We had a long drive ahead of us today. We had talked about getting an early start, but the kids slept in and the hot, still desert air kind of lulled us into slow-motion. But we finally got all our stuff packed away, hit the road, and made it whole miles down the road to Joshua Tree before we pulled over for a big breakfast at the Crossroads Cafe, all tattoos, nose rings and organic eggs.
We spent extra time there, as I took advantage of the wifi to post a couple days’ worth of blog entries. I’m keeping up with the writing, but actually posting is a tedious and cumbersome process that involves uploading and downloading and pulling shit off the iCloud, and it takes freaking forever — especially with spotty wifi. This morning, I had a nice, strong signal, and it still took me 40 minutes to post two entries.
It was supposed to take us about 6 1/2 hours to get from Joshua Tree, Calif., to Springdale, Utah, even with a short detour to the Hoover Dam. But, as we all know by now — say it with me, folks — it actually takes a lot longer.
The Hoover Dam: a marvel of modern engineering and a clustercuss of traffic, security stations, roadsigns and tourists. We drove across the dam, listened to a litany of “dam” jokes from the kids (“Look at all these dam cars.” “Where’s the dam bathroom?” “It’s 111 degrees out! Hot dam!” ), then turned around, drove back and got the hell out of there. We jumped out of the van for one picture, and we didn’t even turn off the car engine.
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| Look at this dam picture. |
It was after 4 by the time we left the dam traffic behind, but then had to go either around Lake Mead, or through Las Vegas to get to Utah. Somehow, our map app combined the worst legs of both of those routes into one journey that surely just be a practical joke. Probably the admin guys at Apple Maps are laughing their asses off, since they took us halfway around Lake Mead on slow and winding roads before sending us east — east! — for miles through the sprawl of North Las Vegas to hook up with I-15 headed west, finally. Surely there’s a more efficient way. At about the 37th North Las Vegas stoplight, I started to lose it: It seemed like we had been in the car all day, and we still had a couple hours left before getting to Springdale.
Indeed, it was almost 9 p.m. before we pulled into town — this little hamlet wedged into the mouth of the Zion Canyon and crammed right up against the entrance gates to the national park. The setting sun cast a gorgeous glow on the red cliffs behind all the galleries and chic restaurants and outfitter shops and ice cream stands — and the people! Egads, all the people. And their cars. It’s a tight fit, cramming all those visitors into a town that’s backed into a canyon. And the parking is a bitch.
For this reason, there is a shuttle bus line running the entire length of Springdale’s main street., and another bus line that runs up into the park. In fact, cars aren’t even allowed past a certain point in the park — only shuttles. And cars — and especially RVs and trailers — are encouraged to park in lots on the outskirts of town so they don’t clog the roads and parking lots.
Fuck it. We drove right into town with the trailer and parked squarely in front of the laundromat so that I could unload and knock out nine days’ worth of laundry before the place closed at 10 p.m. And it took exactly 2.5 seconds for the manager to come out and tell us that we had stopped in a no-parking zone.
So I stayed with the laundry and knocked out four loads while Keith and the kids moved the van and the trailer to the hotel down the block, where they checked in. And while our clothes tumbled in the dryers, we grabbed pizzas and beers across the street. See? A model of efficiency. We could teach those dicks at Apple Maps a thing or two.
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