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dementedgnomicwizard · 4 years

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i preplanned those tunnel tweets + made a list of specifically what pictures i wanted and finished making the worms earlier this morning so like i wasnt Winging It at all but it sure felt like it! bc weve only ever gone to the tunnels as a group before, but today the only time i could go was in the 25 minutes before my evening class and no one else was free then so i was like whatever ill just go get my pictures and then to class and it’s fine. so i put my little sandwich baggie full of worms in my pocket and went over to the machinery building, which is where the tunnel entrance is, but the entrance is in the basement and there’s two ways to get into the basement both of which are almost always locked so i was like well i’ll just check and see if either of them are open. and it turned out the freight elevator was allowing trips to the basement so i got in and went down

the freight elevator spits you out in like this really cluttered and fucked-up looking storage basement basically which is where the tunnel entrance is and while the tunnel is dark the basement itself is usually lit by these shitty fluorescents HOWEVER! today when the elevator doors opened it was absolutely completely dark in the entire enormous basement. but at that point i was like i made it over here, i have my worms, i have my photo list, i have time before class, and what are the odds the elevator will be working again, ill just use my flashlight who cares. so i turned my flashlight on and started picking my way through to the tunnel entrance, except i stopped and made a detour to take pics in that little office room because i thought it would sorta look like the room where they found gertrude’s body and i could make a fun joke about it ANYWAY as i’m coming out of the office room i notice that the stairway door directly across from me is open, which is weird because they’re Never open because they don’t want us to go down there. so i was like, shit, maintenance and/or security are down here and my only way out is the super obvious elevator so ill just wait them out so i like turned my flashlight off and crouched behind a bunch of shit

anyway i just sort of huddled in the dark for a while and soon enough it became clear that no one was actually coming so i took advantage of my proximity to the ground to scatter some worms and take that first worm pic where im pointing. and then i was like okay, might as well get the tunnel bit over with. so the area of the basement where the mouth of the tunnel is is closed off with this big metal fence and there’s like a wire-mesh on the front with a huge padlock only years and years of horrible college students have managed to sort of beat the bottom half of the gate a few inches outwards + compromise its integrity enough that its easy to pull far enough open for someone else to slip through. however my problems today were 1) like i said ive only ever gone with a group before, meaning i’d always had someone to hold the gate open for me, and i had never attempted to get through without assistance before let alone back out and 2) the gate is RIGHT next to the stairs that i mentioned earlier were open when they usually never are. so i stood there for a minute like... okay, say i DO try to get through myself, and i get stuck. OR, say that happens and THEN whoever was working down here comes back and im stuck so i get caught and in trouble.

and then i was like actually fuck it we ball so i like. sort of just got down fully on the ground (which was gross btw do not recommend) and like rolled and twisted and pushed myself around until i wiggled through. that was the moment when i sort of started to accept just how much tunnel dirt i was gonna be covered in by the end but it was so far past too late to back out so i headed into the tunnel entrance. it gets TRULY dark like really really soon after you walk in also like i thought the basement outside was dark because the lights were off but the tunnels are like.... DARK. anyway i stopped halfway down the entry tunnel to try and set up the like “worm door outline” thing from after MAG39 and like initially i had thought that i could figure out an okay way to at least temporarily get them on the wall bc theyre made of latex and super light but it was quickly apparent that that would not be the case so i found a patch of the floor that looked smooth enough to be a wall and set it up on there instead. so i’m like. squatting on the floor in this very dark and kind of gross tunnel, and i have my phone laying on the ground next to me flashlight-side-up so i can see as well as use both hands to dig cold little latex worms out of a sandwich baggie and arrange them in a pattern on the ground and the flashlight was lighting up the tunnel in the most fucked up way and it was dead silent and the WHOLE time i was like, and this is the moment when like a maintenance worker turns the corner and finds me and is just like, hello??? theres some clown playing with worms in the tunnel????

