plan to go there for a day trip. Thankfully, Greg wasn't sick of us yet and he offered to be our tour guide for the day. After a hot, mountainous, and somewhat hair-raising ride to Yosemite (we had a little issue with our car breaks on the steep mountain roads...fear not, all is fine) we had a great day checking out the crazy beautiful mountains, lakes, even a volcanic lake, and watching the crazy peeps climb pure sheet rock thousands of feet in the air. We went on about a 2 hour hike and were really hoping to see a bear (mostly b/c we had an escort with us, and it would be much better to have our first bear siting with a Y-chromosome around...), but alas, it wasn't meant to be--no bears, just a yellow bellied marmut, cool, right?? We were all pretty tired after our hike...mostly from swatting tons of flies all day...so we headed back for Tahoe and a night of pizza, beer, and trivial pursuit with Greg, aka "Wikipedia"....Greg, if you are reading this, we think you should start your own summer touring business where you tell all the tourists about the 9 million nature facts you know!!! Thanks for hosting us Fri night, we truly appreciate the hospitality and the company!! Hopefully you'll get your keys soon (long story, another key mishap..)

We left Tahoe saturday morning and make the loooooooooooooooooooong trek to Las Vegas. This was most assuredly the scariest part of our trip thus far. We left Tahoe in good spirits, cruising the mountains and about 3 hours later found ourselves fighting the "desert trance" b/c everything was flat and exactly the same. A note of excitement, though, Andrea almost hit a wild c'yote and we saw wild donkeys on the side of the road. About half way there, we hit traffic that was dead stopped...awesome, we were in the middle of nowhere, and there had been a fatal head on collision (which thoroughly bugged Andrea out, as she is just getting used to passing people on one lane roads!!). Rather than wait for the estimated 2 hours, we made a U-turn and ventured off onto the Extraterrestrial Highway...I kid you not. This was the most desolate, ridiculous road ever, and to make it even creepier---we got trapped in a thunderstorm with CRAZY lightning. Well, being the only metal thing for miles, we thought for sure that we'd get zapped, but somehow we made it out the other side unscathed and headed for VEGAS!!

Our vegas hotel was not what one would call impressive, but we had a bed and a shower, so it did the trick. We spent about 3 hours trekking the strip and exploring the hotels in the INTENSE HEAT, but we made it back in time to beautify for an 11pm dinner, followed by checking out a few of the hotel bars. We made friends with a fighter pilot from Oklahoma who decided to teach Susie how to play BlackJack while Andrea studied up on her Roulette skills for Atlantic City...and gambling with other people's money is always soooooooooo much more fun!!!! We can easily say that checkout time came way too soon, but we piled ourselves into the car....feeling miserable in the heat...but our spirits lifted when we found a bank of america AND a Dunk side by side, felt like home....

After about a 3 hour drive, with a quick "fly over" the Hoover Dam, we arrived in Flagstaff, AZ in time for lunch at this great outdoor pubby-type place that had live music and super yummy food. We explored the town a little bit---great place, feels like it should have a Greatful Dead soundtrack playing at all times---and then made the quick drive to Sedona to be WOWED by the red rock sculpted mountains everywhere. Soooooooo worth the trip, it was really gorgeous, and the town of Sedona was super cute too...if only we hadn't been so full from lunch!!

As the sun started to set, we decided it was time to hit the road and head to our campsite at the Grand Canyon. Only took us about an hour---we saw an Elk!!--and then Susie managed to get pulled over IN Grand Canyon National Park, 30 feet from our campground, for swerving around...the guy thought I was drunk, or high, but alas, it was just totally dark and we had no idea where we were going, so he let us go without a problem...We got our tent up in the dark without a hitch and spent our first night sleeping in Arizona!

We awakened this morning to bright sunshine at 8am and made our way to the Canyon....Holy Amazing. It's so beautiful and breathtaking. We chose a day hike that was moderate, and supposed to be about 3 hours....except that as soon as we got down into the canyon to our destination, it started thunderstorming and HAILING, so we had to take cover in a latrine...seriously, well--half in the bathroom, half under a roof...for an hour. So we ate lunch and got prepared for the ascent out of the canyon, which we did quite well despite thinking it would totally suck. We lucked out with the rain, b/c on our way down it was 90 and sunny, and on the way up it was 70, cloudy and breezy...sooooooooooo much better for hiking!!! The only down side...we left one of the tent flaps that covers the window of our tent today, certainly not anticipating rain...and now our sleeping bags are probably wet...we will see shortly!! We're off to go attempt a campfire, if everything isn't too wet....and then we'll sleep like babies tonight b/c both of us feel like our legs might fall off right now!!!

Tomorrow we're taking a morning "fossil hike" b/c we're both dorks who totally dig that stuff...haha, pun not intended...and then we're onto our 4th state, Utah, to see Zion!

Thinking of all of you...
~Susie and Andrea