Day 8 (July 11): Unbelievable Utah

Total Driving Distance: 316.8 miles (trip total: 3,042.2 miles)

States Traveled To: Utah, Colorado

Main Activity: Arches National Park, Canyonlands National Park

The night at the KOA in Moab was an uncomfortable one. It was hot and stuffy in the van as we tried to fall asleep and that night was extremely windy. I woke up several times to hear what sounded like a tornado outside. I almost thought I was dreaming it, but sure enough in the morning all our stuff had been blown around the campsite.

I went for a run that morning and saw all that Moab had to offer. Dozens of souvenir shops, a restaurant hanging on the edge of a cliff, a dried-up water park with a For Sale sign, and a post office which we desperately needed (we kept forgetting to pick up postcard stamps).

We ate a big breakfast at the local Pancake Haus, which had good food and ehh coffee. Though there wasnt a cloud in the sky, it started sprinkling while we ate breakfast. It only lasted for about five minutes, but it was a sign of what was to follow us the rest of the day (read on!).

We drove back over to Arches and finally started our day around noon. At the Visitors Center, we stopped to watch a very interesting video about how the arches are formed. Erosion and shifting salt deposits, it seems.

With a newfound interest in the geology of arches, we began a hike up to the Window Arches. This hike was slightly easier than the one the previous night, but with stomachs full of Pancake Hausen, it still turned out to be a hump.

From the first arch we climbed to, we could see in the distance the storm that was following us. We only felt a few raindrops, but when we saw enormous bolts of lightning in the distance, we headed back to the car.

Our next stop was the famous (Utah famous, not real world famous) Hole N'' The Rock, a diner-turned-home in a red rock cave built by Albert Christensen and his wife, Gladys. Perhaps to make the frequently visited tourist destination even more random, Albert also built a sculpture of FDR's head into the outside of his home (seen below the C in "ROCK"), as well as added a petting zoo and a car made entirely out of license plates. Surprisingly, none of these things made the twenty-mile drive there worth it, although we did not take the tour of the Hole ($12), so we did not get the full experience.

We left as quickly as possible and drove north to Canyonlands National Park. We only had time to visit one section of the Park (Island in the Sky), though I really wanted to do the Needles scenic drive through another section of cool rock shapes. The third section is called the Maze and you need a backpack and several days to get lost in the harrowing heights of the most rarely visited section of Canyonlands. It's on my list of things to do.

Having already seen the Grand Canyon (I'm sorta far behind on updating the blog. I am currently writing this on Day 17 in Los Angeles...), I can honestly say that I actually liked Canyonlands National Park more than the Grand Canyon. I feel a little weird saying that...unAmerican or something. But that is not to say that if you are planning a family trip to the Grand Canyon, cancel your plans and fly to Utah instead. No, no, no. I cant even really explain how it is better. Liz said the difference to her was that the Grand Canyon was just SO big that you cant even comprehend how big it really is. It could pretty much be a picture and you wouldnt be able to tell the difference; it is too far away. Whereas Canyonlands is a bit smaller and more fathomable.

There was an awesome trail leading from the viewpoint seen above along the edge of the cliffs. Along the path we saw lizards, fake cave paintings, and some of the most amazing views I have ever seen in my life.

On our way out of the Park, we stopped at the other highlight of the Island in the Sky section, the Upheaval Dome.

The Dome was created in one of two ways: either a layer of salt underneath the canyon is pushing against the three mile-wide hole...or a meteor hit it. Whatever the reason, it was a pretty cool sight to see. The view from the top also gave us another chance to see our storm:

I climbed around on some rocks and almost fell on some cacti while Liz took more pictures of the storm and the Dome before we finally left the Park and headed south and back to Colorado, this time: Mesa Verde.

Day 7 (July 10): Utah-bound

Total Driving Distance: 425.4 miles (trip total: 2,725.4 miles)

States Traveled To: Colorado, Utah

Main Activity: Driving, Seeing Bruno, Arches National Park

We left Kevin's around 8 and thanked them for a lovely stay. We were headed for Moab, Utah, the closest town to Arches and Canyonlands National Park. Along the way, we wanted to stop and see the new Sacha Baren Cohen film, Bruno. This would prove to be more of a problem than you would think. As it turns out, there was a small theater in Moab, showing two films (neither of them Bruno). The second closest theater was in Grand Junction, Colorado, over 100 miles away. So our road trip that day was planned around the 1:10 showing of Bruno in Grand Junction, Colorado. On our way out of the Denver area, we stopped at The Kolache Factory, a place Kevin recommended us. A Kolache is (according to Wikipedia) "a type of pastryconsisting of fillings ranging from fruits (including poppy seed, raspberry, and apricot) to cheeses inside a bread roll." Liz got one with potato, egg, and cheese inside, and I got two, one with cream cheese and one with chocolate and cream cheese. They were sooo good.

