Shimmy Shuster and Indiana Effin Jones - Day 2, Part 1

After leaving the Lazy Lizard with the universe’s good vibes in tow, we headed into town for some coffee (for the addict in residence) before we hit the trails. EclectiCafe was appropriately named. The waitress wore a frilly pink apron that said “May I have a café mocha vodka valium to go please?” Elise, of course, loved the giant tiled mug pictured here. She insisted on taking lots of pictures. This is Bailey’s favorite. As you can see, Elise and the giant mug had a love thing.

Although Bailey wasn’t feeling well after injesting too much sand the night before, she was a good sport and we headed to Arches National Park right away. We traded photo-ops with a group of French hikers. They were very particular about their picture: Bailey had to try two times before they were satisfied.

Our first destination was the “Park Avenue Trail.” Bailey wasn’t up to walking the trail, so Elise hiked it alone. Here she is before starting the trail:

The hike was inspiring. Elise took lots of pictures to show Bailey, mostly of dead trees. She thinks dead trees are poetic:

As we drove towards “Balanced Rock”

we looked for shapes in the rocks and thought it was strange that each formation was more interesting once we found something to associate it with. Take “The Organ,” for instance:

or the “Three Gossips”:

We decided that this place was so foreign that the only way to make sense of it was to search for something familiar even if that meant distorting what we saw to make it fit an image we could wrap our minds around. From then on, we decided to try to let the landscape open us up to new shapes, ideas, and experiences.

Next, we stopped at “Turret Arch”

“the Windows”

“Double Arch”:



















This is where today’s title comes from. “Shimmy Shuster” and “Indian Effin Jones” were our hiking names for the day. Elise was “Shimmy Shuster” because she shimmied as high as she could go up each arch:

Bailey was “Indiana Effin Jones” because she didn’t die.