Change of plans

Dinosaur N.M. Is closed in an hour and not worth it to stay another night so we will be starting our trip back home. I'm going through Colorado and driving until I can't drive anymore.

More Moab

So we woke up fairly early today. We drove down the road to Dead Horse Point State Park. We just did some biking on the trails. Minor mountain biking I guess. I don't know. Neither one of us have ever biked a trail like those. 

Overlook

Shortly after Ryan wiped out. Who he got on film. Because he was filming while biking. 

Another overlook off another trail. There's a reservoir and the Colorado River down there.

After Dead Horse we went to Arches. It was our 4th National Park so we upgraded all our receipts for an annual pass and initially got into the park for $5.

It's pretty awesome but it's also 100° outside now.

Standing on the car to get a better panorama.

This is Balanced Rock.

We're now heading out back to Moab. Almost ran out of gas. Still might. 

5 miles to Moab. 6 miles to empty.

::sigh:: Ryan.... :) It's all good.

Then we're going to go to Dinosaur National Monument and then home and of there's something along the way home that we want to so we might stop.

See everyone very soon!

- Tina

Moab

We drove across half the state today. Drove through Capital Reef National Park. Got a campsite at Horsethief Campgroud just outside of Moab. Now we're at Moab Brewery for dinner. There's been a fire ban the last few days so no bonfires meaning all we've been able to eat are sandwiches and clif bars. Which is fine but we've got a lot of camp food we can't make so dinner is a must. It's 7:17 here and we've only had a sandwich and some crackers today. :P

We're barely hanging on. Life is tough...

No I'm kidding. It's great. We stopped at Goblin Valley:

These are goblins. :) again, I don't know how panoramas do on this blog but it's the only one I have on my phone.

We'll get dinner and maybe check out Dead Horse Point State Park. Sleep and do Arches and maybe Canyonlands tomorrow morning before heading to Vernal, UT for Dinosaur National Monument then home.

Well...... 

That's about it for now.

- Tina

More driving

We woke up a little later this morning. We're headed to Goblin Valley State Park. Currently were driving through or around the Grad Staircase - Escalante National Monument. 

Our plan is goblin valley s.p., arches n.p., canyonlands n.p. (maybe), dinosaur n.m., head straight home.

I have NO idea when I'm supposed to be back at work.

That is all for now.

Ryan has nothing to say...

- Tina

Oh.... My Goodness.

Bryce Canyon is outrageously gorgeous.

We hiked the Queen's Garden Trail and then veered off onto half of the the Navajo Loop. The last part was pretty strenuous but that's because it's gotta pull you back out of the canyon. Here are some pictures..

(Sporting our Utah clothes!)

Look! An itty bitty Ryan!

Well that was our hike in a nutshell.

We're going to drive to a couple more lookouts until it gets dark and then try to get some night sky shots.

Goodnight!

- Tina

Bryce Canyon

Beautiful place. We just pulled in. Have a campsite up the road a few miles. There are prairie dogs running around like squirrels. 

I got my postmark:

Can't really read it. But I wanted one too. 

There are tons of pretty things here. I'll post pictures after our hike because there's actually service at the visitors center.

Talk to you soon!

- Tina

Arizona - Grand Canyon

Well we slept in a walmart parking lot last night and got up and went to Grand Canyon National Park. Very very cool. Nice drive up to it. And holy cow! THAT is a BIG canyon. We wet up to the North rim which is supposedly less crowded and quieter but there aren't as many stops along the road to view it. But like I told Ryan, I feel like it's pretty much going to look the same no matter which way you look at it unless you're in it. The hike that went into the canyon was a 3000ft elevation drop in under 2 miles. It wasn't recommended to try in one day so we skipped it. But it was beautiful and I'm glad we stopped.

I don't know how well that panoramic works on 'mobile devices' but I'll try it out anyways.