anyway that did not happen and instead i got my little doorway set up and then it was time to take the first pic (of the worm door by itself without me in it) which was when i realized that when i open my camera app my phone forcibly turns the flashlight off so every time i wanted to take a picture in the tunnels i was gonna have to turn my light off and just like chill alone in the pitch dark in a tiny tunnel for however long it took me to take each photo and i was like hm okay wig i guess so i took the door pic and then it took me like four tries to get myself positioned right for the cringe ass fail worms one because, surprisingly, it is difficult to position yourself directly in the center of an archway of worms that you cannot see, and while i was doing all those failed tries i got to spend a lot of time laying splayed out on my back in the dark on the tunnel floor anyway i got it finally so i just sort of kicked the worms to the sides and kept going in further. to get to the pit you have to turn left at the first fork and then take a right and then theres this weird like step? thing? in the middle of the tunnel and if youre me you have to do a super awkward crabwalk limbo step thing to get over it because the pipes on the ceiling above it are hot and the step comes up to like 6 inches below the pipe but also i dont like to touch the top of the step because its gross. so its always a production. this time i think they had worked on that pipe recently or something because it was leaking so the step was wet and the pipe dripped hot water onto my neck while i was crawling under it LMAO

anyway from there its a straight shot and it opens out into this like larger room near the entrance to the engine room and the pit is right at the edge of where the dirt of the tunnel turns into the concrete of the room floor. and theyve like half-covered the top of it in wooden planks but theyre not held down so when you have to step on them just for a second to get out of the tunnel its so nervewracking. theres overhead lights in that room though so that was nice idk if i couldve managed the flashlight-camera-transition in the dark AND one-handed. so i took my from-above tunnel pic and then i was like (checks my photos list) “well...... i did say id get two from inside the pit.” i had actually never been in the pit before because the other two times i’ve gone to the tunnels i’ve been with other people and they would barely even let me get near it let alone get on the ladder. so i was like well i guess there is a first time for everything so i put my phone in my back pocket and ducked under the little yellow chain they have up and started going down the ladder and i got like 8? maybe 10? feet down before i thought to look down again and let me just say..... all the times we had looked into that pit from above we had never guessed anywhere CLOSE to how deep it actually was. thats all. so i was like.... um i was expecting to be able to like, stand on solid ground while i take this pit selfie, but that was clearly not going to be an option, but also i had committed this far already to getting these pics from the pit so i was like ugh i guess and hooked my one arm over the ladder so i could get my phone out w the other hand and take the pics from in there. and then i climbed back out. the ladder rungs made my hands SO gross and dirty with rust i was like eugh eugh.

but after that the only picture left to take was the one w my pen and the only way for me to go was back out towards the entrance so i was like its fine im almost done. so i went back out until i got to the tunnel after the first fork and i was like cool here’s a good a place as any so i got my pen ready + went to get my camera out, and literally RIGHT as the flashlight went out and the camera app opened i was like SO sure i saw something move vaguely in the darkness to my right like REALLY close to me shoulder height so i was like uhhh no and took a flash photo more out of reflex than anything and i didnt see anything but also the flash lit up for like, one second and then it was dark again so i like switched back to the flashlight really quick and obviously it was just a normal tunnel and i was the only one there so i opened the camera app again to try to take the pic again and literally just like the first time right as the flashlight turned off i was soooo sure something moved right next to me like so close but i was like “nell. youre being insane.” so i didnt do anything and i just took like three more possible variations on the pic i wanted and then i turned my flashlight back on and once again obviously nothing was amiss so i was like epic win and went back out the tunnel entrance. and then i was like............. oh god i have to do the gate squirm again. but there was no other way so i just did it really fast before i could really get worked up about it lol and then i went back over to the freight elevator only when i pressed the button it would light up and then immediately go dark when i unpressed it and i was like oh fuck because 90% of the time when you get in on the ground floor this elevator literally refuses to take you to the basement and i was like oh no it re-locked while i was down here and now i can’t get up this way so im just like in this basement for the foreseeable future but then of course as i was going down that tangent the elevator doors opened and i stepped into the fluorescent light and looked down and was like wow i am just so thoroughly, completely, orangely covered in dirt. but i made it home with like 5 minutes to wash up a bit before my evening class so that was a win! i did learn however that i should never take my evening dose of adderall directly after a bit of minor breaking&entering while the adrenaline is still there because when i got to class i almost jackhammered a hole through the floor with my shakyleg

#tired and still probably quite dirty if im being honest but Satisfied with the Outcome #also i had a lot of fun during + especially afterwards when i got to actually use the pics i took

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papersandkeyboards · 7 years

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4/11-17: The Spring Break Series; Part 5 (End): Ended Spring Break with Something Grand

FRIDAY, APR 15, 2016.

