Monday, Pikes Peak, CO

We drove through Colorado over the Rockies at night, so I know I missed a lot of beautiful photo ops, but at least we got to see the snow covered pines at Pikes Peak in Colorado Springs. It was a beautiful drive, bright clear sky and freshly fallen snow. We couldn't drive to the top because of the recent snow, but were able to go 13 of the 19 miles up.






We drove just into the entrance of Garden of the Gods where this rock is found...
And then spent the rest of the day driving through Kansas, which looked like this:

Sunday, on to Arches

A cow crossing on our way :) We stopped and got melons in Green River, UT on a recommendation from someone we had met. Supposedly they are famous for their melons. Yum!
Here we are at Arches National Park...here is the North Window:
Rob attempting a climb, as usual...
The South Window:
South and North together (left to right). We read somewhere that the arches can fall at any time without warning...still we climbed up in them of course.
a narrow passage on the way to the Sand Dune arch:
Rob climbed up to the top of the Sand Dune arch. Most other tourists were ok with having their picture taken underneath...not rob :)
Our visit here was short but fun!

Capitol Reef National Park, who knew?

So on our drive to Arches National Park, we found ourselves driving through this park just by the entrance. We had never even heard of it before, but it was time for bed, so we pulled into the Visitor's Center and went to sleep. It was so cool to wake up in the morning and see all the big mountain things around us. We decided to do the Cassidy Arch trail, which was awesome. Up the side of these mountains...this is one of the views from along the trail. Here's the view at the end...amazing right?
Here's my hero sitting on the edge, as always. It was a true form of worship to look out over this beauty and think of God's creativity and kindness to allow us to enjoy it!
Here's Cassidy's Arch. Tales say Butch Cassidy used to hide in here when he was a notorious outlaw of the west. If you look closely you will see me on top of the arch trying to do a hand-stand. not quite successful, but good effort.
Just another view along the trail.
We finally saw some wildlife...here's a bighorn sheep we saw grazing on the trail. It scampered away a bit when we came closer. I was glad it didn't use it's big horns on me.

a Saturday night gift from God!

We drove through Utah on Route 15N on Saturday night, passed through a few towns. Almost went in to see the Petrified Forests, but decided we didn't want to pay the entrance fee, so we looked at this lake instead. Lots of these brown-eyed susans lining the lake.
Then out of the blue, as we are driving through the gorgeous red rock cliffs all around us, we turn a corner and see a sign for Kiva Koffeehouse...this little place in the middle of nowhere, not in a town or anything. So we stop in, and it turns out to be this really cute place where we can look at the cliffs out the window from each table. Plus they had free wireless. This was the place I posted the previous time. The food was great, the sunset was beautiful, and when we stepped outside, it was SO dark that we saw more stars than we knew existed, including the Milky Way. It was awesome. I have never seen so many stars before. We also noticed as we left that they are only open for dinner on Saturday nights from 5-8....and we passed by around 5. It really seemed to us a gift from God to have this cute little place at just the right time for us to have a nicer dinner than most nights of Chef Boyardee and enjoy the landscape.

Saturday at Bryce

This is what happens when you water your crops on a cold morning in Utah: Here we are at Bryce Canyon National Park. We drove down the whole way and pulled out on all the overlooks and then proceeded to our chosen hike down into it from Bryce Point.

Here's the view from the overlook at Bryce point. This and to the left is what we hiked down into.
Have you hugged a tree today?
Some of the spires from below...
Just one of the thousands of amazing views we saw on our hike today...we were surrounded with this landscape 360* during the whole hike. It's almost too much to take in.

Since when did Lombard Street move to Utah? Imagine climbing this during a 5-mile hike...
We hiked down a mile, did this 3-mile loop, and then 1 mile back up. With a leisurely lunch break and many photo-stops, it took about 4 hours altogether. It was a good strenuous, not too much, but I was definitely happy to see the top by the end.

Friday at Zion

We made it to Zion early in the day after spending the night in Kanab at, you guessed it, a Best Western parking lot. BW has been good to us. Our early start proved beneficial...we were able to do 2 hikes. One was the riverwalk to the Narrows. The water was WAY too cold and I couldn't stand it long enough to cross the deep part to get to the REAL narrow part. It was a nice hike anyway. Here's a fun spot on the drive in...it's like a big people's playground, very inviting to run. I thought it would be fun to run to the top. Little did I know it was VERY far to the top and got really steep about halfway up. I was right about one thing...it was fun. Very unique landscape!
There were many great vistas on the trail to the top of one of the peaks called Angel's Landing. We didn't make it to the tippy top, just to Scout's Lookout, because the rest of the "hike" consisted of pulling yourself up a narrow ledge by chains while either side dropped off to 2000 feet or so. Not for me! The view was great from Scout's Lookout. Here's one from the trek:
Here's a shout out to Steve and Hemi...remind you of anything?
This is Angle's Landing...all the way on the top left is where you end up. You can kinda see the chains at the beginning part that you use to pull yourself up. Scout's Lookout: Yes, Rob is sitting right on the edge of the 2,000 feet drop off. Nice view for eating tuna and V8.
Here's the view over the ledge. You can see the tiny road and river at the bottom. We were pretty tuckered after this hike (at least I was) and found a cute pizza place in Panguich and went to bed.

Thursday at the Grand Canyon...eventually

We got stuck in a big pile-up behind a huge accident that was sad to hear about. We were in this spot for 2-3 hours.
Part of our drive toward the Grand Canyon:

Here's the view of the Grand Canyon from the North Rim:


We got there just before sunset (as we often do) and enjoyed the view til after dark. Sure is grand.