We drove a few hours to Grand Junction where we stopped at the movie theater. Across the street was a good sandwich place, Schlotzsky's: Funny Name. Serious Sandwich. By the time we got our food, we had only ten minutes until the movie started, so we ate quickly then ran over to the theater.

I don't really know what I can say about Bruno on a blog that family will be reading. It was absolutely hilarious and disgusting. I found a short clip that is family-friendly when Bruno heads to the Middle East to try and solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict:

'Bruno' Hamas vs Hummus @ Yahoo! Video

If you enjoyed that, I am still not going to recommend that you see the movie. Wait for it to come out on TV and watch the edited version.

We drove the next hour or so and finally made it to Moab, Utah. On the way to the KOA we stopped at the Visitors Center of Arches National Park. It was about a million degrees outside. We heard from some of the Park Rangers inside that one of the best (if not the best) things to do at Arches is to hike up to the famous Delicate Arch (on the Utah license plate) and watch the sunset. The sun was supposed to set at around 845, so we went to the KOA first to check in before we did the hike.

On our way back to Arches, we stopped at a sandwich shop in town. We picked up a couple for the hike and also some free (day-old) bags of bread they were giving out.

The hike was steep. long. and hot. It was about a mile and half to the top, which would not have been bad were it not a mile and half on open rock face with no protection from the sun. We probably drank two or three liters of water by the time we reached the top, but we did make it there in time for the sunset.

There were actually a lot of people at the Arch. There was one large group of teenagers and a few adults that must of been a church group. I eavesdropped a little and overheard what must have been reflection time or something. There were a lot of families as well. The people sitting next to us went to Boston University, which was really weird!

We stayed up at the Arch for almost an hour. I climbed around and Liz took lots of pictures. We ate some of the free bread which tasted great after a hike.

By the time we started hiking back down, it was completely dark. Since I was not smart enough to throw a flashlight in our backpack, we had to stay a few feet behind this German couple who did have a flashlight. When we were almost at the bottom, we passed a family who were just beginning their hike to the Arch. And not only did they not have a flashlight, they had two babies who they were carrying on their backs and two other young children who could not have been older than five. It was almost ten by this time. People are crazy.

Day 6 (July 9): Go Braves!

Total Driving Distance:

States Traveled To: Colorado

Main Activity: Strolling downtown Boulder, the Braves-Rockies game

We actually (sort of) got up early the next day to drive to Boulder. We parked at 14^th and Walnut, then walked over to the famous Pearl Street. We spent our first hour or so looking at used bookstores. Liz went to a couple clothing stores and we went into some random stores. We found a cool smoke shop under a coffee place.

We ate lunch at a little Spanish joint called Juanita’s. The food was really good. Liz got a burrito that was bigger than her head. Once again, we were almost too full to move. But we managed to get up and crawl over to the Dushanbe teahouse that Jeff had told us about. It had been moved piece by piece to Boulder from Tajikistan, then completely rebuilt to look just as it had there. It was too busy for us to stop for a drink, but that didn’t stop us from giving a self-tour around the place.

On the way back to the car, I got us a little lost. All the parking garages look really similar and I was confused by all the streets (even though it was not that confusing). On the bright side, we did get to see more of Boulder, although I think Liz would have rather been in an air-conditioned car.

We stopped to see my old friend Tiffani Taylor on the way out of Boulder. She took us to a nice coffee shop and we had a much-needed iced coffee. After that, we stopped at a grocery store called King Sooper’s to buy tickets to the Braves-Rockies game that night. If you buy $25 worth of groceries, you can get great tickets for $10. Since we were running late and the game started in less than an hour, the girl at the counter sold us the $10 tickets even though we did not buy groceries. We drove back to Kevin and Jeff’s and Kevin drove with Liz and I to Coor’s Field for the game.

For $10, we had really great seats. We sat right at the foul post in left field, in the lower section. It may have been the best seats I have ever had at a major league game. The sun was blaring during the first several innings, but it quickly went down and the temperature was perfect for the rest of the game. One of the crowd photographer’s took this picture of us in the first inning:

If there is one thing I learned at the game, it is that Rockies fans are really nice. Four diehard fans sitting in front of us kept telling another fan to sit down when he tried to get the crowd to do the wave for about an hour, but they kindly asked us if it was okay for them to stand up during an intense part of the game. The cameraman next to us offered everyone around him a bag of sunflower seeds.

Unfortunately, the Braves lost. They had had a lead since the second inning, but gave it up in the bottom of the eighth. They were down by two going into the ninth and they did manage to score one run, making for a very exciting ending.

