After a great visit at Arches National Park we drove from Moab, Utah to Durango, Colorado. It was a beautiful drive and it was also the only time we encountered any significant rain on our whole trip.
We got to Durango early so we walked around the old town and visited several of the shops.
After checking into our hotel we drove back into town and went to the Diamond Belle Saloon in the Statler Hotel. It was a fun place to have a drink and to get something to eat (a Margarita PIzza). The waitresses were dressed as they probably did in the late 1800's and there was a gentleman, Terry, who played a lot of great music on a piano that was over 100 years old. He was even nice enough to play "Ghost Riders in the Sky" which was a favorite of Betty's father.
Here are a few pictures and a short video of the Diamond Belle.
After we left the Diamond Belle to go back to our hotel we heard a familiar sound - the Durango to Silverton train return to Durango. You might need to turn your volume down as you watch the video.
The next morning, Wednesday, we drove home and brought our four week driving trip to a close. On Sunday, we'll post our learnings and highlights from our trip. Betty will post her part and I'll add my perspective to hers.
In the meantime, we're washing clothes and beginning to get our house in order as our kids come next Thursday for the Balloon Fiesta - hooray!
(It's Wednesday afternoon and, after 4,502 miles, we're home safe and sound. We stopped and spent last night in Durango, Colorado. The hotel we stayed in had terrible wifi so I didn't get to do the post I wanted to. I have two more posts from our trip I want to do. I'll do the first, our visit to Arches National Park, now and the last one, our stay in Durango, tomorrow, Thursday. Our next post will be Sunday when we do a recap of our trip, what we learned and the things that were important to us.)
Last Sunday, Betty felt good enough for us to get out and go see Arches National Park, the last National Park on our list. (Betty is still doing well so we're hopeful this shingles is a minor case.) Of all the parks we saw, Arches is one we actually have visited before.
Twenty years ago, Betty, Chris (our youngest son) and I visited Arches on our way to visit Wade Daniel (our oldest) who was working in Ogden, Utah that summer.
Arches is only a mile North of Moab so it was easy to get there. As the name implies, the several arches are the attraction, but there is also a lot of great rock formations to see. We didn't see the whole park so we could get back to the motel to rest, but we did spend almost three hours there.
Here are a few pictures and a relatively short video of our Arches visit.
On our way back to our hotel, we took a little side trip on a road that ran along the Colorado River.
Tomorrow, Monday, we head for Durango, Colorado and then home.
On Saturday, we drove from Bryce Canyon to Moab, Utah. The drive was more spectacular than we expected. We drove over a high mountain range, about 10,000 feet. We were surprised by how many free-ranging cows we passed, including one stubborn cow who defended her space on the road. We were also surprised by the thousands and thousands of Aspen trees that were in their beautiful fall color.
We went through Capitol Reef National Park which is one of the smaller national parks, but is a beautiful drive. Then the landscape changed to a dry, moon-like surface before we got to Moab.
Here are a few pictures and a video of our drive.
On Sunday, we drove through Canyonland National Park which is about 35 miles North of Moab. I didn't have any expectations because Canyonland is one of the least publicized of all the parks. But it turned out to be spectacular in it's own right.
Canyonland is like Bryce in that it's a park where you drive along the rim and look down into the canyons. It's difference is the spectacular views and vistas you have of so many canyons created by the Green and Colorado rivers.
Here are some photos and a video of our time at Canyonland.
It was another great day on our trip.
However, when we got back to the motel we had an unexpected trip to take, but that's Betty's story. So, without further ado, to tell her story, here's Betty.
"So, we made a trip to the ER to check out a small rash on my upper back, and sure enough, I have shingles for the second time. Many of you know I had a very bad case of shingles about 3 1/2 years ago. I have even gotten the shingles vaccine since then. The good news is that this seems to be a very mild case: no pain ahead of time and pain localized at the rash site instead of the deep nerve pain. Now it's Monday evening and the rash isn't spreading -- just itching and mild local pain. We're praying the meds continue to work and things don't get worse.
That's my news. Not good, but not horrible. Our trip has been incredible and this isn't a game changer, but it is part of our story." Betty
Betty and I have been fortunate over the years to ride horses in some amazing places. We've ridden in the wilderness of Alaska, the rain forests of Hawaii, the mountains of New Zealand where Lord of the Rings was filmed, the deserts of Arizona, riding mules to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and in the wilds of the Canadian Rockies.
We can now add riding horses in Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah to that list.
Our ride this past Friday morning was spectacular. As I mentioned in a previous post, where Zion is visited at the bottom looking up at the canyon, Bryce is visited by most at the top of the rim looking down.
The views are spectacular from the rim, but if you really want to experience Bryce Canyon you need to hike down into it or ride down into it. Well, our long hiking days are over, so riding horses was the choice for us.
Here's a video of our ride - sorry, another long video.
We left Zion National Park this morning. As we packed the car we saw some wild turkeys outside of our room.
The drive to Bryce Canyon National Park was beautiful - through some really nice ranch and horse country.
We got to the area too early to check into our hotel (which doesn't have wifi - I'm doing this at a restaurant as we eat dinner), so we drove through the park to check out some of the views. Bryce is very different than Zion. At Zion you are at the bottom of the canyon looking up. At Bryce you're up on the rim (4,000 feet higher than Zion) and looking out and down.
Here are a few pictures from this afternoon.
Tomorrow morning we go for a half day horseback ride that will take us from the canyon rim down to the bottom and back up again. Should be fun.
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