and that one thing was to drive a couple hours and then arrive at Rocky Mountain National Park and enjoy it for the rest of the day since we were staying 5 miles outside of the park.
enjoy it we did.
what a wonderful national park. absolutely loved it! we drove all the way through it on trail ridge road from the south west part of the park all the way to the other side. SO much to see... within 10 minutes of entering the park, we saw moose!!! really cool... one was a little young one just grazing on the side of the road... another one napped across the road, and in the distance were the bull moose. the drive was absolutely amazing.. we basically drove over a mountain (you'll see it in the pics)... and they even had a visitor center at the summit, so i got a special stamp that said the elevation and everything. and tons of snow... i know, crazy!!! so much snow everywhere, you could just pull over and plop in a patch of snow (it was really cold... all i had on were my sandals, shorts, and a tshirt... very cold, and toe numbing). being on the summit and in the tundra (the only place the tundra is so accessible in the continental US) was incredible, and the view is beyond words. the weather changed a lot once we reached the summit... clouds rolled in and the wind picked up a ton.
on the way down the summit we made more stops, and some some more wildlife... we saw a couple herds of elk... way cool! and a marmot... those little guys are cool... so fury and cute. deer were plentiful, and we even saw a coyote. the colorado river runs through the park, and there were trails you could hike on along side of it.
afterward, we went in to town at Estes Park (a really neat town) and had dinner and walked around looking at the shops. it was a way more kick-back day than the last few, less driving, more time in one place... good stuff.
oh, and for breakfast at the place we stayed last night, i had the best french toast EVER... it was amazing.
Wednesday, June 27
more pics after three more parks and three more stamps!
here are some arches pictures... sorry for there being no pictures of actual arches.
so gross.... SO many dead bugs have hit the front of my car... click on this pic and take a look... while driving after black canyon, we could hear the bugs hitting my windshield... it sounded like heavy rain drops hitting the windshield every 5 seconds... my windshield is absolutely covered in bug guts...
my favorite sign to see while on the road... it means some contact with cattle!
falling off at canyon lands...
for those who were in the senior play... from porsche's line... the BPOE, which we never figured out what it was.
all this is at black canyon...
jenny and me...
more adventures with self-timer
driving around... cool house on a hill...
three in one
another long, filled day... SO much. today we went to Arches National Park and Canyonlands National Park in moab. afterward, we left moab and headed out of Utah and out to Colorado... again, another beautiful place i had never seen until now. In colorado, we were headed for Black Canyon of the Gunnison. this place is AMAZING.
at gunnison, i had the opportunity to get away for a little bit and take a short hike to a lookout point. this canyon is so immense. i've realized that at all these national parks, everything has been just so huge... so surrounding and so... not even a word for it... it just makes you feel so small, but in a strange way that's not intimidating. especially the canyons... they are just so deep, and especially black canyon, so steep, it's kind of dizzying. at the little lookout i made it to, it was really quiet, no other hikers or anything. the wind was blowing a bit, so you could hear the trees, and the river way down at the bottom made it's way through the canyon, echoing the sounds it made up the canyon. it's just crazy, i couldn't believe i was sitting in such a place. looking out into the open air that was over the canyon, you could see birds flying about in the large open space... the open air was so inviting, i wanted to just jump in it... not in dangerous life threatening way... in a way that i wanted to feel the open space and the weightlessness... life gets heavy sometimes, and especially with all this open road, i've had much time to think, and much time to sort. i got to do some more of that while at black canyon... it was a good time.
you may have noticed, but we have been hitting up national parks left and right... 5 national parks in two days!!! it hasn't left too much time for exploring, but what i love is that it has given me a taste... a little sample, like those samples you get in the little white cups at golden spoon. and i have left each place knowing that there is SOOO much more to see and WAY SO much more to DO. if you think about it, not many places are like that... you go to an amusement parks, you ride the ride... you've done it.... you kind of get it? i know for a fact that i WILL come back to these places, and see much more of it... and i know that i can keep coming back and see new things, do more stuff, and so on...
colorado is pretty stinkin amazing... a lot more green here. i love utah too, but not a whole lot of green. it was nice to see some trees, see the rockies with a little snow on them in the distance.
but before colorado, back in UT...
arches was pretty cool, except since i was low on gas, we didn't make it all the way out to where the arches were... but that's okay, another reason for me to come back. from there me and jenny went to canyonlands... another huge place. personally, i think it puts the grand canyon to shame... much cooler. we didn't get to hike or anything there, but it seems like there were some pretty sweet hikes available.
