Category: 2021 Rocky Mountain Adventure

We left our hotel in Page just after 6:30am. We stopped for breakfast in Flagstaff so it was just after noon when we pulled into the driveway. We were excited to see that our pavers are finally done. The pergola still isn’t up and the fountain should be delivered next week. The only other thing left to do is the additional plantings which should be in later this week. Here are a few pics of the new landscaping.

Once we got home it took about 2 hours to unload the car, empty the suitcases and separate the gifts we bought. After that was done (and talking with the landscaper about the plantings) we headed to the Robson Ranch Grill for lunch. We have no food in the house and I have no desire to grocery shop this afternoon. The portions are large enough so the leftovers will be dinner.

Peter went out after lunch to get the car washed….it’s filthy from the dirt roads at Chaco. As I write this I’m relaxing on the couch watching Hamilton on Disney. Peter doesn’t like the music so I didn’t listen to it in the car. With him not home I can sing as loud as I want (I know all the words to My Shot….it took a full year but I finally can sing it through).

We had a great time on our first vacation in 18 months. We put 3500 miles on our car while visiting some beautiful places in the southwest and the Rockies. We went to eight National Parks, Sites and/or Monuments. We played golf at 5 beautiful courses and met some great people. The best part, of course, was experiencing it together. Even though we have a great time here in our community there’s something special about visiting new places together. We are already looking forward to our next adventure….a week in an all-inclusive resort in Puerto Vallarta the first week of November. We’ll fill you in on those adventures as they happen.

Till then, thanks for traveling with us and we look forward to talking with you soon. Stay safe….Lynn and Peter.

We’re so glad we made the 2-hour trip to Zion as it’s one of our favorite National Parks, second only to the Grand Canyon. On the way we passed Grand Staircase-Escalante National Historical Park. Like Vermillion Cliffs, though, we didn’t drive into the site as the roads are unimproved and filled with pot holes. There weren’t many pull-off spots for pictures but we got a couple from the car and one from the parking lot at the Visitor Center (which was closed).

Just west of Grand Staircase we saw a sign for Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park so we took a little side jaunt to check it out. The sand doesn’t look that coral/pink to me but it was still pretty.

By the time we finally made it to Zion and found a place to park (not easy; we trolled the parking lot for 15 minutes before catching a handicap spot as a car was pulling out) it was almost noon. We lost an hour going into Utah so even though we left at 7am it was still mid-day before we arrived.

There is a shuttle bus to take visitors through the park and we got off in a couple of spots for two short hikes. The first was to the Lower Emerald Pool.

Here’s a short video I took at the pool.

After finishing our hike to Emerald Poool, we ate our picnic lunch on the grounds of the Zion Lodge. There were no picnic tables so we just plopped down in the shade.

Our next hike was the Riverside Walk which is also called the Gateway to the Narrows. It was a 1.5 hour walk and we were getting tired so we only walked about a 1/2 mile before heading back to catch the shuttle.

Given that we had a 2-hour drive back to our hotel we left after our 2nd hike. Even though we got the hour back when we hit AZ, it was still 5pm before we arrived. It was a long day but we’re very glad we went. Peter said he like Zion better than Rocky Mountain NP, mainly because of the contrast between the mountains and the sky. If you remember from the pictures of RMNP, the sky was very hazy. We asked a ranger about it and he said it was smoke from the fires in the Pacific Northwest. In Zion, though, the sky was crystal clear and made for a beautiful scene.

Tomorrow (Tuesday) we head home. Originally this trip was going to be 5 weeks long and include Glacier, Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. But, we decided we didn’t want to be gone that long so we only did the first half of the trip. As much as we enjoyed our adventures, we’re glad to be heading home. It’s only a 5-hour drive so we should be back by mid-day. We can’t wait to see if the landscapers have finished our backyard renovations. We’ll let you know.

Instead of renting a kayak, we decided to spend 2 hours on a 19 foot motorboat. It was a TON OF FUN! Not only was it a beautiful day to be on the lake it was much less work than a kayak. We made it about 4 miles out into the canyons and the scenery was gorgeous. Here’s a short video.

Timing was a bit confusing because our hotel is in AZ, which doesn’t observe DST, except in the Navajo Nation. And the marina is in Utah, which does observe DST. So when we left the hotel it was 7:30AM but when we arrived at the marina 15 minutes later it was 8:45AM. My Fitbit was on AZ time but our phones were on UT time. To make life a little easier, I set the timer on my phone for about 55 minutes so I knew when we had to turn around and head back to the marina.

