Canyonlands and Arches National Parks

We bid a fond farewell to Bryce Canyon and traveled east across Utah. We would be in the Moab area for a couple of days, starting with a visit to Canyonlands National Park. It was hotter here than it was at Bryce, where temperatures never got above the low 80s. At Canyonlands, it was in the 90s.

The first sight we went to see at Canyonlands was Mesa Arch. The heat may have contributed to Kai being irritable about having to take a relatively short walk to the arch.

Canyonlands has canyons formed from both the Green River and Colorado River. This is the view on the Green River side.

We also saw the view on the Colorado River side.

At one place where we stopped, Kai dropped a meat stick snack. He blamed me because I had wanted to take pictures and he lashed out. It wasn't the first time and I was not in the mood to take the brunt of his anger.

Later, when things had calmed, we had dinner at Sultan Mediterranean restaurant.

My wife and Kai had kababs, while I had gyros. I was surprised how great everything tasted. At many restaurants, the gyros meat is dry while here it was moist and tender. The tzatziki appetizer was also tasty and I had a taste of the kababs which were also great. It's one of the best places we've eaten on this trip.

The next day we went to Arches National Park.

The most famous arch in the park is the iconic Delicate Arch. I had read that it is a strenuous hike to see the arch up close. It is just over 3 miles round trip, with a 480 foot climb to the arch. But we couldn't come here and not see this arch.

The plan was to go early in the morning before the day really heated up. We didn't get out quite as early as we ideally would have liked - it's hard to hurry up Kai - but the temperature was still not too bad in the low 80s when we started to walk just past 9 AM.

But the walk up was very difficult. No, not from the heat, and only partially from the climb. It was that Kai the happy hiker we were with at Bryce had disappeared. In his place was the angry boy who couldn't walk for more than a minute or two without wanting to stop and take a break.

I wanted to be patient knowing that pushing him to go faster would likely have the opposite effect.

But when his breaks became more frequent and longer, I started to wear down.

I suggested to him that longer breaks caused the legs to stiffen and would make the walk more difficult. I also reminded Kai that the longer this took, the hotter it would get.

As I figured, Kai only got angrier.

When I suggested to him that he could move over to get more of the shade, his angry response was "I know!"

The trail continued up and up with no end in sight.

But eventually we did reach our destination. It was as much a relief as it was a triumph.

Kai yelled out a few expletives about coming all this way just to see this #$%&*# arch. But I got him to go with his mom to stand underneath it for this photo.

The walk back was downhill and much easier. Kai did not complain and even stopped to take pictures.

We drove back into Moab to have lunch and take a break.

And then we went back into the park to see a few more sights. I had planned to go to see the sights that would not require as much climbing and walking as it would be much hotter now in the afternoon.

The first place we went to was Double Arch.

I wanted to get a picture up at the center of one of the arches but with temps now hitting 100, no one else was in the mood to climb up so I went and had another tourist snap this photo of me.

We also had someone take a group photo of us as we walked back out.

We saw a few more arches. I liked the view of North and South Windows from Turret Arch. (My wife and Kai did not walk over to Turret, waiting for me in the shade of South Window).

Besides the arches, there are other interesting formations throughout the park. A famous one is Balanced Rock.

And the following is part of the Courthouse Towers.

We stopped at the visitor center at end of our day. Kai loved the poster that showed the hike to Delicate Arch was considered "Difficult". I think he felt some vindication.

And so our time is Utah has come to an end. Next we will be traveling eastward to Colorado.

Bryce Canyon

We left LA and drove to Utah. Our first destination was Bryce Canyon National Park.

It was a full-day drive, made longer due to road construction and accidents, and heavy traffic all the way to Las Vegas. But all in all the drive was smooth as far as Kai was concerned. At least it was until late in the afternoon when we hit some thunderstorms.

Kai's anxiety doesn't seem as severe these days, but it does kick up when there is a thunderstorm. He kept talking about how we were in danger. He even looked up on his phone that a tourist at Bryce Canyon was stuck and killed by lightning in 2012. I told him that I had never heard of lightning striking a moving vehicle. But when he gets like this, it is hard to reason with him.

But we made it to the lodge inside the National Park and the rain stopped. Kai finally settled down about the lightning.

But that wasn't the only thing to bother Kai.

Kai generally doesn't like to go to National Parks, especially when we stay inside the park as we did at Bryce. Wifi at the lodges are notoriously bad, and this place was no exception. He went on and on about how this was a terrible place to be. Even after we all went to bed, he was still grumbling.

