Lost in the Woods

This is the third and final post in my series on my trip to Arizona. The earlier two parts covered the Lava River Cave and Slide Rock, as well as Horseshoe Bend, Glen Canyon, and Page, Arizona. Chronologically this occurred between those two posts. However, I decided to save the best adventure for the end.

On the same day we went to the Lava River Cave and Slide Rock, we went to the West Fork of Oak Creek Canyon. It was a few miles away from Slide Rock and just outside of Flagstaff. The park is managed by the Arizona state park service and the US Forest Service. I drove into the parking lot and paid my entrance fee just after 4 in the afternoon.

The trail was 3.0 miles one way with a 5300 foot elevation at the trailhead. The way back was backtracking the same trail. It was flat, with the elevation change being 150 feet. It was around a mile from the parking area to the trailhead.

The biggest feature of the hike was the creek itself. Going into the woods, the trail crossed the creek over a dozen times. It was normally only a few inches deep, but there were stones at all of the crossings. Here Larry is acting like Captain America and balancing on a loose branch.


On one of our first crossings I fell into the stream. I got a little wet, scratched up one leg, and got a big bump on my other leg. An area over two inches in diameter swelled up instantly. However, it was not too bad so I kept walking.

As before, Larry wanted lots of pictures. I tagged along and got in a few of the frames.


We kept hiking. Peter did most of the leading, while I was at the end most of the time.


Aside from the creek, there were lots of larger rocks. Every rock worth climbing on or getting a picture of was climbed or photographed. The most iconic rock had a flat face and was next to the trail.


I watched Larry climb it and knew I could get to the top as well. However, what concerned me was getting down. It is a bad idea to go up without having a plan to get down. After some thinking, I decided I wanted to get to the top so I pushed all my concerns aside and started climbing.


After both of us were on top, Peter decided he had to get to the top of his rock.

There were a lot of creek crossings. Since they all had stepping stones and were clearly visible this was not a problem.


We knew we reached the end because the creek went off and there was no trail to follow it.


This is one of the many pictures at the end of the creek. It seems I did not pack my smile.



The Trip Back
While Larry, Peter, and I were used to hiking (the three of us have hiked the Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, and Zion National Park), Eric and Andy were not. Andy was not in shape.

As we started the way back the sun rapidly set and it was getting dark. We were making good time. Then we lost the trail. While there was only one main trail, it was a heavily visited area and people had worn out a lot of smaller paths to the stream at different points and up to higher vantage points. After some scouting and stream crossings, we found the main trail again and were back on track.

Earlier in the day it was 80+ degrees so none of us were prepared for the temperature drop when it got dark. At one of the creek crossings Andy slipped on a rock and got wet. We dried him off as best we could, which was very little. We continued on and the trail took us to the creek as it often did. However, there was no crossing and we could not see a path on the other side. We deduced we had made a wrong turn earlier so we turned around and went back. At this point the sun had set and all of us pulled out flashlights. Luckily, we all had flashlights packed from the Lava River Cave earlier that day.

After a lot of walking there was more uncertainty. We started to think we had taken a wrong turn again. We took some tree branches and started leaving markers on the trail. Then the trail took us to the creek again, but we did not see a crossing. We surveyed the other side with flashlights but did not see a trail. We turned around.

While it was not very cold out yet, the temperature was going down and we did not have jackets or even long pants. I knew I could keep going for a while but Andy did not look well. He was winded and with his feet wet he was not handling the cold well. We ran into one of our markers so we knew we were going in a circle.

While we did not know if we were going the correct direction, we kept going. I started to think about what to do if we had to spend the night somewhere outside. There were no places that looked like good shelter. At one point the trail split. We decided to let Andy stay at the fork while Peter and I scouted one way and Larry and Eric checked the other. Peter and I found the trail crossed the stream and had a visible crossing. Larry and Eric were gone a long time. When they came back we debated about which way to go. I remembered going against the flow of the creek for the entire second half of the hike on the way in, but I did not remember if we were going with or against the creek for the first half of the hike. There was also the possibility there was a second creek that intersected the main one. We decided to take the way Larry and Eric came. As we walked Andy looked bad. There was concern Andy was going to faint and we stopped and made him drink Gatorade a few times. We walked for a while and came to a crossing that looked familiar. However, we still could not agree if we were going out of the forest or further into it. After we crossed the creek, there was more hiking until the trail forked with one side following the creek and the other going further into the woods. The sun had set a couple of hours earlier and all of the rocks and trees looked the same.

