Day 19, 20, 21 & 22

Wait a minute ... what's going on here? Why all the days in one post?

Well, here's the story ... we're officially back home, as of 4:30 pm Friday afternoon.

Our original plan called for us to drive from Goodland, Kansas to Eureka, Missouri, which we did. The plan then called for us to spend the night in Missouri, and then spend Friday at Six Flags St. Louis. We were supposed to spend Friday night in Missouri, and then drive to Ohio on Saturday, spending the night there, and then finishing the drive home on Sunday.

The problem was, when we got to Eureka on Thursday evening, it was about 103 degrees with 90+ percent humidity. After discussing it with Josh, we decided that spending the day in amusement park lines with temperatures over 100 degrees probably wouldn't be a whole lot of fun.

So, we talked it out, and decided that we'd start driving home immediately. So, after we made dinner, we got back in the car and left St. Louis, at about 8:00 pm local time. We arrived at our Ohio campground at about 4:00 am local time. I parked the car and got about an hour and a half of sleep. I woke up at 6:00 am and then continued our drive home.

After a short breakfast stop, we continued the drive and finally arrived home at around 4:30 this afternoon.

To sum it up, the trip was great, even with the little switch-up at the end. We drove approximately 7500 miles on the trip, saw lots of great things, and had a great time.

I'll be posting some follow-ups in the days to come, but for right now, it's time to get some sleep!!!

I'm back

Alright I know i haven't been blogging but here i go. I have become a junior ranger in all the national parks we've been to on this trip. Arches and Mesa Verde were my two favorites. Sand dunes Yosemite and Bryce with a close second then capitol reef and Zion. Today we were at sand dunes and we tried climbing up the giant dune. You know 55% of science is trial and error.

Day 18 ... Mesa Verde to Kansas and Great Sand Dunes National Park

Today, we left Mesa Verde National Park first thing in the morning. Our goal was to make it to Goodland, Kansas, about 20 miles across the Colorado/Kansas state line.

It was a really long day of driving, as most of the day, we were on single lane highways, that passed through small towns every 7 to 15 miles, requiring us to slow down for the local speed limits. I was really glad when we finally made it to Interstate 70 late this afternoon.

Along the way today, we stopped at Great Sand Dunes National Park, a little known National Park in Southern Colorado.

While Sequoia National Park was about Sequoia trees, Great Sand Dunes National Park is about ... duh ... sand dunes!!!

They're huge!!! The highest one reaches over 750 feet, and is the tallest sand dune in North America. We attempted to climb one known as "High Dune", which is about 650 feet high. We didn't make it too far, as we were on limited time. I'd estimate that we got about 1/3 of the way up, before we turned around.

I will say that running down the dunes sure is a lot more fun than walking up them!!!

Tomorrow, we'll be waking up really early and getting loaded up for a long drive to Eureka, Missouri, which is just West of St. Louis. This is going to be the longest drive of our trip, in terms of mileage, however, since it will be on the interestate almost the entire way, I'm expecting it to take less time than several of the other drives we've taken so far.

That's about it for today, I'll be back again tomorrow.

Day 17 ... Mesa Verde National Park

We spent the day today touring the cliff dwellings in Mesa Verde National Park. They're pretty cool to see, thought they do require some climbing down lots of steps, climbing up ladders and more steps, and even crawling through tunnels!

It didn't take us as long to see the park as I thought it would, we were done around 3:00 pm. If I had known that, I probably would have booked a campground further to the East, rather than spending another night in the park. Oh well, maybe next time!!!

That's about all there is to say for today. Tomorrow we really start to head to the East, stopping at Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado for a brief visit, and then spending the night in Goodland, KS.

The journey home begins!!!

Day 16 ... The Four Corners and Mesa Verde National Park

Today, we drove from Kingman, AZ to Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado, passing by the Four Corners Monument along the way. There's not too much else to say about this day, other than it was a long drive! When we got to the Four Corners, we stopped so that we could put a body part in four states at once, and then we continued on our way.

We were "dodging" thunderstorms all day long. We only actually passed through one, but they were all around us.

When we arrived in Mesa Verde, our luck had run out!!! We got to the campground and were able to get about a 15 minute break in the rain to get the tent set up. Then, I was able to get the tarp set up over the tent, and finally the easy-up to cover the picnic table.

All in all, it wasn't too bad. The rain stopped finally and we were able to make dinner and hang out. When we went into the tent for the night, the rain started up again, but the tarp over the tent kept us very dry. A lot of the other tent campers weren't as fortunate as we were, and I noticed a lot of people decided to spend the night in their cars.

