Bryce Canyon National Park - Ruby's Inn, Utah

The next morning we headed westward along Utah Highway 12 towards Bryce National Park. We had been told that this highway was both beautiful and challenging and boy were those reports correct. Beautiful mountain scenery, including aspens with gorgeous golden foliage were everywhere along the highway. At the same time, there were many sharp, twisting turns and steep drop-offs, including one section where the two lane highway ran along a mountain spine with sharp drop-offs on both sides. Needless to say, Jo avoided looking outside at these drop-offs and instead spent her time reading her camera manual with her eyes firming fixed at the manual which she held in the space between the driver and passage seats. That is why we have no pictures of those portions of the highway with the steep drop-offs. LOL!!!!! But the beauty of the scenery made it definitely worth while taking Highway 12 to Bryce Canyon.

We were not surprised to find when we arrived at the campground at Ruby’s Inn, that the higher elevation (almost 8,000 feet) was accompanied by much colder temperatures. For the first time on our Great Adventure, it was necessary for us to disconnect and drain our outside water lines each night because of freezing overnight temperatures. While we found this to be an inconvenience, our friends Rick and Ann were even more distressed since their “70 degree-90 degree rule” meant that they do not like staying at any places where the temperature dropped below 70 degrees , to say nothing of freezing temperatures!!!

But boy was it worth it!!! Unlike our previous trip to Bryce two and one-half years ago, in the spring of 2005, this time there was no snow yet at the park. The first day, we visited the numerous overlooks along the scenic drive in the park which allowed visitors to see all the beautiful rock formations carved out over the centuries by wind and water erosion. Jo was in hog heaven and took hundred and hundreds of photographs trying to capture how the different angles of light at the various overlooks changed the way the rock formations appeared. The climax was the beautiful views from sunset point as the setting sun seems to turn many of the hoodoos transparent as the setting sun shone through the rock formations to where we were perched at Sunset Point.

The next morning Jo dragged David out of bed while it was still dark outside so that she could photograph the hoodoos in the light of the rising sun. As luck would have it, there were rain clouds to the east which blocked the rising sun and destroyed her photographic hopes. David, on the other hand, was wishing he had had a few more hours of sleep!!!!

All this was soon supplanted by the wonders of hiking down into Bryce Canyon. Two years ago, we had not been able to hike into the canyon because the trails down had all been snowed in. No, while we had the cold, snow had not yet arrived. Thanks to the travel books we had with us, we started our hike by going down the Navajo Trail. We were astonished at the beautiful, sheer rock walls of the narrow passage the trail took through the rock formations, particularly in the section they referred to as “Wall Street.” Amazing to see the sheer walls rising above you in a slot canyon only a few feet wide carved by flash floods during the last several thousand years. It was further astonishing to find a few tall pine trees growing up right in the middle of these narrow slot canyons. Good thing Jo had her camera along as we don’t think people would believe just how gorgeous this scenery was. The beauty of this hike was enhanced by the fact that we had this trail virtually to ourselves. Except for a family of four, with two small children, who lagged substantially behind us, there was no one else anywhere around us on the Navajo Trail. This is probably a benefit of our having gotten up at an ungodly early hour in the hopes of taking pictures when the sun rose. While this early start didn’t give us the early sunrise pictures, it did give us wonderful solitude on the Navajo Trail.

This solitude continued for the next hour when we left the Navajo Trail and started on the Queens Court Trail” along the floor of Bryce Canyon. The beauty of hiking in Bryce Canyon is that, once to hike down into the canyon, the trail along the floor of the canyon if fairly level for several miles. We really enjoyed both eh solitude of the trail and the different vantage points of being able to look at the hoodoos from ground level looking up rather than being confined to looking down at them from the overlooks above.

During the last third of the hike, as we started to climb back up to the canyon rim, we began to encounter other hikers who were starting down from the trailhead for the Queen’s Court Trail. As we progressed, the number of hikers going in the other direction increased to the point that it began to feel like we were walking along a busy sidewalk in downtown Washington D.C. The extent to which this diminished the enjoyment of the latter portion of this hike only accentuated just how wonderful it had been for the first two thirds of the hike when we had had the trail virtually to ourselves. Notwithstanding the crowds we had experienced at the end of the hike, we finished our hike still carrying the wonderful visions of the beauty of the Navajo Trail and the wonder of hiking the floor of the canyon in solitude.

That night, while staying in the Ruby’s Inn campground, we had some of the heaviest rains we had experienced since leaving Illinois. We wondered whether this heavy rainfall had anything to do with the fact that we were spending that evening with our friends from Illinois, Rick and Ann!!!! Nothing like having friends over for games and several glasses of wine while it is raining outside!!!!

