Into the Wilds of Utah

On our last frosty morning in Grand Junction, CO, we set out to explore the western side of Colorado National Monument. Sunny skies shone down on our freshly-washed car as we ascended the rocky road into the monument. We snapped a couple of good photos before setting off into Utah.

Balanced Rock, poised precariously over the road.

A view into the canyon. 

As we crossed into Utah, we appeared to be entering some sort of frozen apocalyptic wasteland, with no indicators of human habitation for dozens of miles around. These bleak surroundings changed soon after we left the interstate. Heading south, we entered the canyon of the Colorado River. Our route followed the river past small ranches on its banks, bottlenecks of ice in its channel, and increasingly stunning sandstone cliffs and pinnacles on either side. As night crept in, we reached Moab, with lies just outside of Arches National Park. We set up camp on the banks of the river and watched the silver moon illuminate the high cliffs on the far bank.

One of our first glimpses of Utah's stunning geology.

We spent the next two days touring Arches National Park. Theres not much to say about this landscape that can't be better expressed in pictures, so we'll let them do most of the talking.

Balanced Rock (Arches has one too).

Balanced Rock, another view.

Delicate Arch, the most photographed in the park.

The Pipe Organ & Tower of Babel (car shown for scale).

(Left to right) The Three Gossips, Sheep Rock, and Tower of Babel/Pipe Organ

The ever-present raven.

Petrified sand dunes in the foreground, with the La Sal Mountains behind.

The snow in the park had formed beautiful crytals.

North and South Window Arches.

Beneath the South Window.

Double Arch.

From beneath Double Arch.

The Fiery Furnace, a long strip of sandstone fins.

Park Avenue.

Moonrise from our second campsite.

The cliffs above our campsite.

Within the fins of the Fiery Furnace.

Landscape Arch (306 feet in length).

From Arches National Park we drove northward, then westward , then southward again to Bryce Canyon National Park. More pictures to come! 

Finishing up in Colorado.

On our second day in Denver, we toured the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. Highlights from the museum include a great collection of fossils from every era of prehistoric life. We spent just about the whole day at the museum before returning to our Couchsurfing host's house.

Yarn decor on a chain-link fence surrounding a construction site in downtown Denver.

On the following morning, we set out for Boulder. Driving through increasingly vigorous snowfall, we made it to the hostel with no trouble. The snow was really starting to pile up, so we decided to abandon our car at the hostel and walk downtown to explore. The Pearl Street mall is Boulder's main downtown shopping district. This pedestrians-only street is lined with interesting shops and enticing restaurants. We had a delicious hot lunch and solid beer at Mountain Sun Brewery, a Boulder favorite. Warm and rejuvenated, we explored the shops of Pearl  Street. Our favorite store by far was Art Source International, a shop with an unbelievable cast collection of antique maps (some centuries old) and posters from Colorado's yesteryear.

We awoke the next morning and walked to Boulder's beautiful public library, where we spent nearly the entire day applying for jobs, internships, and apprenticeships. We'll let you know if we get any good news!

A not-so-good picture of the Flatirons, Boulder's best-known geologic landmark.

On Tuesday the 11th, we checked out of the hostel and drove to Fort Collins, CO. Fort Collins, like seemingly every other city in Colorado, has a pedestrian-friendly downtown lined with funky shops, gourmet restaurants, and, of course, micro-breweries. Our original plan was to tour the New Belgium Brewery, but tours were booked solid for a week. A little disappointed, we wandered into CooperSmith's brewpub. They don't offer regular tours, but we decided to sit down at the bar to see what Coopersmith's had to offer. Our disappointment melted away as we washed down cheesy pub chips with pints of rich brown ale and chicory stout. In high spirits we set off to find the home of our Couchsurfing host. This was our first experience staying with a family. We were there right on time to celebrate one of the kids' 13th birthday with french bread pizza and a game of Apples to Apples for dinner. We spent the evening socializing with our hosts and their parents who visited, and headed out the next morning for Vail.

We had a beautiful drive through the snowy mountains, and got to Vail that evening. There, we stayed at our friend Ansel's (from William and Mary) family's condo. We had it all to ourselves for the night, which we spent enjoying the luxuries. The next day, we suited up and went cross-country skiing at the Nordic Center in Vail. This was Christy's first time, and we both got the hang of it after a little while. The snow didn't look all that deep until we fell; it was probably actually four feet deep or so.

