So here we are, driving along a completely empty road in the middle of the desert...no lights, no cars, no sign of life whatsoever...joking about how creepy it is and how it reminds us of a horror movie. Suddenly, out of nowhere...dozens of moving shapes and colors illuminate a small building about 100 yards off the road...

I barely had enough time to pull out my camera and snap a quick picture before it was gone. The picture didn't turn out, but the image was permanently burned into our minds. I desperately wanted to turn around, but AJ was afraid it was the mutant hill people trying to lure us in, so he wouldn't slow down. (Plus, there was nowhere to do a u-turn in the RV.)

I pulled out my computer, and my good friend Google, and resolved to find out what I had just seen, no matter how long it took. But how do you even search for something like that? I knew we were on Amboy Road, so I tried that with every combination of "house", "building", "lights", "creepy", "weird", "dark", and many more, without any luck.

When we reached the next town, Twentynine Palms, we stopped at a gas station and asked the attendant, who looked at us as if we were crazy, and I almost wondered if we were. It was THAT weird.

I went back to the RV with a few more ideas for Google. I was about to give up for the time-being when I got a great idea..."If someone wrote an article about this, they would probably need to tell people how to get there..." I typed "amboy twentynine palms house miles lights" and there it was...

Finally.

Apparently, it's some crazy art project created by a woman named Helena Bongartz. She uses two projectors to light up the house for a few hours every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights. It is definitely one of the weirdest and coolest things I've ever seen. I really wish I could have gone back and looked at it some more.

After further research, I found another page talking about it, as well as Helena's personal website, with a bunch of pictures and videos. I plan on emailing her and telling her how much I enjoyed it.

I saw the Grand Canyon yesterday. Who cares? It's overrated. Honestly, this creepy little shack in the middle of nowhere had a much bigger impact on me. It amazes me that we just happened to drive on the right road, on the right day, at the right time. I am 100% positive that I will remember this for the rest of my life.

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.

P.S. The words "Vegas, baby!" shall not be used by anyone without my permission. Get your own catchphrase.

Vegas. Baby.

I refuse to drive to the top of a mountain. If I want to see it badly enough, then I'll hike it. If I can't hike it, then I didn't want to see it badly enough in the first place. For this reason, I ignored everyone's advice and decided to try to summit Pikes Peak in the winter. I've summited many mountains before, including several other Colorado fourteeners, Mount Washington, and Half Dome, but none of these were during the winter. For this reason, I really had no idea what to expect, but I pretended I did, in order to get the rest of the group on board...the rest of the group being people who have never done anything like this in their entire lives...

"You can't summit Pikes Peak in the middle of winter...you're not dressed for it...you don't have the proper gear...there's four feet of snow on the summit...you won't even make it to timberline...only 12 people have summited this year so far, and they all had crampons, snowshoes, ice axes, etc..."

This is all we heard in the days leading up to the hike and from everyone we met on the way to base camp. I still thought I could do it, but I told everyone that we would probably just spend the night at Barr Camp and then hike back down. I tried not to get my hopes up, but any mountaineer will tell you how hard is to think rationally when all you want to do is make it to the top.

After talking to Neal and Teresa (our hosts at Barr Camp), I decided we could press on a little further until the trail became impossible to follow, the snow got too deep, or the weather got bad. My voiced goal was to make it to timberline, but in the back of my head I still wanted to go to the top. As the trail became less and less traveled, I started to worry that we might have to turn around sooner than I expected. But we kept pressing on and I convinced the others to go straight up the mountain where some other people had forged their own trail. The real trail was much more gradual but the snow was way too soft since everyone before us had been taking the wrong trail. I decided it would take much longer for us to walk through waist deep snow just to stay on the trail, so we started walking/crawling straight up. Julia made it much farther than I expected on the crazy incline but eventually couldn't take any more. Chris said he'd continue a little further with me. We were barely below timberline. I told Julia to wait for us as it's very dangerous to hike down an icy mountain alone, especially in tennis shoes.