While weather.com had assured us that the overnight temperature would finally be above freezing, David was dismayed the next morning to find that rain water from the overnight rains had turned to ice. Before he could roll up the toneau cover on the pickup truck, so that we could hitch up to the Big Sky, he had to scrape sheets of ice off the toneau cover. An when Jo went to retract the slides, David had to dodge aside to avoid being struck by pieces of ices falling down from the toppers on the slides which had collected rain water from the night before which subsequently froze into ice. Thank gosh we are heading to lower altitudes and warmer weather.

Capitol Reef National Park - Torrey, Utah

After leaving Natural Bridges National Monument, we continued northward toward Capitol Reef National Park. We were delighted to find that the route we were taking took us through some beautiful scenery as we came down to the canyons cut by the Colorado River in this area. Gosh what beautiful red rock!!!! And to think that this was just a public highway rather than another national park. The only downside to this beautiful scenery around the Colorado River Basin was that it made our initial exposure to Capitol Reef National Park seemingly disappointing. To get to our campsite in Torrey, Utah, at the western side of Capitol Reef NP, we took the highway that cut across the mid section of the park. Whether because of the beautiful scenery we had seen in the Colorado River Basin, or because of the long day’s drive, we were not significantly impressed by the initial exposure to Capitol Reef NP. It just seems to be another batch of nice looking rocks!!!!!!!!

That afternoon, we linked up with our friends Rick and Ann at the campground in Torrey where they had been staying for the last several days. They spoke excitedly about how beautiful they had found the area during the off-road treks they had undertaken in their jeep during the last several days. Encouraged by their enthusiasm we looked forward to giving Capitol Reef a chance to impress us.

The following morning, we started our tour of Capitol Reef by visiting some of the overlooks on the western side of the park. We enjoyed both nice views from the overlooks and a feeling of delight at the fact that the overlooks were not as crowded as things had been at Arches and Canyonlands NPs. After the overlooks, we visited the remnants of the farming community of Fruita, where some bold Mormon settlers had planted and maintained orchards before the park service took over their property 70 years ago. At the encouragement of a ranger at one of the historical settler cabins we visited, we went by a nearby orchard to try our hand at picking some ripening apples. Boy did Jo take to this adventure. Was she ever enthusiastic about using that 10 foot pole to pick several pounds of local apples. At the same time, she was anxious to capture on film several deer close by who were enjoying the eating of the apples which tourists like us inadvertently knocked to the ground in our efforts to act as fruit pickers. No doubt any farmer would have fired the two of us as fruit pickers since we managed to knock to the ground as many apples as we managed to snare in our ten foot fruit picker. Fortunately we only had to pay for the apples we put in our bag and not for those we ate or left lying on the ground because the fall had bruised them irreparably.

That afternoon, we drove down to the trailhead for the “Grand Wash Trail.” This was a dry wash, which is a streambed which in times of flood waters carves its way through the rock canyon walls. In this case, the dry streambed passed through a beautiful canyon area which it had carved over centuries, including “the narrows”, a slot canyon area with sheer rock walls rising hundreds of feet above us. It was interesting to imagine what it would be like when heavy rains turned this dry wash into raging flash floods. The bad news was that there were threatening storm clouds during the early portions of our hike which had us fearful that we might be caught in one of those flash floods. The good news, which is obviously from the fact that we are writing up this description of the day’s activities, is that the rain storms never struck, so our fears of a flash flood were not realized. So Jo was no able to tell David “I told you so”. LOL!!!!!!!

Our hike through the Grand Wash Trail, coupled with our fruit picking experience in Fruita, wonderfully transformed our attitude toward Capitol Reef NP into a very positive mindset. One consequence of this transformation was that the rock formations that we were driving through now looked even more attractive to us. Oh let’s hear it for the power of positive thinking! All in all, we finished our visit to Capitol Reef National Park with a much more positive impressive than we had had 24 hours earlier.

Natural Bridges National Monument - Utah

The next morning we headed up towards Capitol Reef National Park to meet up with our friends Rick and Ann. Around lunch time, we passed by National Bridges National Monument, and decided to take advantage of the opportunity to drop in their to have lunch and to see what this National monument had to offer. We were entertained by a very friend park ranger at the information desk in the visitors center who not only persuaded us it was worthwhile to take the standard one hour driving tour through the monument but shared with us how he preferred to live full time at the National Monument rather than be bothered with having anything to do with life outside the monument. We are sure the park service appreciated having such a dedicated public servant who is quite content to live on premises for 24/7 and help keep an eye on things when other employees would normally head home. At the ranger’s suggestion and approval, we dropped the Big Sky in the visitor’s parking lot so that we could take the scenic loop tour in just our truck.