Larry remembered this fork from the hike up because I had suggested we follow the stream while Peter suggested we go further into the woods. Larry also remembered we took Peter's suggestion. However, Larry and Peter decided to scout one of the trails before we made a decision. I sat with Eric and an exhausted Andy while they went forward. They walked a long way and almost gave up, but one of them said to keep going for a few more feet. They came to a rock. It was the big rock with a smooth face that Larry, Peter, and I had climbed on the hike up.

They knew we were going the wrong way, but they were excited to find a sure point of reference. When they came back, they told us and we started backtracking. My flashlight started to die on me. Luckily, I had an extra light in my bag from the hike in the lava river cave earlier that day. The very first crossing we came to Andy slipped and face-planted into the water. He was soaked. This made us go as fast as we thought Andy could handle, as if the dropping temperature and desire for food was not enough to keep us going.

We hurried and made good time. It seemed the fall had given Andy a second wind. We found a marker we had left earlier so we knew we were on the right path. Larry kept saying he thought the next creek crossing was the one where I fell. After an hour we finally recognized the starting stage of our hike. We kept going and the trail became a sidewalk that took us to the parking lot.

At the end I was never happier to see my car. We pulled out some dry clothes for Andy and I started the heater. Then I went and looked at the entrance to the parking lot. The gate had been closed and locked shut. It was the only way for a car to get in or out. The signs said the park closed at dusk. Even though my car was parked right next to the gate they decided to lock us in. Larry and Peter tried to make phone calls, but as soon as they were connected and started talking to a person it cut out. Next they went to a nearby house and knocked on the door. There was no answer. They tried the phones again and eventually got through to the county sheriff. Peter told them where we were and they told us to wait. Almost an hour later the sheriff came and unlocked the gate so we could leave. As I drove out the time was just past midnight. We had been in the park for nearly 8 hours.

Since it was dark for most of the hike back, we did not take any pictures. However, this one says it all. The trees and rocks around us looked the same, it was dark, we had no idea where we were, and everything was a blur. Larry's reaction speaks for our collective mood.


Eric's album Beware the ~Call of the Canyon~ ! has more pictures. His album description summarizes the trip, "Did you know that there is a Blair Witch 3? How do I know? We lived it!"

This brings new meaning to the phrase Lost in the Woods.

Horseshoe Bend, Glen Canyon, and Page

Now for part II of my Arizona trip; part I was yesterday.

Horseshoe Bend
We piled in the car Saturday morning and I drove 150 miles north. Our first stop was Horseshoe Bend. It is a place where the Colorado River rounds a bend to make a 270 degree change in direction. It was a 3/4 mile walk from the parking area to the viewing area.


The scenery was scenic; check out the clouds in these pictures. Below we have another picture of Peter on one of his many rocks.


As the signs pointed out, there were no railings and it was a 1,000 foot drop from the edge to the river below.


This shows the top of the canyon the Colorado carved. I am sitting on a rock.


In case you did not get a good look at the earlier shot, here is another picture of Horseshoe Bend. I kept thinking how this was the same river I crossed when I went to the Grand Canyon last summer.


More pictures are available at Eric's Horseshoes Around The Bend album. Next we drove over a bridge and saw the Glen Canyon Dam. This is a view of the bridge from the visitors' center.


Both the Horseshoe Bend and Glen Canyon were right next to the city of Page, Arizona.


Eric's Dam You Glen Canyon album covers the Glen Canyon Visitors' Center and the drive back.

Driving Summary
The entire Arizona trip was 1480.2 miles. My car got 28.73 miles per gallon. That is good considering my car is ten years old and had almost 100,000 miles on it. Most of the trip had people sleeping in the back seat while I did all the driving.


