Road Trip 2012

This is a summarized recap on our road trip! I'm also attaching some pictures:

    Day one Drove to Santa Fe, New Mexico!
Santa Fe was a fairly short drive (~7 hrs) from Denver. What a cool and artsy city. The Adobe style houses were definitely one of the best attractions, along with the local Native Americans lined up flea market style selling their jewelry and pottery. I bought a couple of bangles and we walked around enjoying the good weather and lovely art. The in-laws also enjoyed this, but being as this was their first day at altitude (Santa Fe is over 7000ft! Had no Clue it was so high) they were quite a bit winded and tired. I remember what it was like coming from sea level to over 5000 feet not much fun! We had a nice southwestern dinner with some tasty margaritas and called it a night! One of the things I loved most about Santa Fe was the colors!

Day two long drive to Sedona, Arizona.

    Arizona is in ways what I expected it to be like but in more ways it is totally different than anything I expected! The landscape is so varied, I saw everything from dusty plains, to red rocks, to lush green forests, to mountains lined with cool streams! As we were driving an incredibly scenic byway through winding mountain roads we suddenly came across the fairly small town of Sedona. What amazing views! This town is exactly what I pictured Arizona to look like. Soaring red rocks and bright blue skies, its like we were sitting in a John Wayne movie. After we "Oooed and Ahhed" over the town we found our hotel and decided to rest beside the pool. Oh my Gawd was it hot! I am from Florida and I am declaring that Arizona was as close to hell's heat as I think one can be. I felt like I was boiling even in the pool! So we decided to wait until the evening before venturing out to the trails. When we finally decided it would be tolerable to hike we chose "Bell Rock", one of the more famous rock formations and from what we read a fairly easy hike. We also read about Sedona having certain trails that contain "vortexes" of energy, Bell Rock being one of them. Now,  I'm not so sure about that hippy new age energy stuff, but hey anything is worth a shot right? Apparently where you find twisted Juniper trees the energy surge is highest, so I found the biggest twisted juniper I could find and stood by it, hmm nothing.  Oh well, regardless I did have a ton of energy hiking, but who knows it could be from the beautiful surroundings, or perhaps I did tap into some "Earth Energy"! As we were completing our hike a storm started to set in, churning the grey skies and sprinkling the dry ground. We were on the last section of trail when a double rainbow (OMG...lol) appeared. It was seriously breathtaking!

Day 3 short drive to Flagstaff, Arizona

Nothing to report about Flagstaff, ehh, some good Mexican food... yep guess that's it.

Grand Canyon visit!

    Okay so the Grand Canyon is definitely something worth reporting on! Having one of the 7 wonders of the world, so close to me would be a travesty not to see. I can't believe I waited this long in my life to visit. We visited the south rim, and it is nothing short of magical and totally worth the drive. You drive for a very long time through what I can best describe as a scrub forest and then BAM you are looking at a giant hole in the ground! Okay, although literally it might be a giant hole, it was so much more than that. It is like directly observing the earth's history through geology. Of course like anything magnificent, pictures don't do a damn thing for the human eye. The best recommendation I have it to see it for yourself. Take your kids, take your folks, hike it, ride a donkey, whatever... just go see it! Although we wanted to hike, we had Giselle with us and dogs were not allowed on the trails, so we settled for walking the rim, which turned out to be much more  work than we expected, so all in all we got some good exercise and made some amazing memories.

Day 4 Drove to Monument Valley, Utah and Cortez, Colorado

    On day 4 we headed north to Utah just to grab a quick portion of the four corners to see Monument Valley. Oh, and before that we drove down Route 66! Anyway, for such a long drive it went by pretty quick, I find when you have such a scenic trip, driving is half the fun. Monument Valley was another "right out of a Western" scene. We stopped just a couple times for pictures, but mostly just enjoying the clean air and amazing landscape

Oh and I can't leave out my little trooper who is probably the most well traveled dog there is!

When we got to Cortez, CO we went to the Mesa Verde National Park. This is the home of the Pueblo Indians who were curiously cliff dwellers. They left behind their dwellings in canyons but obviously no written records so they still remain a mystery to us. The reason their dwellings are so curious is because Pueblo Indians were traditionally nomadic people, meaning they followed their food sources. If the big game migrated, so did they. So for them to set up permanent residence in these cliffs still makes archaeologists scratch their heads. They speculated that with the introduction of corn, they no longer needed to follow the game, and a probable 70% of their diet came from corn. As for the dwellings being integrated into the cliffs, that could very well be for water source, or shelter from the harsh elements, or possible even defense. At any rate, scientists still are no closer to having answers, but what a cool history experience this was.

On day 5 and the final day of our trip we drove through beautiful Durango, CO and headed to the Great Sand Dunes National Park.

   Right smack dab in the middle of nowhere, after passing miles and miles of farmland you come across the Sand Dunes. Cradled in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains is literally a desert. Miles after miles of gigantic sand dunes have formed after millions of years of wind erosion and below freezing temperatures. I have never been to the Sahara Desert, but after looking at these I can imagine what it must be like. So we four, doused ourselves with sunscreen, shades and flip flops and decided to hike to the dunes! Heh, after about half way there we had to carry the dog because the sand was so hot, and then my Icelandic in-laws declared their viking bodies were not designed for this heat and turned back (I was actually thinking the same, but since my husband was still trekking along I figured I might as well keep going). Well being the geniuses that we are, IN OUR FLIP FLOPS, we hiked to the top of a dune. The fate of my scorched feet is still yet to be determined. A couple of times I thought "Screw this I don't need to see this dirt that bad!", but then I am glad I didn't. The view from the top was amazing and I really felt I was in a desert! The half a mile trip back uphill in soft sand was quite fun... cough cough, but hey I got some unintended exercise in and saw some pretty amazing things.

    We had a pretty swell road trip this year, it is always nice to sleep in ones own bed, so I am glad to be home! Happy Labor Day!