National Bridges has three large rock bridges spanning the river gorge running through the park. It was both easy and pleasant to take the one hour scenic loop tour and to stop at the three overlooks so that we could see all three of these natural bridges with minimal effort.

Monument Valley - Utah & Arizona

The next morning, we left Cortez and headed toward Monument Valley, the site of many of the beautiful formations that were pictured in countless western movies over the years, particularly the John Wayne movies. In route we passed by Four Corners, the point where Colorado, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico all meet at one point. We were surprised to learn that this unique meeting point of four states in located on Navajo land and is not public property. We paid our entry fee and walked over to the platform overlooking the geographic meeting point of these four states. We took turns photographing each other as we simultaneously straddled all four states. Let’s see any of you others try to be in four states at the same time. LOL!!!!!!! Definitely worth the small admission charge, which we viewed as partial recompense to the Navajo for all of the ways in which the white settlers had treated them so poorly during last 150 years.

After several hours of driving through beautiful countryside in Arizona, we crossed back into Utah and arrived at Gouldings RV campground in the heart of Monument Valley. The Gouldings had been two of the few whites who made any effort 70-80 years ago to interact with the native Navajo living on their reservations. On the height of the great depression, Fred Goulding was successful in persuading director John Ford to film many of his westerns in Monument Valley, including Stagecoach and several other westerns featuring John Wayne. Subsequently, they were successful in building a substantial resort including lodge, campground, grocery store, helicopter tours…….!!!!!!!

We signed up for their backcountry tour of Monument Valley and were glad we did so as they were able to take us to many place in the backcountry of Monument Valley that were off limits to the general public. Our first stop was at a Navajo Hogan where an elderly Navajo woman demonstrated various aspects of early life for the Navajo, including rug weaving and basket making. The highlight of this stop was when she asked for a volunteer to demonstrate how young Navajo women would tie up their hair using colorful home-made yarn. Jo volunteered as was treated to a 200 year old style hairdo, complete with colorful home-made yellow yearn. This was some of the most beautiful rock formations and landscape that we have seen outside of national parks. After a very pleasant 5 hour motorized tour of the valley, we were able to get back to a well situation observation point where we could see the light of the setting sun on the monuments followed moments later by a full moon rising over the monuments on the eastern horizon. Jo was barely able to fit all of the photographs she was taking on the two gig memory card in her camera. LOL LOL !!!!

Mesa Verde National Park - Colorado

After having spent a wonderful week in Moab, Utah visiting Arches NP, Canyonlands NP and Dead Horse State Park, we reluctantly said farewell and headed south to Mesa Verde NP in Colorado. It took less than two hours to go from Moab UT to Cortez, CO which is just west of Mesa Verde. This gave us the opportunity to visit the park on Monday afternoon after dropping our Big Sky at a nearby private campground. We hadn’t realized just how long of a drive it was from the entrance of the park to where the cliff dwellings were located, a drive accentuated by several stretches where the road was perched on the edge of precipitous drop-offs, with no guard rail between us and the abyss!!!!!!!!! Needless to say, Jo was having no part of actually driving along these stretches of the road!!
We were fortunate enough to be able to buy tickets at the Visitors Center for a late afternoon tour of the Cliff Palace, the largest individual collection of dwellings in the park. Cliff Palace is situated in a very wide alcove tucked under an overhang in a canyon wall. We had to climb down more than 100 feet, using ladders for part of this journey in order to reach the alcove where the Cliff Palace dwellings are located. At least we were spared having to use the hand and toe holds which the original Native Americans had used on a daily basis to climb up and down between their dwellings in the alcove and the mesa above where they had their fields of corn.
We were surprised to learn that the archeologists do not really know why Meza Verde Indians chose to build their dwellings in these difficult-to-access alcoves. They had been building pueblo housing on the mesa above for several hundred years before suddenly deciding around 1200 A.D. to move into whatever alcoves they could find in various sections of the canyon walls in this area. The early theories had been that they moved off of the flat mesas and down into these alcoves to secure dwelling locations that would be easier to defend from hostile tribes. This theory is now coming into doubt, however, because of the absence of any evidence of warfare taking place in this area at the time when the Indians moved their dwellings.