Mountains at Vail

Cross-country skiing! (don't mind Connor's finger in the picture)

Connor skiing.

The view from the Nordic Center.

Another view from the Nordic Center.

In Vail Village.

That evening, Ansel, his girlfriend Cory, and the rest of his family got to Vail, and we all went out to dinner at a Mexican restaurant. It was SO DELICIOUS, the best Mexican food we'd had in a long time.

The next day, we leisurely made our way further Westward to Grand Junction, Colorado. It gets its name because it's situated near the confluence of the Colorado and Gunnison Rivers. We bummed around downtown for a little while, the Main Street of which is currently undergoing an uplift to make it into a walking mall. We met our couchsurfing host at the grocery store, all cooked dinner together, and headed downtown to hit up some bars with a few of his friends. We had a great night meeting all kinds of new people and seeing what "Junction" (that's what the locals call it) has to offer.

This brings us up to yesterday. We had a slow morning, and ate breakfast at Main Street Cafe, which was recommended by Connor's dad. A couple of delicious southwest-style breakfast burritos later, we headed out to see Colorado National Monument. We only had time for a short hike up to Devil's Kitchen, which is basically a boulder formation that makes a kind of room you can hang out in. We plan to visit the Monument again today to do a few more short hikes. For dinner, we headed out to nearby Fruita, and ate at the Hot Tomato Cafe, also recommended (required, actually) by Connor's dad.

Hot Tomato!

Colorado National Monument, looking eastward towards Grand Junction.

Same place, southward view.

Devil's Kitchen from the slope below.

"Christy's Kitchen"

Prickly pear cactus.

A little tree clinging to its tiny patch of soil.

Looking into No Thoroughfare Canyon from the Devil's Kitchen.

The high walls of Devil's Kitchen.

So, here we are, at Main Street Bagels in downtown Grand Junction. We both just had the best everything bagels with herb/garlic cream cheese. It rivals Bodo's. After we check out the other side of the Monument today, we're headed west into Utah. We plan to camp near Moab and Arches National Park. Excitement, excitement! Stay tuned for some cool arch pictures.

Statue here at Main St. Bagels.

Back on the road!

Hello from Denver! I hope everyone had lovely holiday celebrations these past couple of months.

Connor and I are back on the road! After spending the past six weeks or so with our families back in Virginia, we flew back out to Colorado Springs a couple days ago. Tom and Mary (friends of the family from long ago)  had watched over our car and everything in it, graciously allowing us to leave it parked in from of their house this whole time. We spent the past two nights at their house, which allowed us one more day to explore to area around the Springs.

Yesterday, we went out to the Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument. It's a fossil deposit of tons of prehistoric fossils of insects and plants, as well as a bunch of petrified redwood stumps preserved after a volcanic eruption a really long time ago. Of course, back in the early 1900s, the area was discovered and privatized, so most of the good stuff was carted away and ended up in people's private collections. They even tried to remove some of the massive petrified stumps. Now it's protected, but so much of the record is missing. It's sad. But, we still had a good visit.

Fossil beds landscape. This whole area used to be covered in a redwood forest.

"The Big Stump"

We also visited balanced rock, part of the Garden of the Gods park. 

Balanced Rock

Connor posing

Our car, with the rest of the park behind.

Today we repacked the car, and headed a little ways north to Denver. It's a bustling city! The downtown area has undergone quite a lot of renovation and revitalization, and was really neat to walk around and enjoy the atmosphere. Tonight we're couchsurfing at an awesome house with an awesome host. We cooked dinner together, chatted for a while, petted our host's dog Gigi, and are calling it an early night. Tomorrow we plan to explore the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, which is supposed to be pretty awesome.

It's good to be back in the car, on the road, and out adventuring!

From the Wintery Mountains to Warm Virginia

Hello world!

It has been a while since we've given you an update on our travels. Sorry about that.

We had a busy couple of weeks travelling around the tremendous mountains of Colorado. After a friendly neighbor at the Great Sand Dunes campground help us jump-start the car (after too much party music blasting from our car with the engine off, apparently) we set out westward towards Durango. We got our first taste of alpine Rocky Mountain environs as we crossed over the freshly snow-covered mountains of the San Juan and Rio Grande national forests. Here, spectacular rock pinnacles erupt from mountainsides dotted with evergreens, and the mountains loom over verdant pastureland in the valleys.