Now something scary... We were driving and saw black smoke and as we got closer it was a wildfire right on both sides of the road just in the brush. Driving through it you could feel the heat of the fire. It was kinda scary. And it must have started recently because there were no fire trucks or emergency vehicles. We saw them a few minutes down the road rushing to it but SHEESH! It was so scattered it couldn't have been from a cigarette I don't think. It was on both sides of the highway. It might jit be that dry as that hot out. Fire danger signs everywhere say "Very High" an there's a fire ban just about everywhere so no bonfires or charcoal BBQs allowed. Just cook stoves. Which we don't have.

Oh.. Local bank says it's 100°F

Woo!

We're on our way to Bryce Canyon National Park and then probably Goblin Valley State Park, then Dead Horse Point, followed by Arches National Park and then Dinosaur National Monument. Then head home.

That's the rough plan. May or may not stick to it but it sounds good and reasonable for time left.

I hope we're keeping things somewhat sequential on here and not leaving that much out.

Probably going to be my turn to drive soon. Later!

-Tina

Grafton, UT

Just drove through the ghost town of Grafton and got to walk through and old house from the 1800s. Saw a couple fox on the way out. It was a very cool place. They had a schoolhouse, 2 houses, maybe a third. And a cemetery. Some of them were killed by 'Indians' others had scarlet fever. Total time warp. Very cool.

Learned a lot about the town.

- Tina

Updater-ma-bob..

So last night we biked to the sunset view overlook. It was in both Ryan and my top 3 favorite sunsets/sunrises. Sooooo pretty. Let me tell you though. The bike there was rough! It was probably less than 1/4 miles away from camp and I felt like I had been sitting on the couch for 3 years and decided to bike uphill for 2 hours in the middle of winter. I was so winded. It's hard at 10K feet haha. Air was cold so my throat was rough. But yeah. Fun!

Went back to camp and I started a fire. I rock at fires. I told Ryan my dad would be proud. He taught me well. Every time he had a bonfire he explained what he was doing and what it needed and when. My fire was burning big and hot and I kept it going for quite a while.

Went to bed and woke up early to head to Zion.

And....

We made it to Zion! It's gorgeous! We probably made it to the campground 5 minutes too late to get a site so we don't have a campground yet. We heard about this open camp at Kalob Reservoir. We'll try that. It's closer to the Grand Canyon which should be tomorrow's journey. Today we drove through the Mt Carmel Hwy tunnel. It's a mile long. Unlit. Crazy cool. Then we hopped on the shuttle bus to the last stop deeper into the canyon and walked along (and through) the river which led to the Narrows.

Not 100% sure we made it to the narrows but we walked through the river and turned around at a little waterfall. On the way back we got to the point where you cross a big fat log. I got halfway and this guy coming the opposite way decides to get on and over to wait. So I'm trying to avoid him and my hiking boots had some water sloshing around in them. I slip. Hit my ass on the rock beneath me and slid into the river.

I'm hurting. But whatever. 

Now we have no idea how long we've been on that hike so we decided to eat and then find camp instead of trying to hike again. 

Yep. Sorry not alot of pictures. We were in water half the time. Didn't want to pull it out much.

And updating is hard. There's no service up here. I'm writing this stuff and posting it when we have the service to do it. 

But we're I've and having fun!

But I want to wash my face first chance I get.

- Tina

Greetings!

So here we are. We'll wait another day to see Zion and then we'll probably have to swing down to see the Grand Canyon. We're in Brian Head, UT and camping at Cedar Breaks National Monument. The most beautiful and different thing we've seen on this trip:

We're camping at 10,000 feet!! It's going to be a tad chilly. But we're surrounded by beautiful things.

The campground has HOT WATER SHOWERS! Ermagherd! It also has 'Sunset View Overlook' which I'm hoping to catch the actual sunset there. As they have a night sky viewing area because damn there'll be a lot of stars. :)

We also got a corner campsite. Yes, we're supposed to put the tent in that big squared off ROCKY area, but forget that. I'm not sleeping on rocks.

By the way.. Tim, your tent doesn't stink anymore and it's working PERFECT for these one night stays. We're set up/broken down so quick. It's awesome. And the headlamps pretty tight too. Didn't take the lantern. Have to figure out how to use it first. :) 

But thanks for all that stuff. Making this trip that much more easy!