(^calon paparazi)

Sitting right smack in the middle of probably the driest states of the United States, people who didn’t know a lot about the Grand Canyon would assume that the place was dry and hot all year round.

However, I found out that the top of the Grand Canyon—logically—was situated high above the sea level. The South Rim, in which most of the tourist activity took place, stood in an average elevation of 6800ft (that’s more than 2 kilometers, if you don’t mind, Americans), and the canyon itself went as deep as 2400ft (700m) above sea level.

If we had the right page on Geography, we would know that as elevation rises, temperature decreases, and vice versa. With that in mind, it can be safely stated that the temperature at the bottom of the Grand Canyon is always gonna be hotter than the temperature above.

Thinking about this, now it made sense to me why Karen and Eric hiked down the Grand Canyon in January. It might be dead cold at the top of Grand Canyon in January, but down at the bottom it was pretty warm. Wise decision to make, instead of climbing down Grand Canyon in, say, June, because if it was already hot at the top of Grand Canyon, people might as well bring raw meat to cook over a mere rock down at the bottom. Very hot.

But hiking down the Grand Canyon was supposedly an activity that should be well-prepared—physically and logistically—which was exactly why we weren’t doing such thing in this occasion. Like I said, just touristy things. Guided tours, information boards and pamphlets, and pictures. And cheap souvenirs. #sorrynotsorry for being a tacky tourist, really. Kapan lagi.

We drove for around an hour or more from Flagstaff to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. Flagstaff already stood in high elevation to begin with, but the road we took to the Grand Canyon was a dead-straight road that wasn’t steeply inclined it didn’t feel like we’re gaining so much altitude. When we got there, it was so chilly it didn’t feel like spring break. In fact, the high elevation did kill the ‘spring break’ vibe, kind of like what Flagstaff did to me the night before, because this was what I found on the ground:

But I wouldn’t complain. I like snow. Gotta enjoy its existence while I still got the chance.

The Grand Canyon was… well, grand. The weather was perfect: it might be chilly, but it wasn’t raining. The skies were bright blue with big blobs of white clouds. The air was fresh and breezy. I haven’t experienced being in such a big open space in a long time. And it felt refreshing.

I might have about a hundred pics of the Grand Canyon, but I didn’t have a lot of words for it, except that… nature really was magnificent. Way to go, God.

There were so many ledges and spots that would have been seriously beautiful to watch the whole canyon from or to get my picture taken from, but those spots were mostly unfenced, and none of us would like to risk it, so we went to the safe spot, the designated viewing ‘balcony’ for tourists. But even the view from there was amazing enough already.

What a pretty layer-cake-like structure. Unlike the tan lines of the Hoover Dam, these layers of the Grand Canyon should have been shaped over millennia.

And being a nationalist exchange student I was, of course I just had to do a mandatory pic of me with my flag in an American landmark.

(I probably shouldn’t have worn green hijab because that combined with the flag made me look somewhat Hungarian)

We could also see the bottom of the rim, where people go to camp for days. Karen told me people usually hire a mule to bring their stuff down and up, since it’s kind of exhausting to bring two-three-day camping supplies, including food and water, down and up the rim for miles. Heck, it should have taken way longer than just some miles because it was ALREADY ‘some miles’ if you pull a line straight down from the top to the bottom of the rim, let alone the walking trail which should take many more miles to avoid steepness. I saw at the bottom of the rim, somewhere, ran the Colorado River—or maybe a branch of the Colorado River—along which sides the trees were growing much greener than the other greens in the surrounding area.