Day 5 (July 8): Being Lazy in Denver

Total Driving Distance: 35 miles (trip total: 2,213.2 miles)

States Traveled To: Colorado

Main Activity: Sleeping, Eating, Red Rocks Amphitheatre

At last we got to sleep in. We woke up around ten, but only to watch TV. We watched a few episodes of Futurama, then Liz watched Daisy of Love while I took a shower. We did a couple much-needed loads of laundry and then we were finally ready to go around two. Kevin and Jeff told us that we had to go see the Red Rocks Amphitheatre and check out Boulder. We decided to limit our time in the car as much as possible, so we pushed Boulder to the next day.

We drove ten miles to Red Rocks and after parking in a wrong (abandoned) parking lot, we stepped out of the car and into what must have been at least 95-degree weather. It was hot.

If you’ve ever been to the Amphitheatre, the one thing you probably remember (unless you went to an actual concert there) is the stairs. There are a lot of them. To add to it, it was really hot and we were still not adjusted to the altitude. The top of the Amphitheatre is about 6,500 feet above sea level. It was pretty cool. It would be amazing to see a concert there. If you are in the area, the Monolith Music Festival is happening soon. It sounds incredible.

We headed back to the house and turned the TV back on and I did a little more planning for our trip. When Kevin and Jeff came home, we decided to go out to eat. We walked down the street to a place called “the oven,” a really nice pizza place. The food was amazing and being the first “real” food we had eaten in quite a while, we ate a lot of it. We were stuffed when we left.

Day 4 (July 7): Rocky Mountain National Park

Total Driving Distance: 509.5 miles (trip total: 2,178.2 miles)

States Traveled To: South Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado

Main Activities: Driving, Rocky Mountain National Park

We left South Dakota around 8:30 in the morning, a little later than we had planned. We saw a sign reading PANCAKE BREAKFAST at the front desk, so we decided to check it out. For some reason we had thought it said FREE PANCAKE BREAKFAST, so we were bummed to find out that it was $6.50 for a plate of pancakes and bacon. Before leaving, I decided to pick up a KOA "Value Kard" which will s

ave us about 10% on all KOAs we stay at for the rest of the trip.

The drive through Wyoming was long. We only saw a gas station about once every fifty miles, yet we saw an adult videostore or strip club about every five miles. We tried to get through Wyoming as quickly as possible.

Once we reached Colorado, we headed straight for Rocky Mountain National Park via Estes Park, the beautiful mountain town. Our first stop was at the

Historic Stanley Hotel, aka the hotel that The Shining is based on. This was not the hotel used in the movie, but it was the one that Stephen King had in mind when he wrote the book.

Then we headed into the Park. I had actually been there before, but it is one of those places that you can never see all of and every time you go you see something new. The drive through the park is unbelievably beautiful. We stopped about every five minutes to walk short trails, check out scenic viewpoints, or even to just walk along the road instead of driving.

We drove past one viewpoint where we saw a lot of people gathered, so we stopped to see what all the hubbub was about. When we got out, we saw tons of birds and chipmunks running/flying around. These chipmunks were really strange because they weren't afraid of people. They were actually scurrying up to people and seeing if they had food. Liz was overwhelmed with the cuteness so she ran to get some bread to feed them. But when we began holding out bread for them to eat, we were promptly corrected by a man with a huge camera, who told us that chipmunks don't eat bread, they eat peanuts (duh.). So we fed them peanuts instead.

Shortly after that, we stopped at a high-altitude and windy trail. We walked out among the rocks but then we started shivering because it was so cold so we decided to turn back. But before we did, Liz noticed something moving in between rocks. It was a giant gopher! He was really fat but super fast for some reason. We immediately named him Goph and watched him as he leaped away at lightning-fast speed.

The next trail we stopped at was covered in snow. We saw two elk walking around in the snow and walked out to see what they were doing. When we reached the top of the hill, we saw an entire herd of elk grazing in the grass! Then the two elk we saw started playing with each other. At first we started they were fighting or bucking but then we figured out that they were just playing with each other. It was a sight to see.

Our next stop was the Visitor's Center, near one of the highest points in the Park, which turned out to be closed. Why it closes at 5:30 I do not know, but we were mad that we didn't get to check out the gift shop.

Next to the Visitor's Center was a long, steep trail to one of the best views in the entire Park. The trail was very tiring and the altitude got to us immediately. We took our time getting up and stopped to catch our breath at the top.

Leaving the Park, we saw more elk that were right on the side of the road. We also saw an enormous moose once we left the park.

That night we drove through the mountains to Denver, where we stayed with Liz's cousin Kevin and his boyfriend Jeff. It was amazing to finally sleep in a bed and it helped that their townhouse was one of the most beautiful houses I've ever been in. The suburb of Denver that they lived in, Lakewood, was equally beautiful and had so much going on. We were so excited to be able to relax (and not drive) for at least two days.