We don't have any service at the campground.. Obviously. But we're in town getting beer and pizza.

I guess you can't take my word, but perhaps TOMORROW we'll hit Zion.

We stopped in this small town at a visitor center and this woman was SO helpful. She gave us a map/list of FREE campsites somewhat near Zion and told is where to avoid because of high prices.

And I bought the movie Camp Nowhere at the 'random shop' next door. Haha :)

Question to ask a local.. "Do your ears just get used to popping all the time, or is it still just an everyday annoyance when you drive to town?"

Talk to you soon!

-Tina

Good morning!

Just woke up at our first campsite. We're going to roam around a bit and check out the trails. There's a visitor center a few miles up the road and some hiking trails so were goin to bike up to that ad then hike some trails and head more towards Zion. We were going to hike a bit of the trail at our campground but we ended up talking to the camp host. He's such a nice guy. He was telling us about his travels and people he's met at different campgrounds throughout the Midwest and east coast. He volunteers to host campsites and he'll leave a month or so early so he can take his time and sight see. Very nice talking to him.

So yeah, didn't do the trail here but it's only 8:30 and we don't have to be gone until 2:00. He also have us a heads up to more places to find decent campsites. He also joked about crazy prices on bad crowded campgrounds. There are probably only 8 people camping here right now and there are 30ish campsites.

We got number 28.

FYI- If you ever camp here (Fremont Indian State Park), 28 is baller. Unless you need a double site, those are pretty much all good. But for single sites, 28 is the best. And we lucked out getting it. The last person left yesterday afternoon and the next person is coming tonight. So yeah.. Pretty lucky. :)

Alright. Time to go hiking.

P.S. Ryan made Jiffy Pop for the first time last night. He did well. :)

- Tina

Holy cow

We made it. We're at Fremont Indian State Park. Let me tell you. Finding camp sites in Utah is ridiculous. I'm sorry but I'm not paying near 30$ a night to camp in a crappy camp site. But we found one for 13$. It's pretty. There are bunnies everywhere! :)

Hikes and such.

Oh. I will also say Utah's websites suck and their directional signs also suck. And addresses given on websites are inaccurate. Hmmmm. But we'll be here tonight and then maybe start heading to Zion tomorrow afternoon?

-Tina

And we're off..

Into the desert we go..

Lazy Day

We've been so busy since leaving Sunday morning that we decided to have a lazy day. After finally being able to sleep in a bed, we got up and went out to Utah's Hogule Zoo. There we enjoyed the sights and sounds, watched a great bird show, and took in the mountain backdrop.

Afterwords we returned to the hotel, watched some World Cup, and have since been lounging around. Tomorrow we will decided if we want to spend more time in SLC or head into the desert.

Room with a View

The view from our room for the next couple days.

City of the Salted Lake

We are now in SLC.  Before I go into detail here is an update on what we did earlier.

After spending another night sleeping in the car (I would die if I had to three nights in a row) we got up early and booked a place to stay in Salt Lake City.  We made the decision to do a hike in Logan, north of SLC, before hitting the hotel.

A few visitor centers later we reach Utah. It was a little cloudy and wet but what a beautiful place. After getting some help from a park ranger we arrived at the Wind Cave hike trail. 1.9 miles each way and a 1,000 foot elevation gain.

The cave was formed from water and wind and was terryfing (straight drop off) and amazing at the same time.

We are here now in Salt Lake City and I don't want to brag but the room I booked is pretty nice and for a good price too. The view from our window is.. well.. I'll show it later. That's enough for now.

-Ry

On our way to Salt Lake City

First.. Here are a couple more pictures from Curt Gowdy State Park. It said you have to pay 6 bucks at the fee booth which we never saw. We almost walked into someone's rented lodge thinking it was the fee booth. Oops.

Never had to pay but we took half of the Nature Trail before it dipped off into the woods. We saw an owl almost right away. Great Horned Owl I believe, but that was my first time seeing an owl outside of a zoo. So I was pretty excited. Then around the bend we saw another owl perched on a fallen tree. It was a different type of owl. We aren't sure what it was. Then a second one of that type popped up from under the tree. THREE wild owls in under 10 minutes. I got some ok pictures. Then we headed out to start making our way towards SLC.