We walked this trail called “Trail of Time”, which purpose was to walk the visitors through the journey of the Grand Canyon, geologically. The trail entirely was 2.83 miles (4.56 km), but I personally didn’t think I walked THAT much. But then again, if I try to remember, I was pretty tired and the trail was waaaaay longer than what I expected.

The trail was filled with information boards and polished model of different kinds of rocks. I’m not a person of Geology, but these rocks did have interesting patterns of layers and curves and colors. Each meter walked on the trail marked one million year of the Canyon’s geologic history, like this:

I didn’t read through all of the information on the boards, but it was fun with the viewing tube that gave you a real-life sight of what kind of rock layer was being talked about on the information board. The tubes were specifically set to one point of target, which were specific part of rock of the Canyon that correlated to the rock explained on the board.

This is what I like about making public facilities educational with effort not to make it boring, instead of, say, copy-and-pasting information straight out of Wikipedia and put it on a board for people to read.

We found a quite pretty unfenced place where we could take pictures too, though. Haha.

We walked some (and by some, I meant quite some) distance until we found a restaurant at the end of the trail. Ta-da! Stomach is hungry.

A classic log cabin design, with the deer head mounted on the wall and all (wait are those creatures with huge antlers called deers too bc i’m not sure). After that we took the bus back to our parking lot (because nope, no more walking thank you) and hit the road to Phoenix, AZ.

(not after an effort to find cheap souvenirs—I didn’t remember what they were selling but somehow I walked our of the store with nothing because, apparently, nothing in the store fit my criteria) (ya)

If the way across Nevada was a hot desert with patchy bushes, the way across Arizona was a hot desert with bunches of huge red rocks.

Beautiful.

Well, not that our trip all the way from Grand Canyon to Phoenix was all red rocks, but when we reached the city of Sedona and the sun started to glide westward approaching the horizon, the scene got real pretty.

Wish it was in Utah, which supposedly specialized in cool red rock boulders. Well, gotta save some things for later, am I right?

(menunggu hujan duit)

And we finally reached the city of Tempe, Arizona, and had our dinner there.

Kalau saya bilang ke orang-orang saya pergi ke Amerika dan mengunjungi kota Tempe, yang ada kayaknya malah diketawain ya.

SATURDAY-SUNDAY, APR 16-17, 2016.

Real quick. Visited Karen’s uncle in a retirement home (is that the correct term?), then went to his house to help cleaning up his house. It’s pretty obvious that Phoenix stood right smack in the middle of a huge desert, with the adobe buildings and all, so I wonder why was I surprised when I found a LOT of jerrycans full of water hidden all over his house (“in case of a drought,” Karen said, emphasizing the water shortage problem experienced by the state and surrounding states despite the Hoover Dam’s existence). We ended up using the water for plants.

Also, Phoenix was hot. If I were to compare, it was probably as hot as Duri (>30 Celcius in the middle of the day), but it was so... dry, like, so different from Indonesian hot. I couldn’t even understand how to explain it, but the sun was so intense and it was so dry. Oh, and, no wind, at all. Plus, what made it so extreme to me was the fact that I had just been through my past 7 months living in cold weather. I was at a point of life where 15 Celcius counted as ‘warm’ and 20 Celcius means ‘real hot and sunny yay let’s play outside all day’.

The next day we went to Scottsdale for none other than *drumroll* souvenirs! Then caught the plane back to Seattle in the afternoon. For some reason, when we arrived in the evening, I got this crazy headache, so I went straight to bed.

...yeah. That was all.

Incredibly exciting spring break, and most definitely super-duper-out-of-this-world unforgettable half a month. Demi apa kayaknya baru pertama kali ini jalan-jalan panjang ke mana-mana selama dua mingguan. Sempat ketemu artis lagi. cihuy.

Absolutely couldn’t thank enough my parents (both natural and host), but this time their kindness and love couldn’t save me from what’s coming the next day.

But for now, need sleep. Headache.

Adios.

#spring break #langkahanakbangsa #grand canyon #arizona

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