After a lunch of leftover Italian food from last night (Peter a pizza and me a calzone) we headed out to play a bit of golf. It was in the low 90s so we only played 9 holes. Once again, the course was gorgeous. It’s going to be difficult to return to our desert course after playing at all the green courses during our trip.

We changed our mind (again) about the last day of our vacation. Since we’re only 2 hours from Zion National Park we decided to extend our stay here one more night and head to Zion in the morning. We were there in 2019 but only for a few hours so it will be nice to spend more time. We’ll have to deal with the whole time zone issue again but it will all come out in the wash.

Speaking of wash….I need to do laundry. Talk with you tomorrow.

We visited our last National Historic Site today….Canyon De Chelly. It was 2 1/2 hours from Farmington and Peter did all the driving. He did very well through the Chuska Mountains where the road became very squiggly. This is another site that no one will just run into. You have to make an effort to get there but it was worth every mile. Here are just a few of the many pics we took.

After spending about 2 hours driving the south rim, we headed to Page, AZ where we will spend the next couple of nights. The drive was beautiful! There weren’t any pull-offs but we managed to get a few pictures.

Once we checked into the hotel we took a drive to Lake Powell to see what there was to do tomorrow. The sky was getting dark so we were afraid rain was coming in but it passed right by with just a few raindrops.

Tomorrow we’re going to rent a kayak for a couple of hours to see a little bit of the lake. Then we have a tee time in the afternoon. We’ll only play 9 holes but the course looks beautiful so we’re excited to play.

Since the lake tour to Rainbow Bridge Monument we wanted to take only runs on Saturday and Tuesday, we decided to leave on Monday so we’ll be home a day sooner than we planned. We’ve had a great time but we’ll be glad to get home. Anyhoo….I’ll let you know how the kayaking goes. Night everyone.

We only had a 3 1/2 hour drive from our Taos hotel to our Farmington hotel so we decided to take side trips to a couple of historical sites. Our first stop was Chaco Culture National Historical Site which is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It was about 3 1/2 hours from Taos but in a different direction than if we had gone from hotel to hotel.

On the way we stopped at the beautiful Lake Abiquiu. It was a state park so we couldn’t access the lake without paying a fee but we found a pretty overlook.

It was an uneventful drive to Chaco until we got about 12 miles away when we ran out of paved road. The first half of those last miles was unimproved but relatively smooth and pot-hole free. The last 6 miles was another story. Peter grit his teeth for the next 15 minutes as I dodged bomb-sized holes. We finally made it to the site and were glad we made the trip. The site has the most expansive ancient ruins north of Mexico. The most impressive building was Pueblo Bonita. In it’s time it was the Great House where groups gathered for meetings, ceremonies, etc. It was pretty impressive.

The bad news was that after we finished touring the ruins, we had to go back the way we came to get to our next stop. This time Peter insisted on driving. I leave it to your imagination how long it took to get back to the main highway. Anyway, we finally made it to Aztec Ruins National Historical Site, about 90 minutes north of Chaco. As challenging as it was to get to Chaco, it was super simple to get to Aztec as it’s right in the town of Aztec NM. The site was much smaller but still quite nice.

The ruins were basically identical to Chaco as it was built by the same Pueblo tribes that build Chaco. At this site we saw a reconstructed Kiva, which is a room used for meetings and ceremonial rites.

We had the chance to walk through some of the rooms of the other buildings.

After about an hour at Aztec, we headed to our hotel in Farmington, only about 25 minutes away. Tomorrow we head back into AZ, going a bit out of our way to visit Canyon De Chelly (pronounced D’Shay) before settling into our Home2Suites in Page for our last 3 nights on the road. Not sure what we’ll do at Lake Powell (other than laundry) but I’m sure we’ll find something to keep us busy.

It was a 5-hour drive from Ft. Collins to our first stop….Capulin Volcano National Monument in New Mexico. We’ve tried to get there on our trip in 2019 but it was too far out of the way. Since we don’t plan to be anywhere near there in the future we decided to make the trek a little out of our way. The volcano last erupted about 60,000 years ago so we felt pretty safe driving to the rim. The rim walk was only about a mile but the climb was quite steep so we took a pass.

After lunch at one of the picnic spots, we headed west to Taos. Once we hit the mountains it was a beautiful drive. There weren’t many pull outs to take pictures but we found a couple of good spots.