That's me looking at the first owl. Ryan told me to stop and pointed. I hadn't even noticed it, I was too busy trying to avoid getting snagged on cactus.

We managed to get a pretty decent room for cheap just outside of Salt Lake City. We'll get there before check-in so we're going to Logan (North of Salt Lake City) and doing the Wind Cave hike. Maybe if we still have extra time we'll stay in Logan and go to the Willow Park Zoo. 

Not sure what our first plan is for SLC but I'll let you know!

- Tina

P.S. Here's me sleeping in the trunk!

Curt Gowdy State Park

Nice little park. Saw lots of wildlife.

Into Wyoming

We're currently in Cheyenne, Wyoming. We just got done eating at Jackson's Sports Grille to watch the USA vs Ghana game. 

WE WON!!! And Dempsey scored in the first minute. Love that guy. Altidores got a hamstring injury but he'll be alright.

Last night we slept in the trunk haha. Kind of uncomfortable for Ryan but I'm little so I managed. He's probably going to hve to suck it up again tonight cause I just want to drive straight through to salt Lake City. 

We're on our way to Curt Gowdy State Park. We'll hang out there for a bit and then we'll split and drive as long as we can handle. 

I'm getting antsy to get to Utah.

I'll post some pictures of the State Park later tonight.

Miss ya'll!

-Tina

P.S. Ryan took the wrong exit and turned into an Air Force Base and had to get carded and look all confused and stuff. I was giggling the whole time.

Nobody got arrested.

DANGER! CAUTION!

Last rest area before Wyoming. Shit just got real.. -Ry

First night coming to a close

So I (Tina) just finished my 3rd World Beer Tour *330* beers across all 3- at Old Chicago and won myself a pretty nifty duffle bag (which may come in handy on this trip). We're on our way to North Platte, Nebraska where we'll sleep in the trunk/backseat. And then in the morning hit up a State Park in the area and then head to Cheyenne, Wyoming and catch a  VERY IMPORTANT (Ryan's words) soccer game. And then see a movie at Lincoln Theater (built in 1871- I think). And then head out to Salt Lake City. That's the plan. We just drove through 3ish miles of dead fish smell.

Gross, Nebraska.... Gross.

See you tomorrow!

Sunken Gardens

Sunken Gardens is just a cute little garden/park near the university. And across the street is the Bicentennial Cascade Sculpture with a big rose garden.

Nebraska!

We made it to state 3. We're stopping at the Sunken Gardens in Lincoln, Nebraska. We'll be there in about an hour.

Didn't know what to expect but we were both suprise to see skyscrapers in Omaha.

Almost through 2nd state.

Only 45 miles left of Iowa.. 

This is probably the 1000th windmill we've seen.

Not through Iowa yet

But we have competed the alphabet game and have seen license plates from 21 states (including Minnesota)

And we're off!

First stop.. Omaha, Nebraska! We'll be there in 6 hours.

Tomorrow!

We head out tomorrow morning. We're dropping off Blackjack at Sarah & Zach's and then were outta here!

We're going to drive through Iowa, Nebraska and Wyoming. We'll probably come home the same way.

First stop in Utah is going to be Salt Lake City. We'll get a hotel for 2 nights and the rest of the time we'll camp the rest of the time. Maybe sleep in the car a couple times. Might even drop down to see the Grand Canyon! 

But we'll keep you posted!

-Tina

Never too late to start a travel blog.

Even though our adventures began several years ago, it is never too late to start writing about them. Ryan and I have a trip to Utah planned for the second half of June. I might be wanting to keep a record of where I've been in case the same thing happens to me that happened to Aron Ralston. Confused? Watch the movie 127 hours..

Just taking precautions. :)

So when we leave, we'll be able to update whenever we can, provided we find a place with service. We'll try to give an itinerary or something. Leave notes in the car. haha
Talk to you from Utah!

- T