A Different Hole in the Ground
So after the volcano, we went to Wupatki National Monument (okay, technically we went before, but I forgot to mention it earlier, and I'm taking a creative license), where my brother and I discovered the joy of a blowhole (their term, not mine). Apparently, there's some underground, mysteriously-large cave. And due to temperature and pressure differences, the cave blows air through this approximately one square foot hole. Well, depending on the circumstances, it sometimes sucks in air. Anyway, we played with the hole by trying to float objects atop the rushing column of air. We got some fairly large rocks to sail across. What I mean is that we would gently toss (relatively flat) rocks horizontally into the air's path, and it would continue coasting, as if gravity had been temporarily suspended. Since it's hard to convey the size of these rocks, let's just say that when we threw a penny on there, it zoomed skyward. It was like an evil hairdryer. Except really cold.

After spending a night in Flagstaff (another destination to mark off the ol' Rand-McNally), we went to another canyon, though much smaller in size. It's suspected that the Wupatki might've actually moved to this canyon, after a bad eruption from the volcano (fourteen miles from the blowhole) rendered the ground nearly infertile. That's right, three NPS sites, near to each other, all very much related. Pretty cool.

We drove back to Las Vegas (about five hours, excluding stops). We didn't do much besides get dinner and see a show. And then my dad told me about how many years ago, he was excited about being able to pay for a trip for his parents to visit the US, and he brought both of them (that means my grandmother) and my mom to a topless show in Vegas. Yeah, you can definitely learn something new, every day.

The next morning, my brother and my dad caught their flights out of Vegas. I found myself really, really bored. So after getting up around 1pm, I decided to shop. In Las vegas, the options are pretty much to watch a show, gamble money, or spend money. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But since I didn't have a car (my brother returned the rental), it was a long walk to the mall we had passed earlier in the week. According to Mapquest, it was about 2.5 miles. And I made stops along the way. The entire trip was about four hours, and the only time I was sitting was at the McDonald's on the way back. But I found a nice pair of khakis at Banana. The bad part is I also took in a shirt to try on with the pants (I sometimes do this, as what I'm wearing into the stores often won't match what I'm trying on, so I can't get a realistic picture of how the clothes will look, unless I bring along something that matches it). And man, the shirt was perfect. It was cut perfectly for my shoulders, which rarely happens. So I had to buy the shirt. I'm a moron. I got the pants, too, since my khakis have been a bit ill-fitting. They're great for standing around, looking cool, but when I sit? Let's just say there's some uncomfortable bunching.

And now that you're all uncomfortable, I'll leave you, so that the last image in your head lingers.
- posted by roger @ 11:17 PM