It was 5pm before we pulled into our hotel in Taos but we had time for a little window shopping before dinner. The town is super cute with many adobe style buildings. We had a delicious dinner at Azteca Mexican Grill, then walked off the food in the historic area. The weather was perfect so it was a great walk.

We spent over 7 hours in the car today but we still managed to get almost 7500 steps so that’s not too bad. Tomorrow we’ll spend the night in Farmington NM which is less than 4 hours from Taos but we plan to make a couple of stops along the way. It should be fun. We’ll let you know.

We call these vacations “adventures” for a reason. Other than our white water rafting trip in Durango we haven’t had much in the way of adventures on this trip. Well, that ended today. Note to self….don’t ask GPS to get to a national park visitor center, at least not at RMNP. Before we left our cabin, I programmed the GPS to get us to the closest visitor center which was about 50 minutes away. After driving around some backroads we finally got to a park entrance where the ranger let us through with a smile and a wave. The dirt road we were driving on should have been the first clue that we were in the wrong place. By the time I figured it out though we were at the point of no return. After about 1.5 miles (which took forever on the skinny, unimproved, pot-hole filled road) we got not to a visitor center, but a ranger station. Since there was no where else to go, we turned around in the parking lot and went back out the way we came. When we got back to the little house with the smiling ranger, we asked where we were supposed to go. Turns out the main entrance was back to the highway about 35 minutes away. We left the cabin a little after 6am thinking we had plenty of time to get to the park for our 7-9am entrance time but now it’s 7:30 and we still really don’t know where we’re going. We got the the park entrance at about 8:15 but the ranger didn’t even ask for our timed entry tickets. So now we’re thinking, why did we spend time/money (albeit only $2.00) to get the tickets when no one seemed to care. To make matters worse, she didn’t give us a map and the visitor center wasn’t open yet. Now we have no idea where we’re going but hope the people in the car in front of us do so we followed them. About 10 minutes into the park I remember that we have a National Geographic book about the National Parks which has maps. Yeah!! It takes another few minutes to find a place to pull over and at least 10 minutes to find the book in our jam-packed car. But at least we finally have a map. So….we make the turn to Bear Lake road because I know that’s one of the places we want to visit and, low and behold, that was where the ranger wanted our timed entry tickets. Turns out we could have accessed the park at any time without a ticket but could only enter the Bear Lake Road during our time slot. OMG!! It was a pretty stressful few hours but we eventually ended up in the right place at the right time.

We left our car at the park and ride and took the free shuttle to Bear Lake. The walk around the lake was very easy and very beautiful. Here are several pictures from that hike.

After our trek around the lake we went on another 1/2 mile hike to Nymph Lake. While the Bear Lake hike was very flat, the one to Nymph Lake was not. I don’t know what the % of grade was but we climbed about 260 feet in that 1/2 mile. We were also at about 10,000 feet so it was a little harder to breath walking on flat ground. We took our time, resting a couple of times along the way. When we finally arrive it was definitely worth the trip.

We were told that the next lake (Dream Lake) was gorgeous and it was only another 1/2 mile so we decided to make the trip. Unfortunately, the grade was much steeper and was only going to get worse so after only about another 10 minutes we turned around and went back to the parking lot. By the time we got back on the shuttle we already had 7500 steps for the day and felt we had accomplished something.

Once we got back to our car, we headed west on Rt. 34 and 20 miles later, we were at the Alpine Visitor Center. The ride was beautiful.

After leaving the park, we drove about 75 minutes to the Hampton Inn in Ft. Collins. We had delicious pizza with a Navy friend of mine. Rose and I were stationed in Italy together and we at different commands in the D.C. area. I’d only seen her once since I retired in 98 so it was great to catch up with her.

Tomorrow we head to New Mexico to visit Capulin Volcano National Monument. We’ll let you know how it goes.

Well it was another fun but low-key day. We had a leisurely morning at Cathy’s beautiful basement flat before taking the 35 minute drive to Boulder. We had a tee time at the Flatiron Golf Course and after taking time to hit a practice bucket we teed off with a couple of local men. Rich and Ed were very nice (not to mention patient) and we had a great time. The course was gorgeous with a lot more water hazards and trees than we’re used to. I didn’t quite make it across a couple of the creeks so I lost a couple of balls (not to mention strokes).

After golf we headed down Boulder Canyon for our last Airbnb flat. This one is a tiny studio cabin that sits on a creek. It’s a lot smaller than the studio flat we had in Denver but it’s still quite nice. The bed looks super comfy so I’m looking forward to a restful sleep.