well, tomorrow we shall drive to the other side of colorado and visit rocky mountain national park... the last of our national parks, and, well, i don't know what comes after that... for sure some corn... but we'll see :)
the driving has been a blast... surprisingly, i haven't had to have someone take over driving for me...i am loving all this driving, and i am not getting tired at all... i am just so excited to see what's around the next corner.
a 260 mile leg seems short to me... not bad at all. so much fun.
hooroo
at gunnison, i had the opportunity to get away for a little bit and take a short hike to a lookout point. this canyon is so immense. i've realized that at all these national parks, everything has been just so huge... so surrounding and so... not even a word for it... it just makes you feel so small, but in a strange way that's not intimidating. especially the canyons... they are just so deep, and especially black canyon, so steep, it's kind of dizzying. at the little lookout i made it to, it was really quiet, no other hikers or anything. the wind was blowing a bit, so you could hear the trees, and the river way down at the bottom made it's way through the canyon, echoing the sounds it made up the canyon. it's just crazy, i couldn't believe i was sitting in such a place. looking out into the open air that was over the canyon, you could see birds flying about in the large open space... the open air was so inviting, i wanted to just jump in it... not in dangerous life threatening way... in a way that i wanted to feel the open space and the weightlessness... life gets heavy sometimes, and especially with all this open road, i've had much time to think, and much time to sort. i got to do some more of that while at black canyon... it was a good time.
you may have noticed, but we have been hitting up national parks left and right... 5 national parks in two days!!! it hasn't left too much time for exploring, but what i love is that it has given me a taste... a little sample, like those samples you get in the little white cups at golden spoon. and i have left each place knowing that there is SOOO much more to see and WAY SO much more to DO. if you think about it, not many places are like that... you go to an amusement parks, you ride the ride... you've done it.... you kind of get it? i know for a fact that i WILL come back to these places, and see much more of it... and i know that i can keep coming back and see new things, do more stuff, and so on...
colorado is pretty stinkin amazing... a lot more green here. i love utah too, but not a whole lot of green. it was nice to see some trees, see the rockies with a little snow on them in the distance.
but before colorado, back in UT...
arches was pretty cool, except since i was low on gas, we didn't make it all the way out to where the arches were... but that's okay, another reason for me to come back. from there me and jenny went to canyonlands... another huge place. personally, i think it puts the grand canyon to shame... much cooler. we didn't get to hike or anything there, but it seems like there were some pretty sweet hikes available.
well, tomorrow we shall drive to the other side of colorado and visit rocky mountain national park... the last of our national parks, and, well, i don't know what comes after that... for sure some corn... but we'll see :)
the driving has been a blast... surprisingly, i haven't had to have someone take over driving for me...i am loving all this driving, and i am not getting tired at all... i am just so excited to see what's around the next corner.
a 260 mile leg seems short to me... not bad at all. so much fun.
hooroo
Tuesday, June 26
lots of miles, lots of smiles.
i have discovered that after today, i have run out of adjectives... i really don't know any words beyond awesome, incredible, amazing, absolutely something, fantabulous. even i did know words, those words wouldn't be enough to acurately describe the beauty God has created in Zion national park and Bryce Canyon... or even on the road along the way. i found myself looking up a lot... everything is so huge, causing me to feel so small, but in this crazy way.
before i continue with the story, i am going to tell the end so that the rest makes sense... it's past midnight here, and we JUST arrived in Moab, UT. so, no pictures tonight (that would take way too long because there are SO many that i want to share with you!) just stories, and not all of them at that.
ZION: all the wonderful adjectives put together, and then some. we hiked to emerld pools ( a little over 3 miles round trip). absolutely beautiful, i will wait for pictures to go fully into details. we left zion and headed to bryce canyon. but to get to bryce canyon we drove through all of zion national park... key word, THROUGH. it was the most awesomest drive i have ever driven. there was even a tunnel that went through the mountain that was 1.1 miles long! try holding your breath in that tunnel.
BRYCE: also an amazing place. i hiked down to the bottom and was just in awe of this place. again, pictures will tell the story later.
let me start buy saying this... our gps system thing had this really interesting way of getting us from Bryce Canyon to Moab, UT... however it was so stinkin totally incredibly awesome-tastic (how's that?) i have fallen in love with the open road, and when you see pictures later, you will know what i mean by open road... i am talking a straight road, going on for miles and miles, and not a single car on the road with you. and to top it off, you've got these massive land features all around you, yet you drive in the valley across this flat plain... amazing. this one road imparticular, John's Valley Road. thats the name of the road... isn't it fun?
so here is where the fun comes in... unfortunately, no pictures to go with tonight, so you won't get the full effect... but here it is... here is a list of everything we saw while driving down John's Valley Road (and then a few miscelaneous highways afterward, before we made it to the main highway, the 70 E).
