Goodbye Mountains, Hello Prairie

We spent the last 5 days in Woodland Park CO just northwest of Colorado Springs.  The weather cooperated for much of the time and we were able to do several things including the petrified forest in Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument and Cripple Creek where we road the narrow gauge train up to a ghost town that was once a thriving gold mining area (seems like most of the ghost towns in the west were thriving gold mining areas at one time).  We also toured the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs and went to the Garden of the Gods park.

Two Trees, a Road and Grass

We are now in Oakley Kansas.  What can I say...lots of farmland...and prairie...and trucks, oh tons of trucks...I got gum on my shoe...ummm, that's about it.  Oh, one other thing I can say is, I can no longer say I have never been to Kansas.  For those of you who have never been here, this is what it looks like. 










Now to be fair, we have only been here for a few hours.  I am sure that there are many things of interest here.  I did see a sign that said "Come See the World's Largest Prairie Dog".  Might have to check that out.  There was also a sign about some 5 legged calf...the Prairie freak show must be in town.  Anyway, hope things look up...for now, I've got an exciting evening planned getting gum off my shoe.  Cheers!

May 25 - Daytripping

Janet and I took a day trip from Montrose to Telluride and other destinations.  Telluride is still recovering from the ski season and much of the town is either getting ready for the summer rush (doing repairs) or taking some needed time off and closing their shop for a bit, although the Telluride Bud Company was open.  We stopped into the visitor's center to see what there was to do.  The person behind the counter told us that we could drive to the base of Bridal Veil Falls on a short dirt road just past the edge of town.  He told us that even though the road is unpaved it is easily passable for any vehicle, even a sedan.  Ummm...not this time of year, me thinks!  Since we have a high clearance truck we were able to get to the end and see the falls from a distance (the rest of the road was 4x4 only), but I would hate to see what would happen to a passenger car.  By the time we got back on the main road the treads on the tires and wheel wells were filled with stone and mud.  It looked as though we had been slogging through miles of off road track instead of just a few hundred yards of dirt road.  The falls were pretty, still covered in ice from the winter, but I am not sure it was worth the beating our bodies took (not to mention our poor truck).

Bridal Veil Falls - Telluride CO

While traveling north from Telluride back to Ridgeway we decided to take a side trip down a National Forest access road...hell, the truck was already a mess anyway.  We turned off the freeway onto Last Dollar Dr (not sure how it got its name...need to research that) and really enjoyed the drive.  For me it has been one of the highlights of our travels so far.  This road takes one back in time.  It is a simple, narrow, unpaved lane that winds pasted a beaver dammed river and working ranches.  The views are of meadows and mountains.  I shot one of my favorite photos along this route.  We came to an intersection of the main road and a small one lane track that led to some homestead off in the distance.

Paintbrush Lane

It is nice to go off the beaten trail and take a side trip.  You never know what surprises lie in store for you.

May 21 thru 24 - Western Colorado

Arrived in Colorado and stayed in an RV Park in Fruita, just outside of Grand Junction.  We provisioned up at the Sam's Club in Grand Junction and spent the rest of the day taking it easy(man, this relaxing lifestyle is exhausting!).  The next day we spent exploring Colorado National Monument enjoying the sights in the park (sorry...no pics...I forgot my camera...senior moment).  Janet got some pictures using her phone and we'll try to post some later.  That evening a thunderstorm blew in and it was a real trailer shaker!  Janet and I sat inside the relative safety of our RV and watched the huge lightning strikes hitting the ground near us hoping that we wouldn't be next.  Fortunately it rolled past us without incident.  After spending a couple days in Fruita we moved about 80 miles SE to Montrose.  Montrose is the gateway to the Gunnison National Forest and Black Canyon.  Black Canyon National Park is a deep gorge cut out by a fast moving river over millions of years.  It is much different than the Grand Canyon and Bryce in that the rock is harder and much darker in color (none of that red color we were getting accustomed to).  It got its name from the early explorers who observed that due to its deep narrow gorges the sun hardly ever penetrated the lower portions of the canyon.

Black Canyon of the Gunnison

 While in the park another storm was blowing through and allowed me this shot of the ominous clouds looming over the mountains.

