OurBigAdventure

Sorry for the delay on the posts about our trip out west. I have started working on them but I don't want it to become the same situation as our Alaska trip where it's been a year and I am still working on the posts. So I'm trying to organize everything and build up a few posts so I can keep you entertained.

Plus there are a few other things I want to add to the presentation, but I have to learn the new features in my software because I had to upgrade to be able to do what I want to do. So in the mean time I'll try to finish up the Alaska trip (which only has two more stops) and then we can get on with the more recent fun stuff!

I promise it will be worth the wait and I can't believe we fit so much fun stuff into a single trip. If you need some tips on planning a trip, let us know because we learned quite a bit about planning this time around!

This may be a strange sight to those of you that have been to Vail, Colorado in the winter time. And beileve it or not there are quite a few things open in the summer time which is a good thing because we were hungry and the next stop was pretty far away.



But don't get your hopes up, Vail in the summer time is not as active as Winter Park. As you can see there are not many visitors and it does have the feel of a ghost town.



But it is a great time to get your photo without all of those annoying tourists getting in the way. We were able to get a photo with the statue's caboose in the background without having to wait for the crowds to clear!



Then we stopped in to Vendetta's for lunch. You know you are in a great lunch spot when they have a house dog keeping the floor warm!



I had the meatball sub, which was the best thing I had all day. (Actually, I think it's the only thing I had so far that day)



Sandra had the fish salad. I don't remember what kind of fish it was so you will have to go order it yourself to find out, but it was pretty good as well.

We didn't plan on staying in Vail, Colorado very long but we were glad we had the chance to see it without the crowds. It really is a pretty spot, but we are on our way to the desert so the mountains will have to wait!

Before I start getting into our trip, let me just say that we did not spend nearly enough time in any of the National Parks to see everything there was to see. But we did spend enough time in most of them to see the cool stuff and get a taste for what the park had to offer.

If you are looking for a relaxing trip and deeper insight into any of the National Parks, plan on spending at least two days in each of them and do your research on the parks prior to arriving. That is the minimum you would need to be able to see what there is in each of the parks.

As for us... we like it fast and furious so we spent one night in each of the National Parks, staying at the campgrounds in all of them* and having done our research on the drive to the park we had a plan on how to see all of the highlights that we wanted to see before having to get on the road to make the campground at the next park before loosing our reservation.

So this is going to be a taste of the National Parks, just enough to show you what you are missing by staying home!

*except the North Rim of the Grand Canyon which was full, we stayed at a campground outside of the park instead

Our first stop on our long trip through the National Parks was Canyonlands National Park and we hit the park late in the day, just after the toll booth closed. But we paid the $20 park fee anyway in the "honor system box" and it paid off later because we were able to use our receipt as a credit when we bought our National Park Annual Pass at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon later in the trip.

If you are going to try to see more than three parks in a year I recommend buying the pass, it will save you money on entrance fees later and some of the more popular parks have an entrance fee of $20 or so and with the cost of the annual pass being $80 it's worth buying.

So now... Canyonlands National Park (an intro)

Because we hit this park so late in the day we had a great view of the sunset and some awesome shadows across the rocks.



We expected to see a canyon but we never expected that we wouldn't be able to see across it. I think Sandra's comment was, why isn't this the Grand Canyon?



It is unbelievable how much color there is in the rock, and sunset made it even more so.



Not to mention the view of the Colorado River, or at least the canyon it is currently carving at the bottom of Canyonlands. How cool is this view?



Even with a zoom lens you have trouble seeing across the entire canyon, but you can see how big this place really is.



And of course we had to do a self portrait with such an incredible view behind us.