Since this is our last Airbnb flat on our trip, we finished the pasta for dinner before heading to Pearl Street Pedestrian Mall to walk off the carbs. On the way back to the cabin we stopped for a short walk by the creek.

It’s a beautiful evening so now we’re sitting in the yard listening to the creek and the street traffic. But….mostly the creek.

Tomorrow we’re heading to Rocky Mountain National Park. We had a timed ticket for entry between 1-3pm but a bunch more tickets were released at exactly 5pm mountain time so I was able to grab another ticket for 7-9am entry time. That gives us all day in the park instead of just the afternoon. Tonight’s host told us that it’s mating season for the elk and that it’s spectacular to watch. I’m not so sure about that but I’m certainly willing to give it a look see. I’ll let you know how it goes. Night everyone.

We are loving this vacation. Not just because of the things we’re doing and seeing but because it is so relaxing. We’ve been doing something every day but we haven’t packed our days so full that we’re exhausted.

This morning we ran to the store for a few things then went to the Wings Over the Rockies Air and Space Museum just east of Denver. It was very well done with some great displays.

From the museum we headed back to the center of Denver for the Taste of Colorado. Compared to the Taste of Chicago which would have 250,000 people over a long weekend this was pretty small but it was still nice. We had gyros from a street truck and walked around some of the vendor tents. It was pretty hot (low 90s) so we only stayed about an hour before heading back to our beautiful flat.

After an afternoon siesta we went back out for ice cream. Our host, Cathy, suggested a place about a mile down the street and it was delicious. Now we’re sitting on the back patio playing a rousing game of Rummikub. Aren’t we exciting!!

Tomorrow we’re heading to Boulder which is only about a 35 minute drive. We’re in one more Airbnb flat before we switch to hotels for the rest of the trip. Maybe we’ll get a game of golf in tomorrow. Who knows??

So, let’s finish our anniversary yesterday before moving on to Pikes Peak. We had a lovely dinner at the Cliff House in Manitou Springs. Dinner was delicious….I had sea scallops and my honey had pasta primavera. They brought us a lovely plate of strawberries and cream for dessert. It was a wonderful anniversary!

Today, Sunday, we got up earlier than we needed to for our trip to the Cog Railroad up to Pikes Peak. When we got the directions from GPS, for some reason it gave us directions to the station on the top of the mountain, not to the station at the bottom. As a result we thought we had a one-hour drive when in actuality it was only 12 minutes. So….we got to the station at about 6am, about an hour before the staff arrived. Obviously we had no trouble finding a parking spot so we just hung out in the car until it was time to leave on the 8am train.

The ride up the mountain was beautiful. Here’s a pic I took from the train.

The summit is 5 feet higher than it was in 1965 when I visited it the first time. Now it’s 14115 feet above sea level. It took an hour to get up there and we spent about 50 minutes at the summit. That was plenty of time for photos, a trip to the gift shop and a stop in the cafe for a little snack.

You might be wondering what makes these donuts world famous. Well…we wondered as well and asked one of the workers. Apparently it’s impossible to bake at that altitude so someone came up with a recipe and developed an oven to successfully bake these donuts. We were told that if we were to take them back down the mountain, they would be as flat as a pancake because of the change of altitude. We thought about trying it but they were so delicious we ate them both at the top.

After we descended the mountain we drove to Denver (about 90 minutes north) and visited the Molly Brown House Museum. The movie “The Unsinkable Molly Brown” with Debbie Reynolds is one of my favorite musicals. The house in the movie is much larger than the real house but it was still very beautiful.

The following video is my favorite number from the Unsinkable Molly Brown. The story goes that the production was running out of money and the producers wanted to cut this number. But Debbie loved it and told them they had to keep it in. The producers agreed but only if they could get it done in one take. So, they did. Apparently the two male dancers with Debbie near the end of the number collapsed in exhaustion when it was finished. Believe me, there is no ballroom in the real house. In fact, the entire building could fit into this ballroom.

We thoroughly enjoyed our self-guided tour of this beautiful house. When we finished we headed straight to our new flat in the suburb of Wheat Ridge. It’s a basement apartment and is lovely. Tomorrow we head to the Air and Space Museum. The other two things we wanted to do, the Coors Brewery and U.S. Mint, aren’t open so I’m not sure what else we’ll do but I know we’ll find something fun to keep us out of trouble. I’ll keep you posted.