After a long days drive through Navajo Nation, we took the short drive west into the Grand Canyon to take in the views… the “grand” views. Mom said she had been here once before but it was so smokey (due to a fire) that she could not see far into...
Even if we were not mandated to leave today, I am sure Mom would want us to go anyway. Yesterday was a brutal day, especially for her. Although the morning started off nicely, eating breakfast and watching the balloons climb the cool morning air over Longmont, by afternoon the heat...
We left Peaceful Valley this morning to spend the weekend closer to town. We knew it was going to be hot (very hot in fact) at the lower altitudes, but Mom said she wanted a change of scenery anyway. Once we arrived at Union Reservoir (only 40 minutes of driving)...
We drove into Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park to show Mom the sights as best we could in a half-day. Mom is still getting too winded at our altitude to go for any treks down the trails, but there are still a lot of things worth seeing right...
Actually, the Peaceful Valley campground was still closed due to downed trees, but Camp Dick (same road, just further down) was open. Really, that is the true name; Camp Dick. They knew I was coming I guess. As you can see, we got everything setup; Mom in the trailer, Tim...
Conor spotted a small lake (un-named) atop a small mountain via Google Earth. Since we had been looking for a nice spot for an over-night backpacking trip, and this was only 20 miles away and in National Forest land, we found out spot. The road was not marked as national...
I have passed by this road many times on my way up the mountain to numerous other hikes over the years. It is only a few miles outside of Lyons, which is right up the road from me. It was not until late last year that I finally traveled the...
Conor and I went out for an early morning hike, this time we stayed at lower altitude thanks to everything beginning to bloom down here with the early spring. We tackled the 6 miles round trip of Picture Rock Trail again and made sure to take the time to snap...
Our final park of the trip was Mesa Verde National Park where we stopped in the museum to take a tour of the Spruce Tree House cliff dwelling and then a quick auto-toured of the various other cliff dwellings and sights. After a half-morning here, we planned to BBQ at...
In the morning, we quickly moved out to finally go check out the southern part of Canyonlands, known as the Needles section. We drove south into a head wind for 30 miles before turning west into yet another head wind for 30 more miles before making it into the park....
