Wilderness Wandering

October 24-25 Great Sand Dunes is a high altitude desert highly dependent on water. We arrived at the 14th and last National Park of this leg of our journey around 10 AM. We did our picture and passport business and enjoyed the movie at the visitor center. Our first stop was the Sand Dune Trailhead.…

October 22-23 Sunday Petrified Forest is an interesting park!  It is colorful badlands, forests of fallen trees turned to stone, fossils of prehistoric animals and plants, ruins and petroglyphs of ancient people, plus the nostalgia of Route 66! That’s a lot for 1 park! We arrived early afternoon. As you enter, the Ranger tells you…

October 19-21 Thursday We are back in Colorado. The leaves have really turned!  Mesa Verde is a different type of park. No question it is beautiful, but it isn’t the in your face kind of beauty of Zion and Bryce. And the reason the park exists is to preserve the the cultural significance of the…

Tuesday We left Bryce Canyon on our way to Mesa Verde on a circuitous route.  We drove Hwy 12 to Boulder, UT. Highway 12 is amazingly gorgeous!! Our jaws were dropping literally around every bend! We stopped at the Anasazi History Museum in Boulder. The Anasazi are also known as the Pueblo. It was very…

October 14 through 16, 2023 We have been looking forward to this park. Many friends have told us they loved it.  October 14 We arrived early afternoon after watching the solar eclipse. We wanted showers, so we booked a night at Ruby’s RV Park. Great showers, a laundry on premises, nice bathrooms, sinks for washing…

Park #10 We arrived Monday late afternoon. We couldn’t get a reservation for in the park, so we made an RV park reservation on the east side. To get there, we drove the incredible winding Hwy 9 drive through the park and took our picture with the Zion sign. There is a 1 mile tunnel…

Park #9 October 7 and 8 We drove across southwestern Utah and entered Nevada on Hwy 50. Highway 50 is said to be the loneliest stretch of highway in the lower 48.  We weren’t that lonely, but it certainly is dry and fairly mountainous! There were stretches of 80 miles with no services! We made…

Park #8 October 4-6 Capitol Reef NP is a very unique park. I hadn’t heard of it until we began trip planning.  There are 2 parts to the park – The Waterpocket Fold and Fruita.  The Waterpocket Fold is an extremely unique geological feature, a 100 mile long fold in the Earth’s crust. As the…

September 27,28 and October 2,3 We left Black Canyon of the Gunnison and drove southwest passing through Grand Junction, CO.  The countryside looked like desert, parched with no trees.  All of a sudden, the landscape changed with red mesas appearing on the horizon. The day got warm – into the upper 80s.  Canyonlands NP has…

September 28,29, and October 1 After lunch at Canyonlands we headed to Arches NP. They are only about 30-45 minutes apart.  We picked up our permit for the Fiery Furnace for tomorrow. The park has Ranger lead and self directed hikes for The Fiery Furnace.  The Fiery Furnace is a hike through a sandstone maze.…