The Traveling Dowells, Episode II

Location: Southwest USA
Date: July 2002

This is actually The Traveling Dowells, Episode I...our honeymoon! Recent events and discussions have made me think of our honeymoon, so it's a great place to start. Plus, it's almost Valentine's Day and I'm feeling lovey-dovey.

Excuse the pics...we were married before the digital age. So I took pics of my scrapbook. :)

We didn't take a traditional honeymoon to an exotic, faraway location. Instead, we took a two week road trip and took in some National Parks. It was the perfect beginning to our marriage and very much our style. We were young, naive, and had no money. The trip was a complete surprise for me. Darrin planned it all and didn't tell me until a few days before the wedding where we were going. All I knew was that we took many long summer walks around the pond in Urbandale to "train".

Two days after our wedding, we packed up our 2000 Malibu and headed west. As is now tradition, we started the trip listening to On The Road Again by Willie Nelson. Never leave home without it. It's the Dowell family travel anthem. We spent our first night in Denver, picnicked by a stream in Vail, hit a heat wave in Grand Junction and made it to our first stop: Arches National Park in Moab, UT. Near Arches, we enjoyed a snack in a ridiculously hot canyon...this was foreshadowing of what was to come. We did a bit of hiking at Arches and witnessed a mini-sandstorm.

We hit the road again and drove for an eternity across remote parts of Utah until we spotted an oasis in the sand. Las Vegas. We spent three days in Vegas. We walked through all the hotels, malls and casinos, did some gambling at the $2 blackjack table at the Imperial Palace (as previously stated, we had little money), and spent some time relaxing. On our way out of Vegas, we saw the Hoover Dam and made many dam jokes while on the dam tour. We also realized at the Hoover Dam that we had forgotten to change our clocks and had been living in the wrong time zone for the previous three days.

From Vegas we ventured to the highlight of our trip. The Grand Canyon. We had back country permits and were ready to hike to the bottom of the canyon. We really had no idea what we were doing.



We woke up at 5am to head down the 7 mile South Kaibab Trail in hopes of reaching the Colorado River by early afternoon. There were two bathroom "pit" stops on the way down and no water. So we had our backpacks filled with food, water, gear, and Darrin carried our cheap, semi-light, semi-small tent from Target. The trail was nice and there were several other crazy people also making the hike. We made it to 4.4 miles down to Tonto (that means "stupid" in Spanish) Junction for lunch at 10am. After that, I started to lose it. Emotionally. I lost it. There was NO SHADE. None. At all. And we still had 3 miles to hike. In the sun. It was over 100 degrees. I thought I was going to die. I was certain that the canyon would sweat me to death. A lovely family of four was hiking just ahead of us, and they knew I was having a difficult time (read: crying and emotionally breaking down in any 2 inches of shade that I could find). I was never more happy then when they yelled up to Darrin that they had actually hit the last switchback and were wading in the cool waters of the Colorado. Finally after a very, very rough descent, we made it to the bottom.



We spent the afternoon resting on the banks of the river and ate a delicious beef stew at Phantom Ranch. The dinner was awesome. Unfortunately it was 120 degrees in the bottom. I'm not exaggerating. One hundred and twenty degrees. For those of you that might say, "Oh, but it's a dry heat," I suggest sticking your head in the oven...that's also a dry heat, but DARN HOT! That night was so stinkin' hot, that Darrin slept alone in the ridiculously small tent and I slept on top of the picnic bench hoping to catch a hint of a breeze.

By morning, I was pumped to start hiking out of the canyon. Perhaps a bit too excited. We had 9.6 miles to go up the Bright Angel Trail. Again we were on the trail by 5am, but were perhaps a bit too ambitious. We practically ran up the first half of the trail in just three hours. At that point, Darrin realized he hadn't been drinking enough water or eating enough and was in bad shape. He suddenly had no energy and was having trouble keeping liquids down. It wasn't looking so good. We rested for a long time. We said the word "medevac". Slowly, Darrin muscled through and somehow made it to Indian Gardens -- a stop with bathrooms, water, a campground, and park rangers. A ranger gave us an apple and a candy bar (we didn't pack enough food with sugar), and I got us some fresh water. We spent about 7 hours resting at Indian Gardens -- talking with people, laughing at the people going down the canyon on donkeys, and trying to enjoy the view. We followed the advice of a ranger -- it's the same trail, but might take 8 hours in the sun or 5 hours in the shade. We waited for the afternoon shade. By the time we got to the top of the canyon, it was 10pm and we were walking by the glow of our flashlights. There was much rejoicing.


After the canyon, we were wiped out!!! We drove to Pagosa Springs, CO, stopped at the Four Corners monument (and took a picture in four states all at once) and enjoyed three days of relaxing our very sore muscles. And finally made our way back to Iowa.



Thus began the adventure now known as our marriage.