Storm over Colorado

 

May 19 and 20 - Capitol Reef and the Surrounding Areas

We stayed in Torrey UT at the Thousand Lakes Campground.  Very nice staff and the grounds were clean and well kept.  There were two other RV parks nearby, but from we could tell this was the best for our needs. 

Capitol Reef National Park is much like the other parks in the area, lots of red rock and more stunning scenery.  If you go there you will want to take the scenic drive down to the Capitol Gorge trail.  The road becomes unpaved, but it is still drivable with any vehicle.  The trail at the end is worth a walk just to see the petroglyphs and pioneer register, where the early settlers had etched their names into the canyon walls.

Petroglyph

Pioneer Register

While Capitol Reef was nice, Janet and I really enjoyed the views along Hwy 12.  We were originally going to get to Torrey taking this route, but due to the weather we decided not to.  I am glad we didn't go this way.  Even with good weather it would have been somewhat hairy to navigate the steep climbs and hairpin turns (not to mention the steep drop offs!) with our trailer attached.  Hwy 12 takes you through Escalante and the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.  Absolutely amazing!

View along Hwy 12

Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument

Even better than all of this and highly recommended is the Burr Trail. This is a road that several people had told us about including a professional photographer we met in Zion named David Pettit (check his photography out: http://davidpettitphotography.com/). It starts in Boulder, UT and winds itself all the way to the southern point of Capitol Reef NP.  We went as far as marker 20 and thoroughly enjoyed the scenery.

Burr Trail

Along the Burr Trail

That's it for Utah.  A couple we met in Torrey, who have been full time RV'ers for 5 years (Hi Terri and Charlie), said that the entire state of Utah should be declared a National Park.  I couldn't agree more.

On to Colorado...

May 18: Leaving Bryce and Heading to Capitol Reef National Park

It was a dark and stormy night...well, not exactly...but it was a freezing and somewhat snowy morning.  Due to wintery weather, we left Bryce using an alternate route that only got as high as 7,500 feet instead of the more scenic route 12 that has 14% grades, numerous hairpin turns, and crosses Boulder Mountain at over 9,100 feet.  While driving along some of the lesser highways it reminded me of driving in the Midwest in February.  Those of you in that part of the world know what I mean, snow on the ground, drizzly sleet hitting the windshield and gray, gray skies.  All was not glum, though...some of the views were still quite beautiful.

While on highway 24, heading into Torrey, we saw a bunch of large animals in the middle of the road.  As we got nearer we realized it was a true to life cattle drive, with cowboys on horseback and all.  I had to stop on the highway for about 5 - 10 minutes while the cows were herded to safety.  Quite a site.

 

Next stop Torrey, Utah and Capitol Reef.

May 15 - 17: Bryce Canyon National Park

We spent the the first part of last week in Bryce Canyon.  When we arrived in Bryce we encountered some really cold and blustery days.  As you saw on a previous post it got cold enough to snow overnight one night.  We stayed mostly to the main road to take in the views because of the weather, but did one hike down the Navajo trail.  Bryce has some very interesting rock formations caused by wind, rain and snow.  It is interesting that the views are totally different as compared to Zion.  In Zion you are in the bottom of the canyon looking up at all of the cliffs and in Bryce you are on the plateau looking down into the canyon.  The following shots were taken right off of the road at the various viewpoints.

If you really want to experience the park, you need to take the fairly easy (except for a tortuous climb back up) hike down to the canyon floor using the Navajo Trail hike.  From there you can experience the canyon from a different perspective with the walls soaring above and some really spectacular views.

A couple more shots of Zion

Seems like it has been forever since we were in Zion (it was only last week) and we have moved on to other magnificent places, but I wanted to post a couple more shots I took there. 

Canyon Meadow

Moon over Zion

Bryce, Utah - Winter Wonderland

Just a quick update for now.  We will post more about Bryce later.

Woke up to a veritable winter wonderland this morning.  I'm sure many of you are asking "What is the big deal?,".  While we knew it was coming, these two SoCal folks haven't seen snow in awhile so it was quite exciting!  Maybe not so much later when we try to navigate the pass on US 12 at 9000 ft.  Fortunately we have an alternate path we can take if needed.

