Canyonlands

We had a great "quick tour" of Arches yesterday afternoon with the family, but to really feel like you've been to the park, some serious hiking needs to be involved. We went back to the visitor center at Arches and by the time we had talked to two volunteers we had determined the best bang for our buck (and for photo opps) was going to be the hike to Delicate Arch at sunset. So off to Canyonlands we went LOL! Our cabin was about 500 feet from the turnoff to Canyonlands and the turnoff was less than 7 miles from the entrance to Arches, so this wasn't a totally willy nilly decision or waste of gas. 

After the turnoff to Canyonlands, it must've been at least a 15-mile drive before we got to the "entrance." It was further than we thought but still quite remarkable how close these two parks are to each other when you consider how different they are from each other. The volunteer at Arches described Canyonlands as "another Grand Canyon." Essentially, that's it: A deep and wide and beautiful canyon carved out by a river with some interesting formations and sites along the way but without the crowds.

Canyonlands is mostly driving around and stopping at look outs. We did see an interesting road/bike path that actually went down into the canyon. Rodney is going to come back with his mountain bike and a mountain biking buddy (that would NOT be me) but for now, it's mostly just a drive-by park. On the car ride yesterday we listened to a portion of the book Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey (except we can never remember his name, so we just refer to him as "our author"). Rodney's biking buddy had mentioned it to him and we both bought a digital version of the book and had started reading it before the trip, but neither of us had finished the book. Rodney had also purchase the audio version of the book, so we listened to it in the car yesterday on the drive to Arches. (It was kind of fun that we had both gotten to the exact same place in our reading prior to yesterday so we just started the audio book on the next chapter.) In the book, written 50 years ago, he complains about "Industrial Tourism" and predicts what the future of National Parks will look like if it continues. This was the perfect example of it. 

We Are Off!

Saturday morning, Rodney and I made our lists (imagine that) and went shopping for the last of the camping supplies and our groceries for the week. We got to the house to start packing and organizing. Then we were going to pick up lunch on our way out of town.

At the last minute, Dain, Sara, and the boys decided to go with us just for our Day 1. Arches is only 1.5 hours from Grand Junction and one of the things they wanted to do when they moved to Grand Junction was take advantage of the incredible outdoor opportunities available to them. However, they really hadn't had time to do any of that yet, so Arches was their first journey.

After a late lunch (we rendezvoused at McDonald's), we headed out.

The major north/south streets in Grand Junction are simply numbered: 22 street, 25 street, 24 1/2 street, etc. It turns out, those numbers are the distance from the Utah border. So it didn't take very long for us to feel like we were really off on our big adventure because very quickly, we crossed the Utah border.

We drove straight to Arches where Rodney purchased a National Park Pass for $80. It's good for a year, but we were going to more than break even with it in just five days. Arches: $10 a day. A quick stop at the Visitor Center to watch the orientation movie and ask a few questions (and take a potty break and play on the brass statues) and then we were off. Rodney and I squeezed into the family van and we drove to the major highlights of Arches. We drove past the Three Gossips (we decided they looked more like the Three Wisemen) and to The Windows area and Balanced Rock. We also drove to the Delicate Arch viewing area. It was all so impressive and we had beautiful weather.

After about 3 hours in the park, we all drove to Arch View Resort where Rodney and I had a cabin reserved and after a lot of futility and hard work, we successfully created some kind of dinner for the 6 of us to eat: Kabobs (off the stick after 20 minutes on a warm charcoal pile and then fried/heated in the frying pan on the Coleman stove) and rice (without butter....something to pick up at our next stop) with warmed up marshmallows for dessert. After dinner, Dain played guitar and we sang inside the cabin, then the family headed back to Grand Junction and the two of us called it a night, each of us with our iPhones in the dark (but plugged in for recharging...the joys of having a cabin)

The Journey Begins...

You'd think sitting in the Boston airport at 6am waiting for my flight to Denver would be the beginning of the journey, but in fact, it started more than 24 hours before that. Wednesday night, I stayed up late packing but got up at 4:00am in order to pack the car and get on the road by 5:15 in order to be in Bangor, ME by 7:15am for the big MLTI conference. The exciting day with over 1,000 7th-12th graders and their teachers from across the state, plus my teacher preparation colleagues from 6 universities in Maine finished around 3:30. Then I drove two hours to Portland for a 7:30pm appointment at The Apple Store. After dinner and some errands, I took a little nap at the Concord Bus Terminal and caught the 3:15am bus to Logan. NOW I'm here and there's a 50-minute delay on the flight.

My flight did take off at the re-appointed hour and arrived 4 hours later as re-scheduled. Thank goodness it was a non-stop cuz now it's time to pick up my rent car and drive 5+ hours to Grand Junction.

The good news is, I always get to see the art work of my former UMF colleagu, Chris Lavery whenever I fly into Denver:

Which is so much better than the art work inside the Denver airport (or the conspiracy theory that goes with it):

And I had beautiful weather on a gorgeous day with incredible scenery to make the time fly pretty quickly.

I finally arrived in Grand Junction at 6pm, ending the start of this journey after 39 hours. I was soooo tired of sitting!

8/11/11 Old Fall River Road

We found the webpage "Rocky in a Day" that suggested what to see and do if you only had one day in RMNP. Since we didn't arrive until noon, we had to shorten that to "if you only had half a day," but we took this author's advice and weren't disappointed.

We skipped some of the stops after Bear Lake and headed straight to Old Fall River Road. It is 9 miles of one-lane, narrow, dirt road filled with switchbacks . . . totally worth it! Built in 1913, it was the first road to cross the Rockies in northern Colorado. Rodney said it was like driving on Mount Washington in New Hampshire only more so. Think of your skinniest road next to ledges with big drop offs and you've got a good picture of Old Fall River Road.

Yep. It's this treacherous most of the way. Pretty scary but soooo gorgeous.

The road climbed and climbed . . . lots of switchbacks . . . and pretty soon, we were above the tree line.

The Alpine Visitor Center is at the end of Old Fall River Road and its elevation is 11,798 feet. It's closed more often than its open due to snow.