My parents and I made a road trip to see the painted walls of Chemainus, British Columbia, a seaside village not far from their home town of Parksville.
At first glance you’d think this is just another municipal ploy to lure tourists into to buy junky trinkets produced in China.
But there is something compelling about this collection. They are so crude and quaint, that I can’t help liking them.
29 mural photos of the murals on flickr.
I stayed 4 nights at the downtown Hilton in Salt Lake City …
You know the quotation I always attribute to Conrad: “The rich deserve to be fleeced for their arrogance and vanity.” It’s true. He built an empire on it.
(Too bad my message from Conrad was not passed forward to his great-granddaughter.)
Leaving the Hilton, I was looking forward to better accommodation.
Having stayed in hostels in over 30 countries worldwide, the Lazy Lizard sounded great:
At the Lazy Lizard we take pride in being not only one of the cheapest hostels anywhere, but one of the best as well.
People ask us how we do it. (almost as often as they ask us where there is a good place to eat.) We tell them that we manage to keep costs low by eliminating profit. Most people buy this answer because, well, how else could we do it?
I do wonder how they do it.
Moab, Utah is an expensive town. Accommodation is often booked out everywhere on weekends including the Lazy Lizard.
I stayed several nights in May 2007. I found it disorganized, dirty and facilities badly in need of repair.
In fact, the only good points about this hostel are the hot showers and hot coffee.
I would have moved on and forgotten this place except for one thing — I had things stolen from “left luggage”.
When I departed to camp 2-nights in Arches National Park I asked to leave a plastic bag until my return. The desk clerk replied, “Leave it in the laundry room. It will be there when you get back.”
On my return the bag had been ripped open, several things taken, and the rest soaked with water.
Bad luck perhaps. But this is a bad hostel. One I recommend everyone avoid.
I’ll forward my experience to the major guidebook companies, tourist information Moab and a number of other organizations.
Scott from the hostel replied:,
I am very sorry that you had your things stolen from our laundry room. It is true that over the years we have had many people leave things there while they are away and to my knowledge you are the first one to have had things taken. Again I am sorry about this. It is not something that we can always control .
We have also been a bit understaffed lately. We have had one cleaning person and a maintenance person quit. Since May is our busiest month of the year it has been difficult to keep up. I did manage to hire one new person just yesterday.
I do know from my dealings with the guests at the hostel that the vast majority of them have a positive experience. If is very common for guests to extend their stays and stay longer than they had originally planned. Many come back year after year.
It is too bad that you had an unpleasant experience with your belongings but unfortunately sometimes things do happen which are out of our control.
I hope your loss didn’t ruin the rest of your trip.
Thanks Scott. I appreciate it. I will be back, soon, to check on improvements. In the meantime, watch for my stolen t-shirt.
UPDATE: Scott wrote saying, “one of the staff people said that he found your T shirt mixed up in his laundry. ” How about that.
He’s mailing it to me. Now, we’re looking for my missing electric razor.
I’ve secretly been embarrassed to have visited the ancient Egyptians, Incas and Mayans — but not those first nations closer to home.
FINALLY I made it to Mesa Verde. It is amazing. You can sign on for a Ranger guided tour to explore the dwellings.
Mesa Verde – Wikipedia
My final thought, still, is “why did the peoples of the current USA and Canada not build great cities?”
I took the Balcony Cliff tour which involves a 32ft (10m) ladder climb and crawling through a stone tunnel. Cool.
I asked if any tourists had ever fallen. The answer — “So far, only 1 Ranger.”
Interesting flickr photos tagged “Mesa Verde, Colorado“.
Even more great photos like this one.
I can confirm the night sky is inky black there. (Tonight is my 13th night in the tent.)
… good news from the National Park Service regarding their efforts to conserve the natural dark sky.
Natural Bridges National Monument, in the southeast corner of Utah, has been named the world’s first ever International Dark-Sky Park, as designated by the International Dark-Sky Association.