Whatever the reason for the move, it was intriguing to see how they succeeded in building tiny little dwelling sin the limited space available in these alcoves. A typical “room” for a family in the Cliff Palace area was only about 6’ by 8’ or smaller. Most of these rooms had no space for a fireplace inside, so they were quite cold in the winter time and apparently common practice when winter came was for families to move into the underground Kivas’, the small, circular rooms typically carved down into the ground and covered with a roof that acted as the only real courtyard areas in places like Cliff Palace.

The next day we returned to Mesa Verde to explore more of the cliff dwellings as well as the remains of the pueblo dwellings up on the mesa which had been the earlier homes of the Anasazi. We were glad that we had the opportunity to visit the Cliff Place on the day before because we ended up spending the entire day visiting other parts of Mesa Verde. We started the day visiting the Spruce Tree House Ruins which is smaller than Cliff Palace but in a better state of preservation. We also had a ranger there who was extremely friendly as well as knowledgeable. While he helped flesh out what life must have been like for the Anasazi, he was not able to answer the question bugging David about why they had moved down into these tiny holes in the cliff wall, nor could he answer for certain why all of the Anasazi apparently disappeared from this area around AD 1300.

Much of the rest of the day was spent visiting the remains of the pit houses and other earlier dwellings up on the mesa. It was much easier to invision what life in the mesa dwellings would have been like as compared to having to climb up and down the sheer canyon walls each day going to and from the tiny rooms in the cliff dwellings. At the end of the day, we regretted that we only had a day and one half to visit these wonderful ruins as they were so lovely that we could have spent more time here with no problem.

Arches National Park - Moab Utah

We have been looking forward to visiting Arches and Canyonlands National Parks ever since we studied up on them back when we did our first RV trip to Utah over two years ago. At that time, we only had time to visit Zion and Bryce National Parks in Southern Utah so we had been anxious to return to this part of the country when we had enough time to see more of these beautiful parks in Southern Utah.

As we approached the little town of Moab, which was just beyond the entrance to Arches National Park, we were overwhelmed by the beauty of the red sandstone cliffs on both sides of the highway as we descended into Moab Valley. We were delighted to find that our campground was situated in the heart of the valley and that we could see the red sandstone cliffs both in front and behind us from our campsite. Our back window looked across a whildlife preserve that was situated between our campsite and the red sandstone cliff just beyond. It was beautiful to watch the color of the sandstone change with the rising and setting sun over the next several days.

Arches National Park was all we had hoped it would be. Beautiful red sandstone formations of all different sizes and shapes were everywhere. The highpoint, of course, were the numerous arches scattered all around the park. But there were also other colorful rock formations, including “Balanced Rock”, a house-sized boulder supported by a narrow, constantly eroding column. There were also petrified sand dunes which added wonderful rounded contours to the landscape.

One of the most pleasant hikes we took the first day in Arches NP was a primitive loop trail that went behind the two adjacent arches referred to as “the windows.” As the guidebook noted, the two separate windows really did begin to look like a pair of spectacles when viewed from the reverse slop on the primitive trail. It was also so much more enjoyable with the quiet and solitude as there were very few other hikers on the primitive loop trail.

The highlight of our second day visiting Arches NP was our hike up the hill to “Delicate Arch”. This was a medium to strenuous hike 1 ½ miles uphill crossing large patches of slick rock, capped by traversing a narrow ledge carved out of the side of a large stone wall. Jo had been nervous about the prospect of going along a 3 foot wide ledge with a precipitous drop off, but she handled it just fine. We were quite pleased to see that we aren’t too old to undertake a hike like this. LOL!!!!!! And our effort was rewarded by the beauty of Delicate Arch and its lovely setting on top of the hill. Even after we were up there, we had to exercise care in moving about as the area around the Arch sloped down very steeply into what could almost have been a natural amphitheater.

That afternoon, our friends Rick and Ann joined us for a hike to “Landscape Arch” at the far end of paved road in Arches NP. Landscape Arch is the longest Arch in the park which was described as being as long as a football field, but we couldn’t be sure as we didn’t bring a one-hundred yard tape measure along LOL!!!!). While the Arch was quite pretty, we were prevented from getting very close to it because of the fear by the park service of falling rock – some time back, a large portion of the underside of the arch broke off and fell while tourists were in the vicinity, the park service is apparently fearful that more of the arch could fall and cause injuries or death to park visitors. The enjoyment of a hike to Landscape Arch was diminished somewhat by the large number of people taking the hike. While the crowds were undoubtedly smaller than they would have been had we come to the park before Labor Day, they were still larger than we had come to expect from our earlier hikes in the park.

Words can’t really describe how beautiful it was in Arches National Park but we hope some of these pictures will help convey the beauty found here.