Tomorrow, we'll go out and see the cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde.

For those who are paying attention, I know that I keep mixing past, present and future tense, but I'm writing many of these posts after the fact, since we haven't had internet access in the campgrounds since we left Zion National Park.

In fact, right now, we're sitting in the car in a Wal-Mart parking lot in Cortez, CO, which is about 8 miles outside of Mesa Verde National Park. We needed to pick up a couple of things, and then we're heading back into the park for the night.

Next post coming right up!!!

Day 15 ... Las Vegas and Hoover Dam

Since we left Kings Canyon /Sequoia National Parks early, and covered some ground on the day 15 drive, we were able to change things up a little bit and we arrived in Las Vegas much earlier in the day than originally planned. We decided to stop at the New York, New York Casino, with the intention of riding the roller coaster there. Unfortunately, Josh didn't meet the minimum height requirement, so we weren't able to ride. Oh well ... at least I saved the $28!!!

 Since it was still early, we decided to go visit Hoover Dam this afternoon, instead of waiting until the next morning, as originally planned. This also enabled us to find a campground further East for the night, instead of in Lake Mead. This had the effect of shortening the drive for day 16, when we travel to Mesa Verde National Park, via the Four Corners monument.

More on that in the next post!

Day 14 ... Kings Canyon/Sequoia National Parks and Bakersfield, CA???

Today, we traveled from Yosemite National Park to Kings Canyon & Sequoia National Parks. The drive took us about three hours or so, less time spent in Fresno, CA to do some shopping and access the internet ... something we've been without for the past four nights!

When we arrived in Kings Canyon National Park, we took a short walk through one of the giant Sequoia groves and then continued on to Sequoia National Park. The main attraction here is, of course, the giant Sequoia trees, though the alpine forest scenery here is beautiful even without the giant trees.







It's hard to really appreciate how big these trees are until you see them up close ... they're huge!!! It's unbelievable that anything could grow that big.

After we finished seeing the park, we headed over to our campground which was located in the park. When we got there, the ranger told us that there was an active black bear population in the park and so we would have to put all of our food items in the bear bin at our campsite. I asked if we could keep the cooler in the car, but the ranger said no, and that everything had to be stored in the bin.

This was going to mean a lot of work for us, but we didn't have a whole lot of choice. We went to our campsite to get set up. Unfortunately, the site we were given was located on a fairly steep hillside. Our car was parked about 100 feet uphill from the campsite and the bear bin.

I started to think about how much effort and more importantly, the time it was going to take to move all of our stuff, particularly in the morning when we needed to get going. At that point, I decided that we'd leave the park and try to find a campground outside the park, so we left. On our way driving out of the park, we came across this little guy, attesting to the active bear population!

The road we took leaving the park was an incredibly steep and twisting mountain road. It took us forever to get to the bottom. We continued driving towards Visalia, CA, not finding any "suitable" campgrounds on the way. When we reached Visalia, we went online to see what we could find. At that point, I decided that we'd just drive to Bakersfield, CA and spend the night in a cheap motel, so that's what we did.

It actually worked out very favorably for us, because it cut a LOT of time out of our drive for Day 15, when we head to Las Vegas, NV and Lake Mead.

More on that in the next post!!!

Day 13 ... Yosemite National Park

The campground we stayed at in Yosemite National Park is actually about 30 miles South of the park entrance. The road we traveled follows the Merced River from the park, all the way down to where our campground was located. Each day, traveling this road in the morning and afternoon, we had to pass by a whitewater rafting center. Ultimately, the lure became too strong, and we decided that we had to give it a try, so we booked a half day rafting trip on the Merced.

It was a blast ... mostly class 3 rapids and one class 4 rapid. We both had a great time and I was glad we decided to do it.

After the rafting trip, we headed back in to the park to an area called Glacier Point. It's at the top of the valley, on the Southern wall. Once we got up there, we hiked to the top of Sentinel Dome, which gave us an amazing 360 degree view of Yosemite Valley, and all the surrounding area. It was well worth the effort to hike up there.

After the hike, we drove back down to our campground, ate dinner and prepared to leave tomorrow morning for Kings Canyon/Sequoia National Park.

More on that tomorrow ... maybe, if we have internet access!

Day 12 ... Bodie and Tuolomne Meadows

Today we drove back to the Eastern entrance of Yosemite National Park. It can be a very long and frustrating drive!