This is a big deal. It is a designation which recognizes not only that the park has about the darkest and clearest skies in all of the United States, but also that the park has made a every effort to conserve the natural dark as a resource worthy of the fullest protection.
The park, with the help of the little-known NPS Night Sky team working out of nearby Bryce Canyon National Park, identified every single exterior light within Natural Bridges. Based on an evaluation, each and every light was either eliminated or replaced with fully-shielded lights, some even equipped with motion sensors to reduce their light pollution even further. The Natural Bridges night sky conservation efforts include campfire interpretive programs and publications for visitor education about this seldom considered resource.
Here’s their solar panel array, the world’s largest … in 1980. They’ve been at this dark sky business for some time.
See photos of the second and third largest natural “bridges” (water carved arches) in the world: Natural Bridges – Wikipedia
Island in the Sky, Canyonlands National Park, is great.
But the view is even better from Dead Horse Point State Park.
I stayed in the fantastic campground there. Blue-haired mobile home veterans told me it was the best car campground they had found in canyon country.
The park is so named because of its use as a natural corral by horse thieves in the 19th Century. The plateau drops off with sheer cliffs several hundred meters tall on 3 sides, with only a narrow neck of land (30 yards or so) connecting the plateau to the main plateau. Thus it was easy for rustlers to simply fence off this narrow neck, and keep their horses from running away.
Unfortunately the dry desert conditions, lack of food and water, and limited space often killed the horses.
Colorado River
It only rains about 2 9 inches a year in Moab.
But my tent has been drenched for the last 12hrs.
Postponed my departure to the backcountry for a day. The desert can be very dangerous when it rains.
PHOTO UPDATE:
(Using my camera self-timer on these shots was difficult.)
The bike is a Santa Cruz Blur.
First adventure day in Canyon Country …
The Slickrock Trail, located near Moab, Utah (USA), is a popular mountain biking destination with worldwide fame. This 10.5 miles (16.9 km) loop takes intrepid riders over a landscape of “petrified” sand dunes and the eroded remnants of ancient sea beds. The Slickrock Trail is one of the more difficult rides in the Moab area, both technically and cardiovascularly, and is not suitable for novice riders.
… The so-called slickrock sandstone, which forms the majority of the trail’s surface, is not slick at all, but has a surface much like sandpaper. The rubber tires of a mountain bike or off-road motorcycle will grip readily to its surface on all but the steepest hills.
The name “slickrock” was given by early settlers of the area because their horses’ metal shoes had difficulty gaining traction on the rock’s sloping surfaces.
I’m happy to say I survived the long, hot day.
I saw two crashes. But came out unscathed myself.
Just finished two fantabulous (no existing words can describe the grandeur) days in Arches National Park.
Decided to rent a convertible and head for Dead Horse Point State Park. You know it from the final scene in Thelma and Louise.
At age 30 I began to acquire allergies.
(Before that I considered them the delusions of hypochondriacs.)
Apples now have the potential to kill me. But what I dislike most is Spring in Canada. Sneezing, coughing, watery eyes.
Each year I try to flee the misery by travelling.
Turns out Moab, Utah is a Mecca for those like me. From Wikipedia:
I jumped plane at the Salt Lake City airport and caught a shuttle to this medical enclave. Coincidentally, there are quite a few hikers and bikers about the sanatorium.
Will let you know how my treatment progresses.
original – flickr
Wow.
This place is gorgeous.
I write from the main library, a five-story tall, wedge-shaped building faced top to bottom by a curved glass wall.
Outside is a huge landscaped plaza.
A rooftop garden completes the structure. It is planted with trees, grasses, flowering bulbs and various perennial plants.
The whole library depends on natural lighting, reducing the need of lights in the library. A huge five story glass wall is where most of the light comes from.
Salt Lake City Public Library – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Having won Library Journal’s 2006 library of the year award I feel it’s even better than the new Vancouver Public Library.
Hey — same architect. How about that.
Vancouver
Rick McCharles 