Canyonlands National Park - Island in the Sky - Moah, Utah

Canyonlands National Park is divided into three sections by the Colorado and Green Rivers. The Northernmost section, the “Islands in the Sky” division, is just north of the city of Moab. The “Needles” district is roughly 60 miles south of Moab. West of the Needles District, on the other side of the Colorado River, is the “Maze” District. Our plan was to visit the Islands in the Sky and the Needles districts on separate days due to the geographic distance between them. We decided not to visit the Maze district since it is so isolated that virtually the only way to even approach it is with a four wheel drive vehicle, and we weren’t planning to do any more four- wheel drive trips at this time. LOL!!!!!!!

The Islands in the Sky District sits on a high mesa looking down on a massive series of canyons carved out by the winding Colorado River and its major subsidiary, the Green River. It literally looks like a slightly smaller version of the Grand Canyon, with all of the layers of rock exposed in turn as the Colorado River cut deeper and deeper over time. It was particularly intriguing the way the light played off the different cliff faces as we moved around to different viewpoints within the park. This affect was enhanced as the sun moved from overhead towards the west as the day progressed. Jo was in hog heaven shooting hundreds of photographs in an effort to capture all of these different lighting effects on the beautiful rock walls.

Two days later, we traveled south to the Needles District. Unlike the Islands in the Sky District, the Needles District gets its name from the collection of needle pointed spires and towers that are the remains of mesas and buttes in this area that have severely eroded away.

Just prior to entering the Needles District, we were pleasantly surprised to come across “Newspaper Rock”, a rock wall with a fine collection of Indian petroglyphs. The petroglyphs on this rock have been carved over hundreds of years by scrapping away the layer of black “rock varnish” which has been deposited over time on top of the red sandstone rock. Among the primitive figures thus carved on the rock face are big horn sheep, bison, and horses. In addition to some human figures as well, there were several carvings of human hands. The archeologists seem to have different theories as to why the native Americans liked carving hand prints in the petroglyphs. Our initial impression was that it was recent graffiti and we were glad to learn that it was not. Finding these petroglyphs on Newspaper Rock was a pleasant and surprising bonus on this trip.

Upon entering the Needles District of Canyonlands NP, we were struck by the feeling of openness of the prier lands stretched out among the buttes and mesas in the park. We felt like we were in territory better fitted for cowboys and herds of cattle than a national park. The Needles rock formations that give this district its name were located some distance from the nearest paved roads, and could only be approached by means of very rugged four wheel drive trails. No Way!!!!!! Instead, we were pleasantly surprised to find ourselves surrounded by numerous “mushroom rock” formations. These consist of rounded caps of hard white limestone which sit atop “stems” of red sandstone. Apparently, the sandstone in this area is softer and erodes away faster, leaving the rounded white caps looking like the tops of mushrooms on a stem. Many of the “stems” have eroded away entirely, so some areas look like a field of mushroom caps lying on a bed of red soil.

At the end of the paved road, there was a viewpoint looking out over several of these areas of mushroom rock formations. We were able to take a short walk from the road and found ourselves in small alcove carved out of the red sandstone over the years by a combination of wind and water. We climbed up into this alcove and sat there for 20-30 minutes listening to the quiet of the desert and absorbing the visual delights of the surrounding landscape. Fortunately, there were very few visitors in this section of the park, so we suffered very few disruptions of our solitude. We both felt that this experience was the highlight of our trip to Canyondlands.

Dead Horse State Park

Just outside of the Islands in the Sky District of Canyonlands NP is Dead Horse State Park. It has several overlooks which offer views of the Colorado River, and the canyons it has carved, which are similar to some of the views available in Islands in the Sky. Dead Horse Park, however, attracts many fewer visitors so it provides much more of a feeling of solitude. We had a lovely picnic lunch with Rick and Ann near the edge of one of the canyon overlooks. Our peace and solitude during lunch was disrupted only by a family of friendly chipmunks who continued to scurry around our picnic table in the hopes of getting handouts, or at least some crumbs. While we refrained from feeding them, their apparent lack of fear of humans suggested that other people in the past disregarded the rules on feeding wildlife and found these chipmunks too cute to resist.

After spending several hours wandering along the edge of the cliff face, enjoying the view of the Colorado River from various angles, we ultimately concluded that Dead Horse State Park provided an even more attractive view of this rugged country than did the Islands in the Sky District of Canyonlands National Park. We would strongly recommend that anyone visiting Canyonlands NP include a day trip to Dead Horse State park as well.

