Travels Revisited: USA Roadtrip 2017-Utah

We finally made it to the Grand Canyon!..At 11pm on June 29th, that is too late to even attempt to set up a tent so we slept in the car. It was super comfy.. but that's only 2 times we've had to sleep in the car this trip and that's pretty good! And the good thing about sleeping in the car is that you don't have to take your tent down in the morning, that made it possible for us to wake up at 5am and drive to the Grand Canyons rim for the sunrise. That was a very cool experience, we weren't the only people that thought of doing that but it sure was a sight to see. The Canyon was very hazy and they say that is caused by smog coming over from LA. After sunrise we walked some of the rim trail to get better views of the Canyon. We drove up to Grandview point, the Natural Bridge, and Rainbow point(9000 ft up). The ravens were flying around the Natural Bridge and that was cool to see. We had to get to our next campground in Utah so we left around lunch time from the GC.

Our campground was in the middle of Bryce Canyon and Zion so that we could easily go to both parks. July 1st we went to Bryce and wow what a place! The hoodoos, rock formations, were awesome to see. The Canyon itself is not as big as others but it's nice because every viewpoint is different. We walked from Sunrise to Sunset Point, only a half a mile or so, and took in the views from there. Then we trekked on to Inspiration Point, which was wayyy up the mountain but veryyy worth it. The walk itself was only another .7 miles but the hills were steep.

July 2nd we went to Zion. Zion is a stunning park and definitely is one of our favorites. It's like Yosemite but bigger and more rocky. People go to Zion for some serious hiking and rock climbing, and it makes sense why. Those rocks are massive. We didn't realize it would be so packed but wow it was. They said they get 5 million visitors a year now! We had to park in Springdale and take the shuttle on the scenic drive through Zion. We saw the Court of the Patriarchs, Angels Landing, and Big Bend. Angels Landing is quite a hike, they have to use a chain to hike over some of the ridges, we could even see some hikers way up the mountain from the bus. We rode it all around and hopped off at the Weeping rock stop to take the .5 mile steep trail. The water is pushed out laterally from the rocks and it forms a spring that drips off the side of the rocks. The hike led us to the Weeping Rock which had a view of the Canyon. Our next hike after lunch was from The Grotto to the Lower Emerald Pools. This hike had an amazing view of the Virgin River and the Canyon on the way up! The pools are named emerald because of the algae that grows, there is lots of vegetation down there though and I thought it was because of that. We even enjoyed the 1.1 mile long tunnel to enter the park! Zion is spectacular and regardless of how busy it was, we loved it!

July 4th- Today we drove from Bryce-Zion, to Moab, UT. What a difference in 4 hours makes when you're in the desert. Our campground in Bryce was a nice 70 to 80 degrees but in Moab it was 106 degrees all day and during the middle of the night it was still 90!

We stayed at a campground minutes from Arches National Park. Moab was a nice little town, we went to the Rec pool the next day because it was so hot out that we couldn't do anything else. They had a street ice cream vendor that sold Superman and huckleberry ice cream. We were lucky the campsite was in a great spot to see the 20 minute firework show that happened on the mountain. And the firework show came with some music too... an Australian family folk band staying at our campsite started playing during the show. Very interesting! We also met a Belgian family and another group of Australian campers. The campground had a really nice community kitchen and BBQ area so we made burgers for the 4th.

July 5th- We tried to beat the heat today and get to Arches before it was 110 degrees. We only made it until about 2pm but saw most of the park. We started at the Balanced Rock, stopped to climb the base of the Windows and Turett Arches, went across the street to the Double Arch and climbed even more. I climbed a steep-ish bunch of rocks up to sit in one of the arches and the rocks burnt my hands! Oops. Then we intended to hike to see Landscape arch but ended up taking a nap in the car for 30 minutes then deciding it was too hot to walk even 20 feet. We did however, walk up a hill to see Delicate Arch and that was kind of disappointing because the lookout for the arch was so far away and the hike to the arch was like 4 miles. Still cool to see! We did go to the pool today which was very nice.

July 6th- We drove to Denver today but first we stopped at Canyonlands. Island in the Sky is very dream like, which I guess is why they call it Island in the Sky. Most of that park is used for off roading and it is all very far apart. If you drive in to Moab you see Jeep rentals on every corner and each one is going into Canyonlands. Even though it is a Canyon, the terrain is different than the Grand Canyon. It's bigger and it's almost like a Canyon within a Canyon.

We arrived in Denver and actually got to see one of my cousins! Denver is a cool city, there are so many surrounding towns and places to go, they have Red Rocks, Rocky Mountains, Boulder, Golden, Colorado Springs, and so much hiking. The city itself has a lot to do, we went to a Rockies game on July 7th. We tried Voodoo Donuts, Stuebens(a 70s themed diner with awesome food), and a pizza place with Mac and Cheese pizza.

We also went to the Red Rocks Amphitheater, unfortunately it closed soon after we got there because the Avett Brothers were about to do a sound check. Just up the road from there was Golden, CO. I had seen a picture of the Howdy Folks sign in historic Golden and wanted to go but I didn't know it was so close to Denver. We ended up going and seeing lots and lots of river tubers, everyone was outside during the rain. We stayed inside a sandwich shop during that rain. We didn't make it to Boulder or the Rocky Mountains. But that's okay because we'll have something to do for next time. We did go to City Park Jazz and eat wraps and smoothies bowls from food trucks on Sunday. The place we were in had a rooftop sitting area so we watered the pretty sunset over the mountains!

July 10th- heading to White Sands National Monument in New Mexico!