To get to Chandler I took the 55 North to the 91 East to the 60 East to the 10 East. On the 10 I had some fun driving. There was construction and I was making turns following cones; it felt like a video game. After 309 miles on the 10, I took Arizona 202 East to Larry's house in Chandler. Then to get to Flagstaff, I took Arizona 101 North, to the 17 North which became US 89.

To get to Page, Arizona, I went north on US 89 from its starting point in Flagstaff. I did a lot of driving on the 89 on my last trip to Utah, so it was exciting to be driving on the 89 again. There were great views of desert landscape and passing other vehicles was fun.

Going back to Chandler, I took the 89 South to the 40 West to the 17 South which became the 60 East before I took Arizona 101 South. I drove 270 of the 290 miles of the 17 freeway. Part of the 60 I drove on is called Superstition Freeway. I think it takes its name from the Superstition Mountains which it passes through to the east.

Come back tomorrow for the third and final post on my trip to Arizona. When the events I will describe were happening Larry said "I can't wait to read Chris's blog post about this."

Did you notice the new background picture on my blog? It was taken by Eric on the 89 South on the drive from Page to Chandler.

Climbing on Rocks & Into Caves

Last month I went on an epic trip to Arizona. I went there to visit Larry, who was taking classes at ASU. The trip started when I drove Peter, Eric, and Andy to where Larry was staying in Chandler, Arizona. I left Orange County around 10 on a Thursday night.

Lava River Cave
On Friday morning we woke up and drove to Flagstaff, which was 150 miles away. A few miles outside of Flagstaff I turned onto a dirt road. After a few miles of a bumpy drive including potholes, rocks in the road, and having to drive off the road so I would not get stuck, we arrived at the Lava River Cave.


There were some rocks around a hole in the ground. We descended into the hole and started our trip down the 3/4 mile long cave. At first it was difficult. I had to climb down rocks that were sometimes covered with ice. However, I quickly reached the floor of the cave and the rocks leveled out.


The cave was cold. It averaged 35-40 degrees, even though it was 80+ degrees above ground. We had hats and gloves to keep us warm. After a short distance it was very dark in the cave. Nothing could be seen. This is what it looked like without our flashlights.


The cave was a very scary place. There were random ice patches on the rocks and small puddles of water hidden on the floor. There were sharp rocks all over and many outcroppings hanging from the ceiling. It was a place darker and lonelier than the most deserted night. Just ask Eric.


The cave varied in height. Most of the time I could walk upright without hitting anything. At times the cave was over 30 feet high and even wider.


As we walked along, Larry said we should be sure to take the left path when the cave branched. He had researched the cave beforehand and knew the right route was only 2 or 3 feet high at one point. Since Peter was in the lead, we put him in charge of leading us down the left path. However, Peter missed the fork in the cave and lead us down the wrong side. We had to crawl to get through the opening. For most of the cave the floor looked like a river of lava that had hardened in the middle of flowing. (Actually, that is exactly what the floor was.) There were sharp points all over the floor. My hands were not happy.


Eventually we got to the end of the cave. After some pictures and spending some time in complete darkness, we started back out to the entrance. This time we were careful to take the other side which was taller.


Climbing back to the entrance I slipped on one of the icy rocks. I instantly reached for the nearest thing and cut my hand grabbing a jagged rock. There was only a little blood, but it was enough to get on my pants. You can also check out Eric's Cave Time, Lava River that is...album.

Slide Rock
After going to a Chinese restaurant in Flagstaff, I drove to Slide Rock. It is a stream that flows through a rock filled area. There were a lot of people there in the water. Aside from the opportunity to get into the water, the place was unremarkable. Here we have Larry and me sitting on a ledge. Larry is eating some ice cream, while I am using a hat and towel to keep the sun off of me.


At Slide Rock a theme was started. Peter was sitting on a rock and we started calling it Bui's rock. After that, every big rock that anyone could climb on top of was called Bui's rock.


Another theme was Larry had to jump on every big rock and demand pictures be taken. Eric's album FINALLY...Slide Rock has come back? only has half of the pictures we took on the rock above. My camera was borrowed and a bunch more were taken that did not make it online. While many of the pictures were great, after you have seen a few you get the idea.

