I eventually dragged myself out of my sleeping bag into the cold morning. It got down to 25 degrees F in the night, so I was not really excited to get out of my cozy cocoon.
After moving our camp to another site (since we had to take one of the ADA accessible sites the night before, and without an access pass, you’re only allowed one night) we loaded up our backpacks with water, clothing, and food for a hardcore training hike to prepare for backpacking in Glacier NP and North Cascades NP. Our packs were probably around 40-50 lbs so that we could find out if we could hack it, which is a great idea and important to do, but it sucked.
Exhaustion and driving are bad. Fortunately, I got enough sleep last night to get rid of the dark bags around my eyes. Surprisingly, the drive from Dinosaur, CO to Vernal, UT is rather scenic. It reminded me of the Badlands, but it is very different.
Vernal, UT is a nice looking small town that is a shining example of the way humans and dinosaurs could co-exist if we didn’t harvest their bodies for fuel. (They have lots of dino statues)
Another day full of driving! We left our little motel in Dinosaur and crossed into Utah. Much of Utah is flat and desolate, but eastern Utah and the canyonlands in the south are amazing (unfortunately we won’t make it down to the canyons on this trip, but we might be able to go into Arches briefly). Continue reading “Day 2 – Dinosaur to Grand Teton NP”→
If you don’t already know us, you may not know how bad we are at keeping to a plan, but we are mainly not good at mornings. So we didn’t get on the road until 1.5 hours after we had planned to. Once we did, it was pretty smooth sailing up until we got past Boulder, CO…
Mountains, woo! (from US-36, south of Boulder, CO)
So, it’s labor day weekend. Not sure if anyone else remembers that it’s the weekend when everyone and their mothers go out to enjoy the outdoors. We had a “nice” reminder on our way out to Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP), it was reminiscent of Yellowstone. So. Many. People. And about half of them don’t know how to deal with a road.
For example, there was a herd of elk hanging out near the road. Now, it makes sense that people would be interested, but about 20 people were risking life and limb, walking on the edge of the road where there’s maybe a foot from where they’re standing to where cars are supposed to be. To avoid further ranting, the punchline is that I don’t like most people (I’m going to make an effort to not turn this blog into a series of misanthropic rants).
Anyway, RMNP is beautiful, the weather was just right with some clouds that made the lighting change every now and then.
Rocky Mountain National Park is a pretty place. Ooh, ahh…
While it would have been nice to do some hiking, we got such a late start in the morning that we had to truck on through, only stopping at the visitor station before entering the park and at one pullout that was miraculously empty. Plus, with all the people, parking was insane at most places, particularly on the eastern side.
When we passed through Granby, CO and the surrounding area, we tentatively decided that she should retire somewhere around there or Grand Lake, CO. It’s so beautiful with the lake and a glorious backdrop of the Rockies (we didn’t grab a picture, but I’m sure there’s some nice pictures someone else took somewhere on the Internet). Plus, it’s not in the middle of a forest, so wildfires are slightly less of a concern.
We also found out that a) Sotheby has a realty division in Steamboat Springs, and b) Steamboat Springs is very pretty.
We’re still figuring out this whole blogging thing, unfortunately it was a fairly uneventful day, but hopefully we’ll be able to write interesting things even on days such as today. If you have any tips, leave us a comment below!
P.S. Sorry for any weird formatting, we had to post via phone.
Lara just finished grad school and got a “real person” job. So, to celebrate, we’re going on a massive road trip!
Our planned route is going to take us through eight states and one province of Canada, and allow us to see 11 National Parks and 2 National Recreation Areas (and it’s the National Park Service’s Centennial, so, what better time).
We’ll update this when we can, hopefully with pictures. We may also try to upload things from our past trips.