The next morning he seemed to accept his circumstances, a little bit anyway. I told him that I put a lot of effort into planning our trips, and we always include things that we think will be fun for him. We also include other things that he might not choose for himself, but we hope he would find interesting. This was one of those places.

We had breakfast and went out to see Bryce Canyon.

From the first time we saw the Bryce Amphitheater, as it is known, we were in awe.

The amazing thing was that Kai enjoyed the sights as well.

We hiked from the rim of the canyon down to the floor, and then walked around some of the most popular areas of the amphitheater.

Kai told me that he really liked this park. He said that this was his favorite National Park, along with Muir Woods.

The hike back up to the rim was tough, but the sights were constantly spectacular and Kai did not complain at all.

After lunch we drove to other parts of the park and saw more great sights.

We even saw several wildlife including this mule deer buck that was grazing at the side of the road.

We also saw a large herd of about two dozen elk from a distance.

In the evening, we went out to Sunset Point. The sun actually set opposite the canyon so it wasn't so noteworthy, but we did get to see this beautiful rainbow over the canyon.

Kai had discovered earlier in the day that some of the best sightseeing spots in the park also had cellular service so he spent most of our time at Sunset Point catching up on the various games, videos, and other things he does on his electronics.

We enjoyed the sights at Bryce so much that everyone agreed to wake up early the next morning to see the sunrise.

I need to learn the photographic techniques for taking good shots of sunrises.

The rising sun lit up the canyon and we did get some great pictures. Here's one I asked a another visitor to take of the three of us:

And that wrapped up a pretty terrific first stop on our roadtrip back. There is still a long way to go, and I do worry that it will be too long for Kai, but hopefully the fun times will continue.

Kai at Exceptional Minds

We had come to LA so that Kai could attend a summer workshop at Exceptional Minds, a professional training academy and studio for visual effects artists and animators with autism. They have a three-year full-time program, and in the summer offer two-week sessions for teens. We had enrolled Kai in the introductory class for digital animation.

As with many things with Kai, we hoped for the best but feared the worst. Kai has historically had difficulty adjusting to new things or changes in his routine. So we were very pleased when he came home from the workshop each day with a smile on his face. We never received the dreaded call that he had to be taken out of class or disrespected his teachers. Things actually seemed to be going well!

In the middle of the second week, parents can schedule a 15-minute session with one of EM's behavioral specialists to get feedback on how their child has done. While it was great that Kai was enjoying it, we were anxious to get the perspective of the staff.

And so it was with relief and joy that we heard that Kai was doing quite well. She told us that they evaluate their students on technical, artistic, and behavioral elements.

We heard that Kai has a distinct artistic style and is good with human figures, though he should work to improve on drawing anatomy.

When she talked about Kai's behavior, we were most nervous as Kai has had issues at various times at school.

But the report here was surprisingly good. Kai was described as a good worker. He's mostly quiet because he is always working on his animations. But during breaks, he was more social. The staff member said that Kai was inquisitive and asked his instructor what he could do to improve.

At this point I almost stopped her to make sure she was talking about Kai and didn't have us mixed up with parents of some other student. But then it became clear that she was indeed talking about our son.

On the afternoon of the last day of the workshop, parents were invited back to see clips from the work that all students had worked on the past two weeks. It was interesting to see the work from other sessions such as Storyboarding and Advanced Digital Effects. It is possible Kai could enroll in those in future summers.

From his own session on beginner-level animation, students created a wide variety of work. Kai had fun music and probably had more different animated figures in his piece, though he didn't have much of a plot as his feature was mainly just one guy fighting off a bunch of attackers.

My wife was a little disappointed that he didn't have a more coherent storyline. And it's clear that he is not exactly a child prodigy or young Walt Disney at this point.

But I came away feeling pretty good.

The purpose of enrolling him here was to see if he would be interested in computer animation, and to learn the basic skills. That he accomplished that and received high marks from the school for his behavior and inquisitiveness is wonderful.

So where do we go from here?

We'll probably invest in getting the Adobe suite of software so Kai can continue to learn at home. If he stays interested, we will also consider getting him private tutoring as Exceptional Minds offers private sessions virtually.

One thing we learned here that surprised us was that EM rarely takes students into their full-time program straight out of high school. They said that the vast majority of the students now come in with some college or working experience. Having a level of maturity and knowing for sure that the digital arts is a career passion is a requirement.

