Colorado and Utah Road Trip 2012

Our Vacation Part 4

After leaving Arches National Park, we drove north to the mountains of Utah. We spent the next 3 days in a condo that belongs to my cousin Beverly.  The condo is in a ski resort in the Wasatch Mountains.  It is located in Big Cottonwood Canyon, northeast of Salt Lake City and west of Park City. 

It was cold at night.  The first night we arrived it had just rained.  The air smelled like pine needles and rain and was chilly.  It was a welcome change from the heat of the Moab area.

We ate dinner down the road at a restaurant called the Silver Fork Lodge.  It was the perfect ending to a long day.  We sat outside among colorful flowers and hummingbirds flitting about.  The sunset was spectacular.  They lit heaters and brought us blankets to wrap around our legs and shoulders.

When we arrived and saw all the hummingbirds, Emma Jane jumped up and put her hand out.  I said "sweetheart, you are not going to be able to pet a hummingbird...it just doesn't happen."

The waiters started calling her the "hummingbird whisperer"  because it happened more than once.  It happened the next morning when we went back for breakfast and after I said "sweetheart, that will never happen again..."

It was magical.  In fact the entire place was magical.  We heard an eagle cry at breakfast one morning.  We saw an eagle.  We saw moose and deer and chipmunks.  I loved being up in the high mountains with so few people.  The resort was desolate and the wilderness was everywhere.  We went hiking and swimming and watched the olympics and slept with the cool air coming in the windows.

We drove over the mountain on a dirt road to Park City and walked around the ski town. 

We rode the chair lift up to the top of the mountain above Park City.  This was another magical moment of our trip.

Because we did not have any coffee in the condo, and because there was free Starbucks coffee in the resort front office, I walked to the office every morning to get coffee for Mike and me.  Every morning I would put on my fleece jacket and leave as my family was barely stirring to walk the cobblestone paths through the blooming flowers to get steaming hot Starbucks.  It was a magical walk in the cool morning air listening to eagles cry and watching chipmunks scurry.  

I told Mike I felt like a hunter-gatherer out to forage for sustenance for my family.  It was funny how I would return home triumphant presenting my "game" to my husband.  He started calling me his "grinder-brewer"  It was a tough job walking to get Starbucks every morning...

This was a magical place.  As we were getting ready to leave the condo on Friday morning, Lucy was looking out the window and said "mama, I hope we can come back here when it is snowy".  Yes, Lucy, I bet the place is beautiful when it is "snowy".

We left on Friday morning and drove back over the mountain to Park City.  We visited an art studio and had lunch and then drove through northern Utah and southern Wyoming and back to Boulder for the night.

As we were heading across the Wyoming border the sun was setting behind me.

The next night as we were driving through Kansas and so close to home, we got into an incredible lightning storm.  

Between the hummingbirds, the lightning, the sunsets, the moose, the changing landscapes, the eagle, the cold nights and the memorable quotes from my kids, it was a magical vacation.

Thank you babe...

Our Vacation Part 3

Let's see...where was I?  Oh yes, it is still Monday.  We drove into Moab along the Colorado River and arrived in Moab with our eyes wide with wonder.  My girls had never seen this part of the country and said "it was like something you would see on TV".  How sad.  What a sad statement that their only exposure to this majestic landscape was the discovery channel.

We checked into our hotel and because we were only in Moab for one night we immediately headed into town.  We walked around a few shops and watched the moon rise and the sun set.

Pretty is not the word I would use to describe Moab.  It is surrounded by red bluffs and filled with cyclists, rock climbers, campers, foreign tourists, and families like us.  There is quite and eclectic group of people walking around.

My girls fit right in.  I know that most of you are thinking what cute pictures these are.  But my brother Greg is having the same response to seeing the girls in these glasses as I did when they put them on....Oh god! How many other children have done that exact thing and had those plastic mustaches on their mouths????  Kinda ruins the photo, does it not?  No?  Good.  I tried to look away while simultaneously snapping a picture.

Lucy wanted this beanie.  Instead of getting it for her, I took her picture wearing it.  That is kind of the same thing, right?  The hat would have been lost or discarded by the time we got home.  The photo, she will have forever.

We then headed over to Moab Brewery for dinner and of course, beer.  Lucy fell asleep on the dinner table.  We had had an extremely long day and I had this lofty goal of being in Arches at sunrise the next morning. 

We did not make it to Arches at sunrise.  Around 4:00 a.m. a tremendous thunderstorm blew through with rumbling thunder that shook us in our beds...and Lucy into mine...  The sound of rain was a lullaby that I had missed so we just slept in our beds and listened to the gully-washer all morning.  When finally we woke up, we packed up and had a healthy breakfast of powdered-sugar donuts and milk and set out with our bellies full of nutrition to see Arches.

 

If we had felt alone in the universe at Colorado National Monument and on the highway driving in through the canyons towering over the Colorado River, we were definitely not alone at Arches.  After checking in at the visitor center we drove to the back of the park and hiked to Landscape Arch.  Along the trail we heard so many languages.  We heard French, German, Russian, Chinese, Spanish, and people with Australian and British accents.  Suddenly, it didn't seem like we had traveled very far at all to get here.

 

Before we even made it to Landscape Arch we had to stop for snacks and water.  Lucy loves trail mix.  Actually, Lucy loves M & M's and trail mix is a clever way to look like you are eating healthy while really you just had a bag of M & M's.

Here in the shade of a Utah Juniper, in this high desert, in the land of the Anasazi Indians, she received her Indian name.  She shall be called "One who picks M & M's from trail mix".

This is Landscape Arch.  It was worth the hike.  Round trip from the parking lot it was a little over 2 miles.  It was around 90 degrees this morning but I must confess, the sun was searing.  My skin, which normally can stand being in the sun all weekend on the sailboat and not get burned, was screaming for shade.  The higher altitude combined with the thinner air made the sun feel like someone was holding a magnifying glass over me and waiting for me to spontaneously combust.

Emma Jane took the camera from me and took these.

She has such good composition.

Check out her use of the shallow dept of field.  That is Lucy and Mike in the bottom right hand corner.  She is a natural.

Maybe she will guest post for me sometime.  Give us a few photography hints.

After Landscape Arch we headed over to the North and South Window Arches.  We had a picnic in the car and then set out with full bellies once again.

We rested in the shade of the arch and looked out over the vastness of the Utah desert.  Emma Jane and I climbed up the back of the South Window.  It was a tough climb but she wanted to do it so badly.  When I asked her the next day what the best part of her trip had been so far, she said climbing up to the South Window with her mom.

The view was great, but the sense of accomplishment, greater.

We had an unforgettable time in Arches National Park.  As we were walking away from one of the window arches, Emma took my hand in hers and said...I'm going to bring my kids here.  Thanks mom for bringing me here.

Here is the perfect family photo to capture the day.

We left Arches around 2:30 for the drive through Utah to Salt Lake.  The girls and I fell asleep and sweet Mike drove us the whole way.  We left the high desert behind and were heading into the mountains of northern Utah where the air promised to be cooler.

I made an instagram collage of our day at Arches.  And as I am posting this, I realize there are two photos not of Arches.  Please forgive this tired mom.  It is 3:56 a.m. on Friday morning.  As I type this my family is sleeping all around me.  There is a cold breeze blowing in from the window and it is 52 degrees outside.  I can hardly remember the heat of southern Utah.

Night...

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...