We reached Durango in the evening and checked into a dirt-cheap hotel room, since it was way too cold to be camping. The next day (or what little sliver of it the daylight savings shift seems to leave for us) we explored the historic downtown district of Durango. Despite housing thoroughly modern stores, the downtown area retains the look and feel of its frontier-town ancestry.

The following day, we awoke to flurries of snow falling outside the hotel window. Trying to ignore the bad omens, we drove northward into the mountains, heading for Ouray. As we crested the first of several mountain passes, we could tell that the weather was worsening. The third (and final) mountain pass was also the highest, around 13,000 feet. We made it up the mountain by following a snow plow, but the way down the north slope was up to us. Hard blowing snow made it nearly impossible to see the winding road ahead, but we managed to remain on track by following the ruts made by a previous car. After a few scary hairpin turns, we inched our way down into Ouray. By this time, the sky was darkening and the snow was showing little sign of letting up. After talking to our Couchsurfing host, we decided that we couldn't make it to her house, which lay some distance down an unpaved road. So, we decided to check into another cheap motel, then relieve some of the day's stress at the newly founded Ouray Brewery.

This is what we drove through.

By the following morning, temperatures were rising, the snow was melting, and the roads were clear. We hopped in the car and drove northward towards Montrose, intending to reach Crested Butte that evening. East of Montrose, we noticed a sign for the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. On a bit of a whim, we decided to check it out. Nothing could have prepared us for the stunning views which awaited. It's hard to tell exactly how deep this beautiful canyon is until you throw a snowball over the edge and watch it disappear from view long before it hits the bottom. We spent the entire afternoon exploring the many established viewpoints overlooking various sections of the canyon. As the sun dipped low, we decided to stay in the park's free (however snow-covered) campground, rather than continuing eastward. We set up camp, cooked dinner, and decided to head into Montrose to avoid the cold. After Christy washed our dinner dishes in a Target bathroom (she keeps it classy) we aimlessly wandered the gargantuan store, happy to be out of the cold wind.

Black Canyon of the Gunnison

The following morning, we drove to Crested Butte. Crested Butte is an unbelievably cute little ski town nestled between high mountains. We wandered the downtown area, with roads still blanketed in the previous night's snow, until late afternoon. After our Couchsurfing host, Sunny, got home from teaching preschool, we headed over to her house. We were ecstatic to find a warm cottage and a soft bed waiting for us. The next day, we did a but more wandering around town. After climbing a small hill which gave us a nice view of snow-covered Crested Butte, we heading down into the village. Christy found a fantastic winter coat in a thrift store, something she had been needing for a while. Later, we stroll for a couple of miles along the Lower Loop trail, a public multi-use trail built primarily on land reclaimed from a closed heavily-polluted coal mine (surprise, surprise). Thankfully, the land is now put to much better use by dog-walkers and mountain bikers.

Crested Butte

Frozen pond in the reclaimed mining area

Following our second night in Crested Butte, we drove westward to Colorado Springs. The landscape rapidly changed as we drove towards the plains of eastern Colorado. Exiting the high mountains, we headed through South Park (yes, the South Park), a vast expanse of gently-rolling grassland, used primarily for pasture. It's the perfect place for an imaginary town. As the sun dropped behind our car, it illuminated the red-orange rocks of the "front range". We soon arrived at our hosts', Tom and Mary, house. Tom was Christy's father's college roommate, and he and his wife Mary graciously agreed to host us for a few days.

Over the next few days, Mary and Tom led us on several hikes through Garden of the Gods park, an area of of towering red sandstone formations directly behind their neighborhood. We also did a bit of exploring in the city. First, we looked around Old Colorado City, which was the hard-living, seedy counterpart of refined Colorado Springs in the 19th century. Today, Colorado City is the hip shopping and entertainment district of Colorado Springs. We checked out a world of miniature sculptures at Magic Town before heading towards downtown Colorado Springs. On Tejos Ave., the Springs' main downtown strip, we found an expansive costume shop. Apparently Christy looks awesome in a fake beard (a la The Soggy Bottom Boys).

A very sunny day at Garden of the Gods Park

After spending a less-than-restful night dozing on the couch in the Colorado Springs Municipal Airport, we boarded a jet at 6 AM and flew home to Virginia on Monday the 22nd. Until January 5th, we'll be enjoying a relaxing holiday season with our families. The Subaru awaits us in Colorado Springs when we return.