Off Roading!!!!!! - Moab, Utah

The Moab Valley area is noted for having a large number of off road trails for those with four-wheel drive vehicles. After finishing our first day of hiking in Arches National Park, we decided to see how well our four wheel drive Ford pickup would work for off road purposes. We had been told by a ranger at the Visitors Center that there was a four wheel drive alternative exit from the park. This road, the Willow Flats Road, used to be the entrance to the park years ago, and we expected a fairly easy drive, which at most some patches of sand and pot holes to deal with. WRONG!!!!!

We realized that we would have to face more than loose sand and potholes the first time we hit a major “dip” in the road and scraped bottom with our running board on the truck as we attempted to climb out of the dip. Even that was nothing when compared to the “rock garden we ran into further down the road.

Unfortunately, the attached picture doesn’t really do justice to the unevenness of the “road” through this rock garden. Thanks to help and guidance from Rick, who is used to off roading, David was able to slowly and cautiously navigate his way through these obstacles. In the meantime, Jo and Ann walked over the rise and checked out the road ahead to see what we could expect. They reported back that the road ahead looked bad, so we decided to curtail this adventure and back track through the rock garden. It was only later that we learned that this rock garden was in fact the most difficult obstacle on the road, so David’s disappointment in not being able to take the road all the way to its end was compensated by the thought that he had traversed the worst spot in the road TWICE!!!!!! The whole experience was aptly summarized by Jo in asking the question “why would anyone in their right mind want to be doing this kind of a drive?!”……… We don’t foresee an awful lot of off road traveling during the rest of our Great Adventure!!!!!

The Trials and Tribulations of Driving on I-70!!

We left Estes Park Sunday morning with our friends Rick and Ann to head west to Moab, Utah where we would stay while visiting Arches and Canyonlands National Parks. The trip to Moab from Estes Park was estimated to be more than six hours so we decided to break it into two short one-day trips. The truck did an excellent job of hauling our Big Sky up the Rocky Mountains as we headed west on Interstate 70. If only the Colorado Highway Department had done as well. As we were approaching Vail, there was a flashing sign over the highway telling us that I-70 westbound was closed at Vail Pass. While the State Police were through in barricading the highway and forcing all of the westbound traffic off of the interstate, they didn’t bother putting up any detour signs or otherwise telling us where we were supposed to go. Fortunately, we had maps along and were able to figure out secondary roads to take to get around Vail Mountain. The detour was long (over 50 miles) but scenic.

We had reserved space in a small campground in Gypsum, CO as this was the only campground we could find that had space available for RVs of our size anywhere in Colorado between Estes Park and Moab. The campground itself was barely adequate – no sewer hookups and no traditional amenities such as a pool. But what it lacked in amenities was made up for in price – this was the most expensive campground we have stayed in to date. I guess they thought they had a captive audience if you wanted a campground for our size RV anywhere on this route. A different side to our great adventure!!!!The next day as we headed west we again encountered barriers shutting down I-70 westbound and forcing us on another detour. This detour was not particularly scenic, and the last half of it consisted of sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic for 30 minutes – we had to go through a small town to get back onto the interstate, and neither the Colorado DOT nor the highway patrol felt it was incumbent upon them to expedite traffic through his small town, so every vehicle being detoured had to stop at the four way stop in the middle of the little town before being able to proceed onto I-70.

Thank goodness we didn’t try to do the trip from Estes Park to Moab in one day as that would have been overwhelming. Jo did have fun taking many pictures of the back of Rick and Ann’s motorhome as we followed them through the mountains.

Rocky Mountain National Park - Estes Park, Colorado

While we enjoyed the prairie lands of Montana and Wyoming, we were ready for a change of scenery. And we certainly experienced a wonderful change in scenery as we crossed into Colorado and headed towards Estes Park. Watching the Rocky Mountains get larger as we got closer was definitely a great change of scenery. The ride up to Estes Park through Big Thompson Canyon was a WOW. The river had cut a narrow gorge over the years, and we had steep canyon walls on both sides of us as we climbed higher and higher. Estes Park itself was a delightful little town nestled amongst the surrounding mountain peaks, albeit the narrow roads proved a bit troublesome when it came to trying to make sharp left turns (but that’s another story!!!!!!!!!!).

The Elk Meadow Campground where we were staying had a pretty view of the surrounding hills and mountain peaks. We had been told that elk frequently wandered through the campground, and that certainly proved to be the case during our first night there. About 10:00 at night, we started to hear weird sounds outside that we eventually realized were male/bull elk bugling as part of their annual mating ritual to attract females (of course, we can’t imagine why any female would find that weird noise to be attractive!!). As the sound of the bugling got closer, we shut off the lights and pulled up the curtains to see what was going on only to observe a large male elk slowly ambling along just a few feet from our RV. He seemed to be totally unconcerned about the fact that he was wandering through the campground full of RVs. What a great start to our Colorado adventure.