badgers: me and jenny were driving along, we were leading, and then out of no where these two creatures begin to creep out onto the road on the left, and then the moment came... the badgers saw us, we saw the badgers... the badgers literally jumped out of fear and scurried back into the bush, and i braked, me and jenny jumped and scfreamed as we drove past the scared badgers. we couldn't stop laughing. i brake for badgers.
a sign as we entered john's valley road said it was prarie dog country. i was really excited to see some prarie dogs because i have always thought they were so darn cute and never saw one in real life. a little ways into the drive on this road, we were just driving along when this is what i saw... a dead prarie dog lying on the right side of my lane... and then 10 feet past the dead prarie dog was a live prarie dog standing on its hind legs, also in my lane, in the path of my right front tire. i started to shout at the little prarie dog telling it to move cause i was going fast. the live prarie dog moved alright... from the path of my right tire to the path of my left tire.
...
bump
...
i clapped my hand to my mouth...looked in the side mirror... eek... i just killed an innocent little prarie dog! road kill... i just had my first road kill! we turned off the radio and had a moment of silence.
that's a bit gruesome though... i would like to tell the story from the prarie dog's point of view.
lets name the prarie dog Romeo.
Romeo was wandering the fields looking for his friend, oh lets call her Juliet. Romeo called for juliet many times, and after not finding her, he wandered towards the road. he went a few paces and then he stopped, and stood up: "but soft, what street meat that lay yonder? tis Juliet!" and then Romeo looked up to see an car speeding towards him... he couldn't handle the agony of having lost his Juliet, so he seized the opportunity and ran towards the tire of the car speeding by.
isn't that a bit more romantic?
COWS: so much fun!!! so many cows, quite a few in the road, two dead on the side of the road, and two that came up to our car (one scaring the crap out of jenny because she thought it was going to ram the car). since there were no other cars on the road, we could stop and just sit there with the cows and have them stare and moo at us. SO MUCH FUN! pictures will be great.
JOUVI.. as in jouvenile delinquints in a chain gang (minus the chains) out in the middle of no where having to work (orange suits and all!) i felt so bad, but it was just another thing to add to the list of things seen.
we saw some buffalo and deer as well... and a whole lot of awesome natural wonders...
as i fall more in love with road trips and going places that the majority of people wouldn't go or even see in their lifetime, i just get so excited that i am doing this... i also realize how much you DONT see when you fly... i couldn't imagin ever skipping over all of this.
so awesome.
well, that got long, and that because it's been a long day... started at 6am, ended at almost 1am... almost 8 hours of driving today, and i completed all of it... it's a lot easier to drive when jenny is awake, and she was for most of the day today, so i had no problem driving today.
tomorrow will be long too... three national parks in one day and making it in to colorado... we're looking at about 5-6 hours of driving tomorrow.
hoo roo
before i continue with the story, i am going to tell the end so that the rest makes sense... it's past midnight here, and we JUST arrived in Moab, UT. so, no pictures tonight (that would take way too long because there are SO many that i want to share with you!) just stories, and not all of them at that.
ZION: all the wonderful adjectives put together, and then some. we hiked to emerld pools ( a little over 3 miles round trip). absolutely beautiful, i will wait for pictures to go fully into details. we left zion and headed to bryce canyon. but to get to bryce canyon we drove through all of zion national park... key word, THROUGH. it was the most awesomest drive i have ever driven. there was even a tunnel that went through the mountain that was 1.1 miles long! try holding your breath in that tunnel.
BRYCE: also an amazing place. i hiked down to the bottom and was just in awe of this place. again, pictures will tell the story later.
let me start buy saying this... our gps system thing had this really interesting way of getting us from Bryce Canyon to Moab, UT... however it was so stinkin totally incredibly awesome-tastic (how's that?) i have fallen in love with the open road, and when you see pictures later, you will know what i mean by open road... i am talking a straight road, going on for miles and miles, and not a single car on the road with you. and to top it off, you've got these massive land features all around you, yet you drive in the valley across this flat plain... amazing. this one road imparticular, John's Valley Road. thats the name of the road... isn't it fun?
so here is where the fun comes in... unfortunately, no pictures to go with tonight, so you won't get the full effect... but here it is... here is a list of everything we saw while driving down John's Valley Road (and then a few miscelaneous highways afterward, before we made it to the main highway, the 70 E).
badgers: me and jenny were driving along, we were leading, and then out of no where these two creatures begin to creep out onto the road on the left, and then the moment came... the badgers saw us, we saw the badgers... the badgers literally jumped out of fear and scurried back into the bush, and i braked, me and jenny jumped and scfreamed as we drove past the scared badgers. we couldn't stop laughing. i brake for badgers.
a sign as we entered john's valley road said it was prarie dog country. i was really excited to see some prarie dogs because i have always thought they were so darn cute and never saw one in real life. a little ways into the drive on this road, we were just driving along when this is what i saw... a dead prarie dog lying on the right side of my lane... and then 10 feet past the dead prarie dog was a live prarie dog standing on its hind legs, also in my lane, in the path of my right front tire. i started to shout at the little prarie dog telling it to move cause i was going fast. the live prarie dog moved alright... from the path of my right tire to the path of my left tire.
