After Zion National Park, Mike and I headed to the Grand Canyon! We were meeting our friends there the next day, so we spent the evening at the North Rim to see the canyon from the less viewed side. It was wonderful to relax on the beautiful lodge deck with a delicious Grand Canyon beer. We also met an amazing Park Ranger that majored in geology that typically works on the South Rim side, but was visiting this side with…
We weren’t exactly sure if we’d make it to Zion National Park since we had reservations in the Grand Canyon at Phantom Ranch. However, we had a couple days left before we needed to be there, so we ended up getting to see the highlights at this amazing place. I definitely want to check it out again to do back country camping and hike much further. We arrived around 4pm through the east entrance. Considering the later time,…
Another Utah park means more rock formations! With 2 million visitors every year, Bryce Canyon, is one of the most popular parks in the country. It is known for it’s “hoo doos” which were really beautiful. These are created by canyon walls or “fins” that erode into windows or arches, and finally, collapse into hoo doos! The water also plays a part here with it’s freeze-thaw cycles; it goes from freezing temps to water overnight over 200 days a year,…
After Arches, we headed to the next Utah National Park; Capitol Reef, which is in the city of Fruita. Besides beautiful rock formations (like every park in Utah) this park is also an important Mormon pioneer historical site. We arrived around sunset again (I told you, we’re on a good groove of sunsets and mornings at the parks!) and we drove the Scenic Drive. This was simply stunning – the rock formations here are more layered with various colors…
Mike and I were in a pretty good rhythm at this point – visit a park in the morning, drive or do something indoors during the day, and then visit a park in the late afternoon and evening. This helps avoid the heat and the summer crowds. After Canyonlands, we headed to Moab which is where Arches National Park is located too. As we drove by in the afternoon, it was pretty obvious that Arches is one of the most…
Canyonlands National Park has three sections; Island in the Sky, the Needles, and the Maze. These sections are separated by the Colorado and Green River and there is no way to access the different sections unless you leave the park. Island in the Sky is the most popular (i.e the most crowded) due to its proximity to Moab, while the Needles is the next most visited section, and the Maze is extremely remote and has limited visitors due to it mostly…
This was a park that I had visited when I was younger, but had very little memory of. Ancestral puebloans lived here from about 550 to 1300 before they left for other areas – but had left hundreds of amazing cliff dwellings, history and mysteries to be discovered, and an incredibly unique National Park. Before you go, make sure to purchase your tour tickets. There are limited tickets per day and can only be bought up to 48 hours in…
I had not heard much about this National Park prior to this adventure. I am SO glad we made it here. There were multiple sights that took my breath away. Ron Swanson said it’s only acceptable to cry at the Grand Canyon, but I think he’d add this park to the list too. After the Great Sand Dunes, an attempt up Blanca Peak by Mike, a lucky find of $20 in a parking lot (time to treat yo…
This park is stunning, but with a bit of bad luck while we were there mixed with some pouting by me, this wasn’t my favorite park. We had been in Colorado for about a week before getting to this park. We had some delightful visits with friends first. In Fort Collins, we stopped at our friend Harris’s house so Mike could work on the van (of course), drink lots of beers, and get fed too much. Then near Salida, we…
Wow. I truly felt like a little kid walking though the caves here, full of wonder and imagination. Do you remember looking at clouds and seeing different animals and creatures in them? It was the same thing at Carlsbad Caverns and all of it’s natural cave formations. I was reminded of a lot of ocean critters – which makes sense since this cave began it’s life as a reef, millions of years ago. I also could NOT stop singing the Little…