David’s brother, George, who lives in a Denver suburb, came up on Wednesday and joined us for a planned day of hiking in Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP). We started with a very nice hike along a string of three lakes (Nymph, Dream and Emerald lakes) at steadily higher elevations going back up into the mountains. Due in large part to the fact that we were not yet acclimated to the high elevation in Estes Park (8,000 feet), we endured a great deal of huffing and puffing as we hiked upward past these beautiful lakes. By the time we got to the highest of the lakes, pretty Emerald Lake, we were certainly ready to spend some time sitting at the lakeside enjoying our lunch. Wonder of wonders, the return hike back down to the trailhead seems sooooooooooooo much shorter and quicker, to say nothing of easier. David and his brother then took a short hike around nearby Bear Lake while Jo snapped pictures, rested her feet and enjoyed the scenery. That evening after dinner, we all went back into RMNP to go elk watching. The elk tend to conceal themselves in wooded areas during the day and come out into the meadow lands at dusk. We positioned ourselves at the edge of one of the larger meadowlands near the Beaver Meadow entrance to the park in the hopes of seeing and hearing the elk. We were not disappointed. While we were there, several bull/male elk came out of the woods and wandered/strutted around among groups of female elk. We could hear bugling from these males scattered around the meadow and again wondered why any females would ever find those sounds to be attractive. LOL LOL LOL

The following day, we took a wild ride across RMNP from the eastern end of the park all the way to the western side. Initially, we drove up an unpaved road (Old Falls River Road) which wound its way up to the top of the mountains by way of a narrow, one-way “road” blasted out of the side of the canyon walls. The road grew to be so narrow, and the drop off so precipitous that Jo had to avert her eyes and stop looking out over the beautiful panorama of the mountain gorge in which we were traveling. We had a nice respite stopping to observe a pretty little waterfall alongside the road, before returning to our trip up through one switchback after another. Once we got to the top, at the Alpine Visitors Center, we were finally able to relax and just stand in awe of the beautiful view back down the gorge we had come up, to say nothing of the wonderful view of all of the Rocky Mountain peaks surrounding us. As we continued westward on the main road, we passed over the Continental Divide. It was interesting standing in front of a sign telling us that the creek flowing to the left would drain into the Atlanta Ocean (eventually!!) while any precipitation falling to the right of us would end up in the Pacific Ocean. We continued on down the mountains into the valley carved by the (at this point very narrow) Colorado River. We followed the only real road on the west side of RMNP down to Grand Lake, where we had a pleasant lunch looking out over the placid waters of this pretty lake.

As David had driven all the way through the park on this trip so far, Jo agreed to drive at least a portion of the way back to the eastern end of the park. All went well until shortly after we had climbed back up to the vicinity of the Alpine Visitors Center just east of the center, even this main road got quite narrow, with a very precipitous drop off on the right side of the road. David thought to reassure Jo by saying that she had at least 3 or 4 feet to spare to the drop off, but Jo was not reassured!! Fortunately she was able to make it to a scenic viewpoint just up the road, at which point it was now David’s responsibility to deal with the drop-offs and switchbacks!!!!!

Later that day our friends Rick and Ann Alden from Chicago joined us at the campground. We spent the evening making plans to travel together for the next several weeks through Colorado and Utah and compared notes as to just which National Parks we all wanted to see. Boy are we excited at the prospect of visiting these parks, particularly the parks in Southern Utah. The following day, we had dinner with a couple who are friends of Rick and Ann, Joe and Delphine Casey, who have expressed an interest in joining the four of us on our planned trip to Canada and Alaska next summer. Although there wasn’t time to look at the 15 hours of video-taped programming that Joe has collected to date (LOL!!!), we did enjoy looking at his maps and discussing in broad terms what we would like to do when we get to Canada and Alaska!! That night after dinner we took Rick and Ann back out to the elk meadows in RMNP so that Ann could hear the bugling of the bull elks. This time, the elks were even closer up so that the bugling was quite loud. But it still didn’t sound very attractive LOL !!!