We were headed to the ghost town of Bodie, CA, and old gold-mining town that has been converted into a state historic park. It was pretty cool to see what an old West town really looked like, even though most of the buildings in the town are long gone.

After we spent some time in Bodie, we drove back into Yosemite and stopped in Tuolomne Meadows, pronounced: "Two-ah-lo-me". We hiked to the top of Lembert Dome, which gave us a really nice view of the Tuolumne Meadows area.





After that, we headed back for the very long drive back to our campground, where we made dutch oven lasagne and brownies!!! Both came out quite well.

Tomorrow we'll be spending another day in Yosemite.

Day 11 ... Yosemite Valley

We spent day 11 of our trip sight-seeing in the Yosemite Valley. There are two words that immediately come to mind if you asked me about Yosemite National Park. The first, is beautiful! This is truly an amazing place with incredible mountains, lakes, waterfalls, meadows, flowers, etc, etc, etc. I certainly haven't been all around the world, but of all the places I have been, Yosemite may be the most beautiful.

The other word that comes to mind regarding Yosemite, is CROWDED!!! Some of the crosswalks in Yosemite Valley look like midtown Manhattan at 5:00 pm on a Wednesday afternoon! There are tons of people and cars here. My guess is that sooner or later, they will probably ban cars from certain areas of the park during the busy Summer season.

The good news about Yosemite Valley is that it's very flat, with a network of biking and walking trails that get you through the valley to the various hiking trails, visitor centers, lodges, etc. When we got to the park in the morning, we parked our car, unloaded our bikes, and spent the day biking and hiking through the valley. If you ever come to Yosemite, make sure you either bring a bike, or rent one when you get here! It's DEFINITELY the way to go. They have free shuttle buses, but the lines to get on the buses were crazy in some places.

Vernal Falls

As we were traveling around, I noticed quite a few news trucks and camera crews filming. I was wondering what was going on, but didn't bother to try to find out. Later in the afternoon, we were hiking to the top of Vernal Falls, when I overheard what turned out to be a newspaper reporter interviewing someone about the "accident" from the previous day. I stopped to ask him what had happened and he told me that three people had been swept over Vernal Falls while swimming in the "pool" at the top of the falls. No doubt a very sad situation, however, the stupid things people do never cease to amaze me. The pool at the top of Vernal Falls is very inviting, however, given the seriousness of the warning signs that are posted, not to mention the obvious swiftness of the current, you would think people would be smart enough to stay out.

Anyway, Josh earned another Junior Ranger badge, making six so far. He's loving this aspect of the trip!

Tomorrow, we'll be exploring another part of the park. More on that in the next post.

Day 10 ... Zion to Yosemite

Day 10 had us driving from Zion National Park to Yosemite National Park through the Nevada desert on the "Extra Terrestrial Highway", passing by Area 51 and the very small "town" of Rachel, Nevada. As we passed by Area 51, we didn't see any UFO's, in fact, the only FO we saw was this bird flying overhead!

We had to stop at the Little A'Le'Inn for a couple of souvenirs and pictures.

There's not too much else to say about this day other than that it was a really long drive, through some pretty remarkable desert geography. I kind of enjoyed most of the drive, though I'm not sure I'd want to do it again!

When we finally reached Yosemite, Josh was too tired to even stop for our obligatory park sign picture … we'll have to do that on another day here. Unfortunately, it took us about 2 and a half hours to drive through the park and to our campground which is about 25 miles from the park's Western entrance. It's a curvy, mountainous road with lots of traffic and people sight-seeing rather than driving … given that we had already been in the car for almost 10 hours, I was getting a little frustrated!!!

We got to our campground, set up camp and then we both took long awaited showers!!! It felt really good to shower after three days without!

We'll be spending the next three days in and around Yosemite, so details on those days will be forthcoming in future posts.

Day 9 ... Zion National Park

We spent day 9 sight-seeing in Zion National Park. It is, without a doubt a beautiful place, however, if you were visiting the park, and decided not to take any hikes, you could probably see everything in just a couple of hours, and probably leave with the feeling that it was nice, but not that big a deal. If, on the other hand, you were able to take at least a couple of hikes, you'd probably come away with an entirely different feeling.