Zion National Park - The Rest of the Week

We loved Zion.  This time of year the park was not very busy and we were able to spend lots of time hiking and sight-seeing throughout.  Hiking highlights:

• Narrows - Hike in and along the Virgin River which runs between the canyon walls.  Unfortunately most of the trail was closed due to high running water, so we will need to leave that for our next time out.
• Hidden Canyon - Very steep trail that leads to a...duh! hidden canyon.  The trek up the 850 ft elevation gain kicked my bleep!, but it was well worth it in the end.  Beautiful views and a fun, somewhat technical climb at the end of the trail.
• Emerald Pools/Grotto Trail - Waterfalls descend into algae filled pools that give them a nice green color.  We took the trail to the lower pools and then I climbed to the upper without Janet.  We finished our hike on the Grotto trail that skimmed along a mountain rim with views of the Virgin River below.

A nice convenience is the shuttle that takes you up and down the canyon road.  Even though this is mandatory (they don't allow vehicles during the busy season), it was nice not to worry about parking, traffic and burning expensive fuel.  I liked that especially...yes I am cheap!  


Other highlights:

• Janet saw a wild turkey (no...not her favorite bourbon) with it's tail fanned for mating season.  She said she had never seen that in real life before.
• The Human History museum was OK, but the highlight was Janet calling it the Hu Man (hoo-mon) Museum.  I guess she was surrounded by so many Japanese tourists that she wanted to give it an Asian flair!  
• Met a very nice German couple (Hans and Rose Marie Bechtel) in the campground.  We had several great conversations with them even though there was a bit of a language barrier.
• Moon Rise over Zion (see picture)

And now a few pics...will post more as they develop (pun intended):

Zion Moon

Zion Waterfall

Zion East

Upper Emerald Pool

The Patriarchs

May 10 - Zion National Park

Got into Springdale just outside of Zion and are staying in Zion Canyon Campground just minutes away from the park entrance.  It's nice and soothing listening to the roar of the Virgin River and viewing the peaks that surround us, including The Watchman.

View from our back window

The Watchman

May 9 - Mesquite Nevada

We were going to try to make it to Zion National Park today, but the morning got away from us.  Before leaving our nice little campground of last night Janet thought it would be a good idea to see if the sand drifted road we came in on was passable.  Good thing we checked, the road was closed as well as an alternate road.  We ended up having to drive 40 miles out of our way to get back to that point.  While driving we passed Barstow (again) and decided to get fuel (since we were probably only getting 5 miles to the gallon driving into the 40 mph headwinds).  Unfortunately there was a detour in town and we ended up driving in circles for about 15 minutes since the signage for the detour was so bad.  We finally figured out the detour and stopped for fuel.  1.5 hours later we were back to where we would have been had the road not been closed.  Oh well, all part of the adventure!  Without detours like that we never would have seen an RV park with cars out front made into the shape of dinosaurs and other monstrosities.  After the eventful morning, we were pretty tired and didn't want to drive to Zion, so we stopped in Mesquite on the Nevada/Arizona border.  Stayed in the Casa Blanca Casino/Resort RV park.  Nice little place for an overnight stay and true to his nature (if you know Tom you know what I mean) no money was spent at the casino.  Here are a couple of pics from the resort.

May 8 - Finally On The Road

We finally launched the new chapter of our life on Sunday, May 8, 2011.  We made a quick stop to have lunch with the JP family in Temecula, have Oscar's breadsticks for one last time and say goodbye.  We spent our first night in Newberry Springs, CA which is halfway between Calico the ghost town and BFE (if you have to ask...you don't want to know).  It was extremely windy with winds of 40 mph gusting to 60!  The road from the 15 freeway to the Twin Lakes RV Park (if you can call it that) was drifted by the sand from the Mojave riverbed (the river was obviously dry as a bone).  Thank goodness another couple arrived at the park at the same time otherwise we may have thought two or three times about staying there.  The only other trailers in the park had the curtains billowing in and out of the broken out windows (can you say horror flick?).  Janet's not overly fond of staying in campgrounds next to prisons or being the only humans for 30 miles (too many late night movies), but Will and Carol in the other RV had been here 3 other times and they assured us all was well.  So we settled in and hunkered down against the wind.  Sorry no pics, I was afraid of getting sand in my camera or getting blown away :).