We ended up going quite a bit further, past timberline; the snow started to lessen, and I found the switchbacks for the original trail again. We had the summit in our sights, but as the veteran climber, I decided I needed to be the responsible one. I could see it snowing pretty heavily up top. I knew that if we did summit, we would almost certainly get back down after dark. Both of our cell phones had died (cold weather makes batteries go much faster) so we had no way to contact anyone, including Julia, whom we had already been separated from longer than we had planned. She had already mentioned her feet starting to get wet and even though she had some protection from the wind by some giant rocks, I didn't want her getting hypothermia or something. I remembered getting yelled at years ago by Joe Burgasser when I was being careless and stupid, and this caused me to reluctantly make the decision to turn back. I estimated that we were about 2 miles from the summit; in reality, it was closer to one. The hardest part was that I could still see the trail and I KNEW I could make it. If I had been alone, there's no question in my mind I would have continued, which would be very careless, so I'm glad I had two other people to be responsible for, causing me to do the right thing.

Later, I found out how close we really were...the sky completely cleared up on the summit...Julia was completely fine and, in fact, taking a nap...and we descended a lot faster than I anticipated and could have easily made it back before dark. It killed me to know that I could have done it. But then I remembered finding those switchbacks above timberline and not seeing a single footprint in the snow on the trail, and I realized that even though I didn't summit, I made it farther than probably 95% of people, with no snow/ice gear at all. And I thought about what Joe would say if he saw me now, no longer the crazy kid continuing to the summit with altitude sickness, or running off on my own and leaving everyone else behind, but saying, "It's better safe than sorry" (I HATE that saying) and going back down, even though I probably could have made it to the top without a problem. And then I felt proud.

But it sure would have been nice to be number 13...

So I threw up yesterday...a lot. I had a migraine all day and as soon as we pulled into the Walmart in Dallas, I ran outside and puked everywhere. We got some pictures of it that I'm sure no one wants to see. Then we went to Snuffer's and ate about 10 pounds of cheese fries. (Thanks for recommending it, Linsey; my favorite place so far!)

The longer I'm on this trip, the more I think we should have contacted MTV about a reality show. There's definitely enough drama.

We saw SRV and Dimebag's graves today, two amazing musicians taken way before their time. I left a pick on each of their tombstones. This was written on Dime's grave:

"He came to rock...
And rocked like no other.
With the heart twice the
size of Texas, our beloved
brother, companion, mentor,
idol, and friend...
We love you, Dime...
Until we meet again."

I got really teary-eyed when I read that because it was so recent (Dec 8, 2004) and it was such tragic circumstances. Some crazy ex-marine loser jumped up on stage during a concert and shot Dime in the face at point-blank range.

We're on our way to Austin right now. That's all I have to say about that.

I heard "Down To Mexico" in the RV yesterday and about flipped out that they were playing Paul Gilbert on the radio. Then I realized it was a cd Jess made. By the way, she is the coolest girl ever because she likes Paul Gilbert. I'm very upset I'm on this trip and missing G3 this year. It's Satriani, Petrucci, and Gilbert...unbelievable!

I can't find my iPod cord, so I can't charge it or put new music on it. This could be a major disaster. Stay tuned.

Peace.

Music is a drug to me, and I desperately need a fix. All I've heard since we left is whatever was on the radio, and very little of it passes as music. I just now dug out my iPod for the first time. Primus never sounded so good. I'm dying to listen to all the music Steve burned for me, but my laptop battery is almost dead. I've only played guitar once so far...ampless...and for less than 5 minutes. I'm definitely gonna need my alone time pretty soon, not because of the people I'm with, but just so I can regain my sanity. This lack of music is making me very edgy and I don't want to take it out on anyone. I just need a couple hours with my guitar and iPod and all will be well.

I bought a snowboard. Prepare to be amazed.

By the way, if McClister or Jordan are reading this, Arrowhead Stadium is pretty sweet, especially the Arrowhead Club. Just wanted to make you guys jealous.

Peace.