Probably the most famous hike here is to a spot called "Scout's Lookout", and then the trail continues on to a second spot known as "Angel's Landing". The first part of the hike to Scout's Lookout is very strenuous, and climbs steeply, seemingly without end. When you finally reach Scout's Lookout, you have a beautiful view on the Zion Canyon valley below. At this point, you're faced with a choice, go back down and call it a day, or continue another 1/2 mile or so to Angel's Landing. This part of the hike follows a very narrow ridge, as narrow as just a few feet wide at some points, with a drop of approximately 1500 feet to the valley floor below … it is VERY intimidating!!! They have chains anchored into the rocks to help you as you work your way up the ridge, but it's still a long way down!!! When we arrived at the park this morning, I had not intention of attempting either of these hikes, as I didn't think Josh would be up to it. As it turned out, he suggested that we give it a try, so give it a try we did!!!


We made it to Scout's Lookout after a grueling climb, in very warm and humid conditions. At that point, when I could see for myself first hand, the continuation of the trail to Angel's Landing, my reaction was NO WAY!!! But once again, Josh convinced me that we should give it a try … I was terrified the whole way through that he might fall! About half-way to Angel's Landing, the ridge dipped down a bit and then continued to climb very steeply along a painfully narrow ridge … at this point, Josh decided that he had had enough, so we reversed course and headed back down. I've got to give him credit for going as far as he did … as I said, it was pretty darn scary!

After we got back down the bottom of the canyon, we took a lunch break and then decided to do a hike at the end of the canyon road known as "The Riverside Walk". This hike follows the Virgin River through the canyon until it reaches a point called "The Narrows". At this point, the trail continues along the river, often requiring that you hike in the river itself. We continued to follow the river for a short while, wading through the water as we went … the water was cold, but it felt good!

Tomorrow we take the long drive from Zion National Park to Yosemite National Park. It's going to be a marathon day in the car … approximately 10 and a half hours!!! The good news, is that we'll have a chance to rest our legs and our lungs after all the hiking we've done the last five days! Also, we'll be back at a campground that will have showers and laundry facilities!!!! I'm really looking forward to a shower!

That's about it for tonight … tomorrow night, we'll be coming to you from just outside Yosemite National Park!

Day 8 ... Bryce Canyon National Park

Today was spent at Bryce Canyon National Park. As has become our standard operating procedure, we were up at 6:00 to eat breakfast and break down our camp. We've gotten to the point where the entire process, from waking up, eating breakfast, making lunch, packing all our gear and getting into the car takes about 90 minutes! I can't seem to figure out any way to get through it any faster, no matter what I try!

In any event, we headed out to the first view points at around 7:30. If you've never seen Bryce Canyon in person, or pictures of it, the only word(s) I can think of to describe it are "other worldly". The landscape is truly amazing. The term that has been given to these bizarre rock structures is "hoodoo"

At 8:30, we met up with one of the park rangers who was going to lead a morning hike along the rim of the canyon. Josh has been "earning" Junior Park Ranger badges at all of the parks we've gone to, and he needed to attend a ranger led program as one of the requirements. As luck would have it, we were the only ones to show up, so we had a personal tour of the canyon. I was really glad we did it. The ranger was originally from the Rochester, NY area and attended Paul Smiths College near Lake Placid, so we ended up having a lot to talk about on our hike!

After the hike with the ranger, we went off on our own to see some other parts of the canyon, and then ultimately took a hike down into the canyon to walk amongst the hoodoos! It was really cool being down on the canyon floor, walking through these rock formations.

The only problem with going down to the canyon floor can be summed up by saying ... "what goes down, must come up!" Believe me ... the picture doesn't begin to tell the story!!!

We finished up in the park at around 3:00 and headed to Zion Canyon National Park, where we'll be spending the next two nights. One of the biggest differences between Bryce and Zion is ... temperature!!! The weather was quite pleasant in Bryce, the same cannot be said of Zion ... it's HOT!!!

Tomorrow we'll be seeing the park and doing some hikes. The really good news is that we don't have to pack up our camp in the morning, and we'll be able to sleep a little later and make a "real" camping breakfast of pancakes or waffles ... Josh is really looking forward to that!

We're now a week plus one day into our trip with two weeks to go. With the exception of a few minor bumps in the road, things have gone really well, and we're still having a really good time. Josh is really enjoying pursuing the Junior Ranger badges at each park. The next six days should probably go by fairly fast, as we will be staying in only two places for these days, eliminating the daily pack up and set up routine. That part is definitely getting a bit tedious, but we're getting through it.

Lastly, if you're reading this, thanks to Steve Octaviano for loaning us and convincing me to take his rooftop carrier ... we'd be in big trouble without it!!!

That's it for tonight ... tomorrow tonight, a report on Zion National Park.

Good night all!