Rocky Mountain National Park - CO

Well, this must be the trip of scarey drives.  One rim drive after another.  This was 35 miles of windy uphill to a height of 12,200 feet!! The scenery was gorgeous, right on top of the Rocky Mountains.  So high that the trees stop growing over 11,000 feet.  Why are we always on the cliff side of the road?  I could look down thousands of feet!  The pictures just don't reflect the terror properly.

The campsite was safe, well sort of safe, once we got thru the bear lesson, on how bears can open car doors, and climb through RV windows.  The ranger suggested beating pans together, that way the bear would think you were going to start cooking him something.  We were at site 190, with a view of the mountains (as usual, dry camping).

Silt KOA - Silt, CO

It's been awhile since our last laundry stop and we're actually looking forward to a non eventful afternoon. The longest hike was to the laundry room, the only edge was at the pool.

Minor's Claim in Silt, Co

Tonight is Friday, so we are going to eat downtown at the "Miner's Claim."

Dinner was great!   We road our bikes from the KOA to the restaurant.  That helps to work off the extra calories.

 The KOA overlooked the Rocky Mountains, or maybe the foothills.  Lovely sunset and sunrise.

Colorado National Monument - Fruita, CO

The road to Delicate Arch was washed out at Arches National Park, so we had to walk the 3 mile round trip hike.  It was marked as "strenuous" and we are marked as "slightly out of shape".

Delicate Arch in Utah

By 11:30, we were on the road again to our next stop.  Maps are two dimensional and never show the 2,000 ft climb, but, of course, the name itself should have cast some idea - "Scenic Rim Road"  Yes, another terrifying trip at the very edge of a 2,000 ft precipice with no guardrail.

Our campsite was wonderful.  Right on the edge of the cliff, overlooking Fruita.  There was a lighting storm in Fruita, but it was clear with a bright moon where we were.  We were at site 32, it was dry camping...(we've been dry camping since Las Vegas)

The climb on Rim Road - not for the faint of heart!

Arches National Monument - Moab, UT

Sunset from the top of our RV!

After an $11 stop to dump and take on water in Blanding, UT, we headed for Moab, UT.  Years ago, we stayed at the Gonzo Inn in Moab and really enjoyed it.  So since it was raining, a pretty rare occurrence here, we stopped for lunch.  Deb wanted Mexican food.  According to Trip Advisor, there were 11 Mexican Restaurants in Moab.  We choose The Moab Diner, which turned out not to be really Mexican, but as you looked, each item on the menu was how a Mexican might make it.  I had a Melt, which had chili instead of cheese on it.  Deb had a Navajo Taco which turned out to be large fry bread with chili on it.  It was excellent, but we will have a small dinner tonight..

 It was a good thing that we went to Natural Bridges first.  The arches here dwarf anything we have seen before.  We spent the day, on the 17 mile road which with dozens of outlooks and short hikes got us to The Devil's Garden...our stop for the night (site 32).  We are still dry camping with no water or dump site.  From the campground, it's a short bike ride to the trail head where we hiked in to see Landscape Arch, a very long, very thin arch.  It looks like it will collapse very soon.  The rain finally stopped, but not without one little downpour, as we were biking back to the site.  In the morning we will go to see Delicate Arch before heading to Colorado.

Natural Bridges National Park - Blanding, UT

From The Navajo National Monument to Natural Bridges is a pretty short ride, but if you do it right, it can be somewhat terrifying.  We took Utah Rte 261, which is not recommend for vehicles over 10,000 lbs, and/or RV's, trailers and such.  The sign should have read "not recommended for sane people". After that death defying act, we made it to our site (5).

A little focused!

A natural bridge is created by a river.

At the park there is a 9 mile scenic loop that goes to 3 Natural Bridges.   Since we had no internet, I bought a book on Geology.  I have been studying the rock formation at our next site, Arches National Monument.  I know Deb will be thrilled to hear me explain how the Arches were formed.  We were going to hike down to one of them in the morning but it started to rain!  So we packed up and headed on!  Although we are self contained, there is a limit.  We are on our third day of dry camping, and our second with no dump station or water. (We now know we can go three days without water, but it looks like we have several more nights with no water to go)

A side note, a National Monument can be created with a presidential decree, a National Park requires an act of Congress.  Who knew!

Navajo National Monument

We drove along the north side of the Grand Canyon, under the Vermilion Cliffs, across the Colorado River, over ridges, through canyons.  A Walmart in Page, AZ where we went house boating a few years ago, and on to Navajo National Monument, an out of the way, little known place of extraordinary beauty.  We are sitting at the rim of a canyon where Indian cave dwellers lived in 1300. There is no charge for staying here, no maximum stay... No reason to ever leave...

Even in this arid climate there are beautiful flowers and shrubs.  Sagebrush covers the prairies.  At this location we came across Rocky Mountain Beeplant, which is in the Cleome family.  Also, Buffaloberry shrub which is a beautiful silver green.

North Rim of the Grand Canyon - AZ

After 100+ days in Vegas we left for 70's in Arizona.  North Rim is on a 42 mile access road.  Our site (18) was one of three right on the rim of the canyon.  We only got 4 hours sleep on our last night, so by the time we got there we were exhausted.  We carefully looked at our hiking options...1 mile - too long... 1/4 mile - doable. Walked to Bright Angel point... Followed by a beer at the Lodge...very doable.

The little booklet explained the geology... I studied it, but I still failed the test.  We did a short hike in the morning, before heading off.