Vacation Part 2

We left Boulder on Monday morning (early) and drove through the rocky mountains.  We drove along I-70 and bordered the Colorado river the whole way.  I heard a lot of "oh my" and "how amazing" and "this is awesome" coming from the backseat.   The drive was stunning.  We stopped at a roadside park that was next to the Colorado River.

The girls got their feet wet in the icy water.

Yes, Lucy is wearing a nightgown.

Emma Jane had to step out and warm her feet up.

We went for a little walk and watched rafters and saw several different kinds of trout swimming upstream.

I have an app on my phone that I have never been successful at using.  I finally got it to work.  I set my iPhone on a rock in the river (yikes) and had the shutter open for 4 seconds.  And since you are seeing this photo, it means I didn't drop my phone in the water!

The drive on I-70 was amazing.  The girls loved the Eisenhower tunnel.  Lucy continued to ask for days when we were going to drive through another tunnel.

Right before we left Colorado we took a detour south to drive the 23 mile drive through Colorado National Monument Park.  We were told that it was worth it, but I didn't realize it would be so breathtaking. 

We walked out onto an overlook and Emma Jane made the greatest echo.  She would call out and you could hear it from so many different directions.  I don't know about the rest of my family but I felt tiny.  I felt insignificant in the vast canyons and bluffs with the birds calling and lizards darting.  I am so glad that the national park system exist and that we humans can do our part by leaving nature alone.

Incredible.  And accessible.  And pristine. 

Then we drove into Utah (and yes, it is still Monday).  We also were told by my brother to take a back road into Moab.  So when we left I-70 we drove for awhile in a barren desert of scrubs, salt and cactus.  But then suddenly we started to enter the red canyons around Moab.  And we were once again hugging the Colorado River.

The bluffs were towering over us.  And the sun was low on the horizon so the sun was at that magical angle where everything has more color.  The red rock was on fire as we drove through it.  We were once again this tiny insignificant spec taking in millions of years of erosion and seeing layers of earth that had been deposited when this was an ocean.  Humbling...

And because we had stopped a hundred and fifty times that day, and because everyone was hungry, and because we needed to see Moab, I took this picture over my shoulder, from the window of the van, angling my iphone backwards but not even able to see the view finder...

Yes...Instagram rocks. 

More later...