And so we will have to try to keep Kai on the college path before seeing if he can later attend Exceptional Minds' full-time program. Not sure how ready he will be for college in three years but this next year will be a good indicator on his readiness.

It won't be easy. We'll have stressful times, I'm sure.

But for the first time we see that there might be something that Kai can have as a career, something that he finds interesting and fun. That's not a small thing. It's a start.

Our Time in LA

Our time in LA is winding down. It has gone remarkably well and we will have lots of fond memories.

The most important thing is that Kai has enjoyed his time at Exceptional Minds, and we received a very positive report from a staff member there on his performance. I'll have a separate post on that later.

But aside from the animation workshop at EM, we have had time in the late afternoons and evenings to see some of the area and do fun things.

We had a fun, exhausting, fun day at Universal Studios over the weekend.

We got there around 7:30 AM, and stayed for nine hours.

We all enjoyed the Jurassic World ride.

Kai said his favorite ride was the Revenge of the Mummy. When we rode that at Universal Studios Orlando several years ago, Kai thought it was too scary but he loved it this time. Guess he is growing up in a lot of ways.

More recently, we did the Warner Bros. Studio Tour which is a tour of their backlot, sets, costumes, and props.

Kai's favorite part was getting on the set of the Ellen show. (Apparently he watches it after he comes home from school and is a big fan).

My wife and I got a kick out of being on a recreation of the set of Friends.

The Warner Bros. Studio Tour was different than Universal, but fun in its own way.

One evening we went to Griffith Observatory to see the views and sunset.

If you squint, you can kind of see the Hollywood sign on the right in the next picture.

We also went to a few other places in and around downtown LA and Hollywood. With Kai, it is sometimes hard to tell what would interest him, and it was a bit surprising that he really enjoyed The Last Bookstore.

He took many photos of the unusual displays and collection of books. Here he is standing in the Tunnel of Books.

The bookstore is inside a building that used to be a bank. The collection of antique books is inside the old bank vault.

Afterward he said that this was one of his favorite stores ever. Quite a declaration, especially considering they didn't have any plushes.

Of course trying local foods is always something we try to do when we travel and we found some fun, interesting spots.

There was a yakiniku restaurant in "Little Osaka" where we grilled our own meats, just like in Japan.

And it was fun to go to the Original Farmer's Market where we each went to our own food stand. Kai had pizza, my wife had Singaporean, and I had Brazilian.

Still, the place that Kai called the "best food in LA" was a hole in the wall place for chicken wings. We got take-out from there twice and the wings were so good that I was too busy eating to take pictures, though Kai took this photo of their sign on the wall.

And so it has been a great two weeks. Kai said that he will miss it here. He even went so far as to say that he did not miss home. Wow, that is very unusual for him and it speaks to how much fun he had and how comfortable he has felt here.

In the past we have had some tough times with him on our vacations. So what made this one different? I think there are several factors.

First, it was great having a home base to come back to every day without having to pack up and drive to the next destination. It felt like we were home here.

We also had a pretty relaxed schedule. Kai usually had a few hours free in the morning before he would start his workshop at 10 AM. And then we usually gave him an hour afterward when he got home after 3:00. Still, we had enough time, and stayed so close to so many sights in Hollywood and downtown LA that we were still able to do a lot in the time we did venture out.

The great California weather was also a factor. It got hot in the Valley where we were, usually up into the 90s during mid afternoon. But the humidity wasn't so oppressive like it is in Japan, and it cools down quite a bit overnight. It was pleasantly cooler when we ventured to the coastal areas.

Kai seemed less anxious and stressed out. I think that he enjoyed Exceptional Minds was a huge factor toward that.

And so our time in California has come to an end.

For our last dinner, we went back to the Japanese restaurant we went to on our first night here - Iroha.

We are back out on the road in the morning to begin Phase 3 of our summer journey. I'll check back with you from the road.

Exceptional Minds and the Start of Our LA Adventure

The final leg of our drive out west was from Flagstaff to Los Angeles which completed a 2000 mile journey from Chicago. That last leg was rather uneventful, with the only drama coming in trying to find a place for lunch in an area where you could go 70 miles between exits that had restaurants.

We arrived at our destination on Sunday afternoon, and with that, phase 2 of our vacation began. We would be staying in LA for two weeks, as Kai takes a summer workshop at Exceptional Minds.