Check back tomorrow for the second part of my Arizona trip. I visited the second largest dam on the Colorado River and a city named for me.

One book on economics

I have been reading a few things about economics recently. I just finished Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt.

My favorite thing about the book is its format. It is a lot of small relatively self-contained chapters. Each one deals with a different topic and uses real world examples.

As Hazlitt writes in the first chapter:

The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.

A broken window is then considered as an example of unseen effects. Imagine a vandal smashes a window. The first and obvious result is the building's owner will buy a new window. This means business and income for the window factory. Spectators might say the breaking of the window was good because of the business activity it created. However, it neglects what the window's owner would have done instead of replacing the window. If he was planning to spend the same amount of money that afternoon to buy a new suit, he will go without the new suit. Instead of the suit maker getting a sale, the window factory gets a sale that day. Nothing is created because of the broken window. However, casual spectators only see the new window and not the new suit that was never bought.

Hazlitt explains how different groups of people band together and seek economic favors at the expense of everyone else. He then examines government subsides to farmers. While the subsides provide farmers with cash so they can do more farm related things, other people lose out. All of the taxpayers lost money they would have spent on other things so the farmers could get some extra cash. The subsidies did not create new business, they only transferred money from non-farmers to farmers.

One sad thing was how the book talked about a few billion dollars in government spending as if it was a lot of money. In the decades since the book was written only things in the hundreds of billions of dollars seem like a lot of money in government terms.

The book would be better titled Why the Government should stay out of Economics in One Lesson. For a few sections in the middle I was bored because I knew how the examples would be analyzed according to the earlier principles.

I would recommend you read the book. It was easy to read and talked through a lot of examples.

My things & my selfishness

There are some activities I do that are my activities. I do them and no one else I know does them with me.

Donating platelets to the Red Cross is my thing. I know the people at the donor center from going there a few dozen times. Recently my dad started going with me. I was glad it was a positive activity he could do, but it started to cut into how I did things. For example, when I try to have a semi-meaningful conservation with the receptionist, he jumps in and turns the conservation to dead ends. I could ask her about her dog, any random movies she saw, or going to Las Vegas, but my dad makes trite comments that push the talking to termination. Even if I go in one day without my dad everyone asks me about him. What happened to talking to me about me?

There is also driving to the center and back. Often I do not like making other stops after the procedure, except of course for 7-eleven. Now I drive there and I am told we will be stopping to go shopping here or there, which I never agreed to.

Another example is activities at Church. Both my dad and brother are members of the Knight of Columbus (a Catholic fraternal organisation that does service). Both of them joined before I did since I was not old enough when they joined. However, I do not like going to meetings or doing events with them. I often feel like an add on who is along for the ride when they do things with the group. When I interact with people I am always known because of other people in my family.

To contrast, I really enjoy the activities at church related to the retreat I just planned. Everyone there knows me first and foremost as Chris. I am not defined in relation to someone else like my brother or dad, but for being me.

Maybe I am narcissistic, but I want some things to be my own.

Retreat of the weekend

Two weekends ago I was on a retreat at church. It is the same type of retreat I went on last fall, except this time I was on the team that planned it.

These past two retreats have had a strong effect on me. The odd thing is there were many ways in which the retreats fell short of other ones I have attended. During these retreats there was a lot less talking in small groups, less interaction with other participants, and activities that became boring. The venue was also uninspiring. Instead of views of the Pacific Ocean or a forest, the place was a building in Fullerton in a residential neighborhood (I have nothing against Fullerton, but where I was lacked a scenic quality). Some rooms even had a view of a drainage ditch.

There were some great things as well, especially about this last one. The people who talked had a lot of things to share. There was a former drug dealer, a person who neglected his wife until she ran away, and a guy who at 18 got his girlfriend pregnant, joined the army, and relocated his new family to a new state within a few months. There was some crazy stuff.

There was also a chance to go to Reconciliation. A blind priest said a few words to our group before the sacrament. He was a great speaker. One of his good lines was "If you want to be used by God, by God you will be used!"