Fort Laramie, Wyoming

The next leg of our whirlwind loop north was to head back down to Wyoming on our way to Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park, CO. The landscape in north central Wyoming was much like what we had been traveling through in Montana except that we could now see portions of the Rocky Mountains appearing to the west of us. We noticed on our National Park Service map that there was an NPS historical site at Fort Laramie, which was not far from our intended travel route, so we pressed on further than we would normally plan to drive so that we could reach the Fort Laramie site and camp there overnight with the goal of visiting the park in the morning. The campground we found five miles east of Fort Laramie was somewhat on the Spartan side but the family managing the site was quite friendly (and provided us with lots of park service brochures) and we had our pick of campsites. LOL!!!! The weather forecast was for the temperature to drop into the upper 30s overnight, so we bundled up inside our home on wheels and read through the various brochures on Fort Laramie, the Oregon Trail, the Mormon Trail, the Pony Express and the California Trail. Who would have thunk that all those historic routes passed through this one spot on the map. Notwithstanding the frequent coal trains chugging by and blowing there whistles, we had an uninterrupted night’s sleep snuggling under the covers to keep warm.

The next morning we drove over to Fort Laramie NHS towing our RV and hoping that we would be able to park there rather than having to unhitch the RV at the campsite and go back to it after our visit. Fortunately, the historical site had a good size parking lot and very few visitors. The park service personnel at Fort Laramie were extremely friendly and helpful in explaining the historic role that Fort Laramie played in helping immigrants on their way to California, Utah (the Mormons) and Oregon. Fort Laramie also played a significant role in both fighting and drafting treaties with the Indian tribes in the Wyoming Territory. We were surprised to learn that, unlike the western forts typically displayed in western movies, Fort Laramie never had any type of protective wall around the military facilities there, both because there were no trees anywhere in reasonable proximity and because the fort itself was never attacked by Indians. Most of the buildings that had been restored and furnished showed the affects of major construction and remodeling which took place in the 10-15 years before the fort closed in 1890. The furnished rooms in many cases looked quite comfortable and spacious, but we suspect that they were more crowded and less comfortable than they appeared. For example, the barracks for enlisted troopers seemed reasonably full even though it only had 24 bunks in it. The plaque on the wall, however, said that the barracks were intended to accommodate 69 soldiers in each wing; we have no idea where they would have put the other 36 bunks. (Jo’s comment on this – David is Mr. Detail Man!!!!).

After touring the fort, we had a pleasant lunch in a nearby grove filled with picnic tables before climbing back into the truck and heading down towards Estes Park.

Little Bighorn - Custer's Last Stand - Montana

Saturday starts off with a long drive from the ND Badlands to our next stop at Little Bighorn in Montana. The scenery in route shows little change from North Dakota to Montana – rolling hills covered with prairie grass, rolled up bales of hay stacked up in farm yards for winter feeding, and a few cows or horses out grazing in the fields. Cresting the top of even a small hill often provides broad vistas stretching to the far horizons – BEAUTIFUL!!
After dropping the RV at a KOA campsite in Hardin, Montana, we hurry to get over to the Little Bighorn Battlefield Monument 16 miles away so that we are able to visit the site of Custer’s Last Stand before it rains. The initial impression of the battlefield site is somewhat underwhelming. The visitors center had nice displays of life as a U.S. Calvary man and Indian warrior. We were somewhat surprised to learn the extent to which the Calvary was made up of recent immigrants who has little training and poor command of the English language. By contrast, most Indian warriors had been exposed to warfare for many years as a result of the fighting between different Indian tribes. Indeed, the Calvary was able to recruit many Native American scouts to aide in their battles against the Sioux and Cheyenne, using Indians from tribes with historical animosities to the Sioux and Cheyenne. David, however, found it very difficult to gain a good understanding of just how the battle at Little Bighorn evolved on that fateful day of June 25, 1876 even after watching the video and reviewing the displays in the visitors center. Fortunately, the Park Service provided a number of explanatory plagues along the five mile drive through the battlefield. The U.S. Army had also provided headstones showing the locations along the battlefield where the bodies of the officers and men in Custer’s command were found after the battle. It was particularly touching to stand on “Last Stand Hill” and look at the headstones showing where Custer and the 41 officers and men who died with him in the midst of the battle.

Although the Park Service presentation seeks to avoid passing judgments, David certainly came away with the feeling that Custer and the generals who planned this whole campaign against the Indians had certainly screwed up multiple times and greatly underestimated the fighting ability of the American Indian tribes they were facing. Unfortunately for Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse and their followers, their success against Custer was a classic case of winning the battle and losing the war. The American public and the U.S. Army were so shocked and aroused by the death of Custer and his men that they expended great efforts to go after the Indian tribes involved. So one-sided was the resulting conflict that Crazy Horse gave up the fight within the following year and Sitting Bull had to flee to Canada to escape the U.S. Army.

By the end of our drive through the length of the Battlefield, even David’s insatiable desire for details was satisfied (LOL!!!!!!).