Exceptional Minds is the first American computer animation studio and non-profit digital arts school for young adults on the autism spectrum. Their full-time program provides technical instruction in the digital arts while fully integrating behavioral training into the curriculum. In addition to teaching skills in visual effects and animation, they also provide work readiness training, job coaching, placements, troubleshooting, and employer education.

In the summer, Exceptional Minds offers teens two-week workshops which provide instruction in the digital arts. Kai is taking an introductory workshop in computer animation. As Kai has a creative side and enjoys silly animated videos, so we thought this would be a good fit and an introduction into something that could potentially be an area that he could pursue as a career.

He was a bit unsure about the whole idea when we introduced it to him last winter, but he warmed up to it more and more as time went on. On the first day of the workshop, he seemed eager to get started on animation.

My wife and I attended a parent orientation. It was very gratifying to hear about how well they prepare their full-time students to get jobs in the film industry. The technical skills their students are taught surpass those of students from universities, and they also provide training in softer skills such as how to find jobs and interview well. Our dream is to have Kai be able to attend the full-time program one day, but as entry into the program is very competitive, this is only a dream at this point.

During the orientation, the behavior psychologists on staff reassured parents about how the entire staff know how to support their students with autism. Still, we were nervous about how well Kai would do here. In the past he has taken weeks to get acclimated to new classrooms or teachers or other new environments.

And so we were very happy when we saw him walk out the first day with a smile on his face. He said he already had started a couple animations and that he had fun.

Now, a few more days in, he still seems very happy, which makes us immensely happy!

While we are in California, I am working remotely from the house we are renting. I get up early to start working no later than 7:00 AM, but that enables me to complete my work day at around 3:00 local time when Kai gets out of his workshop. That has given us time to do some fun things.

The first night we went to dinner at a Japanese restaurant in Studio City called Iroha. My wife and I had really great sushi, while Kai enjoyed ramen (while coincidentally wearing his ramen t-shirt).

The next afternoon, we explored Little Tokyo where Kai resumed his search for Japanese plushes.

We had dinner at a restaurant that specializes in Hiroshima-style okinomiyaki.

This was a treat for us as there are no okinomiyaki restaurants back home, and it is very difficult to make Hiroshima style on your own. Hiroshima okinomiyaki has many layers, and is made with flour, eggs, shredded cabbage, meat or seafood, and topped with a variety of condiments.

Of course, we also had to have the Japanese shave ice (flavored with matcha, including small mochi balls, and topped with sweet azuki bean paste, and with mochi) for dessert.

The next day we went to Santa Monica, where Kai loved going into the ocean.

He went in pretty far, swimming, splashing, and battling the waves for over an hour.

After the beach, we walked up to the famous Santa Monica Pier and found a casual seafood restaurant for dinner.

The grilled oysters were really tasty. Kai also enjoyed mussels, while my wife had paella and I had a shrimp po boy.

After dinner, Kai and my wife rode a very mild roller coaster on the pier. We missed the sunset but were able to see the afterglow.

And on our latest evening, we went to Universal Citywalk where we browsed shops and had dinner.

It has been a fun time so far. And seeing Kai so happy has made everything that much more enjoyable.

Let's hope that continues.

Petrified Forest

We continued traveling west, going from New Mexico to Arizona. The one place we planned to stop on this day was Petrified Forest National Park.

I had been there as a kid when my family took a road trip out west similar to the one we're doing now. My only recollection of the place was seeing petrified wood. I found out this time that there is a lot more to this National Park.

The scenery is varied and beautiful, from the painted desert area to the blue mesas, among others.

We ran across the Agate Bridge which was a fallen petrified tree.

But the highlights were definitely the petrified trees. It is really incredible to see 100 million year old trees that have been petrified into stones harder than granite.

It was a hot day, temps in the 90s, but as it was a dry heat, it was much more comfortable than the hot, humid weather we faced in Japan last summer. Still, it was nice to cool off with ice cream. :)

My favorite part of the park was the area we saw last, a place where you could walk right up to many petrified specimen. This one below is a large tree that was petrified.

I was amazed at how much these still looked like logs, except they were hard as stone.

After we left the Petrified Forest, we drove to Flagstaff Arizona where we spent the night. We walked around the historic downtown area for a little bit, then picked a Thai restaurant for dinner. After all of the western meat dishes we had been eating, it was nice to have some Asian food.

Next will be a full day of driving which will mark the end of Phase 1 of our trip. I'll fill you in on that and what Phase 2 will be when I write again, later in the week.