Following the Book
One theme that appeared in a few of the talks was the importance of scripture. One person related how he had to memorize several Bible verses for vacation Bible school when he was younger. His prize for memorizing them was a ride in a hot air balloon.

For someone who is as active in the church as I am, I know an embarrassingly small amount about the Bible (at least I think so). If I was asked to recite some verses I could stumble through a few, but I could not speak with confidence.

After the retreat I started memorizing some Bible verses. I searched online for suggested verses and other ideas. Some of the sites suggested learning one verse a week. At that rate, I would still have a lot to learn when the Second Coming rolled around. In the first week I learned 9 verses and where to find a few important things.

However, this intensive Bible study has me concerned; I feel like a Protestant. You should say a rosary for me.

My novel life

I feel like I am living a Charles Dickens novel; for me it is the best of times and it is the worst of times. So many things are either really good or really bad.

In the best of times, last weekend I was at a retreat at church and it was great and wonderful. Even a week later I am still in a great mood from it. The weekend before that I was in Arizona. It was the latest installment of my trips to state and national parks and produced my most noteworthy hike to date.

However, a few things are terrible. My DSP class is a disaster; nothing is working in it. The people around me at home are going through worse than average things and it is starting to affect me. I am also feeling horrible about being unemployed.

There are so many superlatives around me right now. It would be nice if they all averaged to normal, but instead I am either really great or at the worst I can remember.

This weekend I poured recently boiled simple syrup on my hand. This mishap happened when I was making mint juleps and a derby pie for the Kentucky Derby on Saturday. Yesterday I was grilling hamburgers outside. When I felt something under my bare foot I found I was standing on a rusty nail.

Hobo with a Shotgun
I also saw the movie Hobo with a Shotgun. How the movie got made is a story worth telling.

A few years ago, a movie called Grindhouse was made. It imitated a style of movie from the 70s where there was a lot of violence, sex, or some other overblown theme. Since these movies were often double features, the directors created two separate shorter movies. They then strung the movies together by making fake trailers for other similarly styled movies. People who saw Grindhouse would see a couple of fake trailers, a movie, some more fake trailers, and then a second movie.

The trailers for the fake movies received so much attention, one of them was expanded and made into a full length movie. This was the movie Machete. One of the other trailers was for the fake movie Hobo with a Shotgun. What I watched was a movie based upon that fake trailer.

To understand the idea behind the movie, think about the title and watch the original fake trailer. I laughed a lot watching the movie.

The wrong version and bad answers

I am a few weeks into a class at UCI Extension. It is about programming for a specific processor chip. Most of the work so far is writing code in an application and then uploading that code to a circuit board.

There are some big problems with the class. The textbook and the lecture notes use version 3 of the software. Almost everyone in the class and me are using version 4. There have been significant changes between the two versions. Entire menus do not exist in the new version and many settings have been relocated, renamed, or removed entirely.

The programs are not working for me. It is annoying and I have not been able to complete many of the assignments.

Everyone uploads their code online after they finish the projects. However, even after using the exact same code as other people and reading their write ups which include how they solved every problem that came up I still cannot get many of the examples to work for me.

Last week the class was going so poorly, I was filled with excitement when I saw the next section involved z transforms and transfer functions. From my previous class I despise z transforms and transfer functions greatly.

Yesterday I finished a quiz for the class. I had to answer three questions from the textbook and enter the answers online. There were two big problems. First, it took me a while to understand what the questions wanted and how to do it. They involved transfer functions, an impulse function, and many mistakes on my part. Even after I read the sections in the textbook, looked at another textbook from an earlier class that covered this, and looked at a couple of websites I could not figure it out. As a last resort, I typed a form of the problem into Google. The first result that came up explained everything perfectly. I was able to finish the quiz and submit it with only seconds to spare (as the 1 minute 14 seconds timer indicates).

My second problem was the choices the instructor gave for answers. He could have set the answer choices to any numbers or words he wanted. Somehow he managed to give 21 possible answers which included two that were equally valid. For one problem I calculated an answer of 1.1. Click on the cropped screen shot below and tell me, what am I supposed to do?



Twice during the quiz the answer was exactly between two values.

I will see how the class continues and finishes up. Right now it is not looking promising.