A Big Hole

We awoke in Needles, CA, the heart of the desert, to a driving thunderstorm. Fortunately we were not caught in our leaking tent in this thunderstorm, having been scared off from the Mojave National Preserve by poisonous creates and threat of being driven over. This is the second day of rain in the desert. We were hoping that the desert would be, you know, a desert.

The van has rarely been below two thirds of a tank of gas. This is certainly not due to my obsessiveness, as I always take the gas light coming on as my cue to get gas. Instead, the tiny bladders of my offspring render it impossible to go more than 100 miles without a stop. They could write a travel journal about all the bathrooms they've seen. From the palaces of the Wisconsin Capitol in Madison to the pit toilets of Kankakee state park to the infinite variety of gas station toilets. They have seen it all. But that is their story.

We had bought some mangoes in the Bay area to munch along the way. I cut them up in the standard way, halving them, criss crossing them with knife cuts, turning them inside out, and eating them out of the skin. It was at this point I became certain that facial hair would never be for me. Ew. However, the pathetic excuse for a beard remains until the bitter end of this trip.

On the way out of Needles, we made a quick detour to "get" Nevada for the kids. We passed about ten large casinos during this trip, none of them terribly glamorous.

The Grand Canyon is a really big hole in the ground.

We finished the day camping in a motel in Kayenta, due to a lack of campsites and the continuing threat of rain in the desert.