...
bump
...
i clapped my hand to my mouth...looked in the side mirror... eek... i just killed an innocent little prarie dog! road kill... i just had my first road kill! we turned off the radio and had a moment of silence.
that's a bit gruesome though... i would like to tell the story from the prarie dog's point of view.
lets name the prarie dog Romeo.
Romeo was wandering the fields looking for his friend, oh lets call her Juliet. Romeo called for juliet many times, and after not finding her, he wandered towards the road. he went a few paces and then he stopped, and stood up: "but soft, what street meat that lay yonder? tis Juliet!" and then Romeo looked up to see an car speeding towards him... he couldn't handle the agony of having lost his Juliet, so he seized the opportunity and ran towards the tire of the car speeding by.
isn't that a bit more romantic?
COWS: so much fun!!! so many cows, quite a few in the road, two dead on the side of the road, and two that came up to our car (one scaring the crap out of jenny because she thought it was going to ram the car). since there were no other cars on the road, we could stop and just sit there with the cows and have them stare and moo at us. SO MUCH FUN! pictures will be great.
JOUVI.. as in jouvenile delinquints in a chain gang (minus the chains) out in the middle of no where having to work (orange suits and all!) i felt so bad, but it was just another thing to add to the list of things seen.
we saw some buffalo and deer as well... and a whole lot of awesome natural wonders...
as i fall more in love with road trips and going places that the majority of people wouldn't go or even see in their lifetime, i just get so excited that i am doing this... i also realize how much you DONT see when you fly... i couldn't imagin ever skipping over all of this.
so awesome.
well, that got long, and that because it's been a long day... started at 6am, ended at almost 1am... almost 8 hours of driving today, and i completed all of it... it's a lot easier to drive when jenny is awake, and she was for most of the day today, so i had no problem driving today.
tomorrow will be long too... three national parks in one day and making it in to colorado... we're looking at about 5-6 hours of driving tomorrow.
hoo roo
Sunday, June 24
as the crickets chirp and i sit in a parking lot...
jenny yawning after a long drive.
road trips rock, especially when the roads look like this!
left the room wandering trying to find the signal they claim to have... found it, in the handicap parking spot of the parking lot.
i was not disappointed by the largest thermometer... pretty awesome, and it read 102 degrees at the time we took the pic.
we left just after 8am this morning and made it to vegas by 1pm. i have to say that i don't like vegas very much... i was VERY happy to leave after lunch and get on our way to zion (our final destination for the day). things didn't get too interesting until after vegas (mainly because jenny slept most of the time)... but also, after that the scenary got much cooler (and the temperature much warmer). at one point, after vegas, i was looking ahead as to where the road was taking us, and all that was in front were these mountains... i didn't see any was around them, so i was wondering where we were going to go...
well, right THROUGH them of course! it was pretty stinkin awesome driving between these high cliffs and beautiful rocks.
i was also pretty excited about the fact that today i have successfully driven through four states (CA, NV, AZ, UT). however, while still in california, i nearly got in an accident because some lady decided that my car wasn't in her blind spot so she changed lanes as i was literally right next to her... so luckily the emergency lane was to the left and i could swerve out of the way... and thankfully there was no wall immediately, otherwise, it would have been nasty.
we made it to zion by 6pm mountain time (its crazy, it was light until after 9pm!) and took the shuttle to zion np. the shuttles were still running but everything else was closed down (i'll have to get my stamp tomorrow :)
i would love to write more, but i am exhausted, so i hope the pics will suffice. tomorrow is going to be great, with a nice little hike to the emerald pools, then leaving zion, stopping by bryce canyon np, then making our way to the other side of Utah where we will see 2 more national parks the following day.
oh ya... the golden spoon in st george utah... closed on sundays! i tell ya, those "utah people" are crazy for closing golden spoon on sundays.
as cliche as it sounds, and as most postcards would say, i wish y'all were here. it's a total blast being on this road trip, but every once in a while i realize a few things that causes me to miss y'all. so i hope all is well back in cali, and i hope your week to come finds you well.
more pics and what-not tomorrow
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