Category Archives: Vacations

Day 7: Bryce Canyon National Park – Day 1

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After reviewing my options, I decided that today would be the day to simply take the drive up the length of the park and stop at all the scenic overlooks in the park.  In 18 miles there are 14 stops – I think I hit them all…

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They’re all very similar but I think my favorite was Inspiration Point which is where the above photo was taken.  The day started out very nice, despite the clouds that almost made me reconsider.  However as the day drew on it started to cool off and there was a brief shower of freezing rain that finally made me put the top up for good.  I made it back down to the visitors center and was able to catch a presentation of their 20 minute “intro to Bryce Canyon” movie.

After that it was raining and the wind was blowing quite a bit, so I hung out at the visitor center for about a half hour or so until it finally stopped.  I made it out to the last viewpoint and called it a day.

Got back to my campground about 5 o’clock and fortunately my tent was still standing.  One of the campground staff said they had a 51mph gust of wind blow through and for a time visibility was virtually 0 with all the dust in the air.  While my tent was still standing, I found that it was also full of sand!  Unlike anything I’d experienced in the last couple of days.  I cleaned out the sand and made some modifications that I am hoping will keep out some of the sand tonight – not holding my breath though.  Since the wind was still blowing pretty good, I decided not to bother trying to cook in camp and went into town to try the pizza place.

Tomorrow I’m going on a 4-5 mile hike down into the canyon to get an up-close view of some of the hoodoos!

Day 6: Will Wonders Never Cease?

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Today I had planned for a leisurely drive from Moab over to Bryce Canyon National Park.  But as mentioned in my last post, the photos from Canyonlands were more or less garbage, so I decided to make a run through the park to at least capture some highlights.  Now I was driving right past the turn-off to the park anyway, but this is about 25 miles from the park plus the additional perhaps 10-15 miles out to the Grand View, so we’re talking about a 70-80 mile side trip plus time for photos – so all in all about 2 and half hours.

Then during this time, I also had the thought that I should run back up highway 128 and film it in real time as opposed to the time lapse I already had.  Besides, you always see different views from the alternate directions.  I had to get back up to I-70 to get to Bryce anyway so what the heck.  So after doing these things it was about 1 o’clock and I still had the original 5 hour drive to go.  Good plan.

Now, while I knew that my route was going to take me near Capitol Reef National Park and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, I did not realize that I would in fact be driving through them.  Bonus!

Of course, this is the down side of simply relying on the GPS and not digging into the routes as I have done on my previous trips.  In hind sight I would have planned to stay a night in Capitol Reef as it is about mid-way on this drive.  But, oh well.

There is a scenic drive of about 10 miles (one way) that I had to take – so that killed another hour.  After this I then entered the Dixie National Forest which offers overlooks of Grand Staircase.  Then I entered the actual monument – simply unbelievable.

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I stopped for a few photos and am hoping that my driving time-lapse will show a little bit, but this is something that I don’t think photos can really convey.  You have to drive this route to believe it.  It is hands down the most amazing drive I’ve ever taken.

After all of these “delays”, my leisurely day ended with my arrival at the campground at about 7:30pm.  I got the tent up despite the wind and then went into “town” because I didn’t want the hassle of cooking in the dark and wind.  There are two restaurants in Cannonville – a pizza place and Clarke’s.  I chose Clarke’s since they were open later – 9pm.  Had a very nice Rainbow Trout dinner.  To top it off they had The Piano Guys playing on their sound system – I love those guys!

I’m here through the weekend now, so no more serious driving ’til the middle of next week.  Now I’ll just enjoy Bryce Canyon!

Day 5 – Canyonlands National Park

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After a nearly sleepless night due to crazy blowing winds and sand in my tent I crawled out to a still very windy and decidedly cloudy morning.  After cleaning as much of the sand out of my tent, sleeping back and teeth as possible, the wind was still blowing.  I decided to just grab breakfast at McDonalds, post my blog and head up to the park.  Cooking in camp would have been an exercise in futility…

So I headed up into Canyonlands National Park – Island in the Sky district.  The park is a vast formation of canyons and other amazing formations formed by the confluence of the Green and Colorado Rivers.  It’s split up into three districts that are each more inaccessible than the last.  The one I visited is generally the most accessible and was the closest to Moab.  The views are beyond any words that I could come up with – nothing short of awe-inspiring.

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Unfortunately, you’ll have to take my word on this for the time being as I had a bit of an operator error with my camera.  At some point getting into and out of the car with the camera it seems I had unknowingly switched it to fully manual mode – which is fine if I had been paying attention.  However, I got lost in the views and was simply snapping away and I never review them until later because in the sun (ok it was cloudy today) you generally can’t see anything on the camera display.  After getting back to camp tonight I discovered that virtually all of my shots from today are uncorrectably overexposed…

So, since I have to drive past the park entrance on my way to Bryce Canyon tomorrow I think I will run into the park and try to capture at least a few images.  It will add a couple hours to my drive but I can’t leave here without some true visual evidence.  Pics to come!

Days 3 & 4: To Moab and Arches National Park

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Yesterday was spent driving from just west of Denver (Central City) to Moab, Utah.  The drive over I-70 was very nice, especially the Glenwood Canyon section which has got to be one of the true marvels of the interstate highway system.  The last time I took this route was on a trip to the Grand Canyon, 20 years ago, and it was at night so we didn’t get to see the amazing views.  I’m working on time-lapse videos of my trip and I’m hoping that these come out as well as I have envisioned – we’ll see…

Taking the advice of the campground staff in Denver I diverted from the GPS directions and instead took UT-128 off of I-70 down to Moab.  This route is rated as one of America’s scenic byways and it did not disappoint.  It follows the Colorado River through a series of canyons and the views are amazing!  On reaching Moab I made camp and just relaxed for the evening – after three days on the road, I was beat!

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This morning I headed into Arches National Park, which is less than 10 miles north of Moab.  I planned to see lots of arches – but didn’t see as many as I’d have liked.  The hike out to Delicate Arch – the picture above – was about a 2 hour round trip or 3 miles.  At least it was only uphill one direction;-)

After that the next stop on the route was Sand Dune and Broken Arches.  I saw Sand Dune, but after reaching what I thought would be Broken Arch – the sign said “Trail Continues thru Arch”.  So I continued on for about another half hour – and nothing, no signs, no people, just rocks and sand and cute little lizards.  Now it could have been right around the next bend, but I was hot and thirsty and tired, so I bailed and headed back to the car.

By this time it was about 3:30 and I’d had enough of the sun – according to my old fashioned thermometer I have with me it was at least 100 degrees.  So I headed back to camp, took a shower, and decided I wasn’t going to sit around camp and cook in the heat again (even if it is only 90 in Moab).  I had seen signs for the Moab Brewery and decided a cold hand-crafted brew sounded perfect.  I tried two, their IPA and Deraileur – both were great, along with a delicious Smoked salmon salad.  Then it was back to camp to do a little last minute research for tomorrow – Canyonlands National Park.

Days 1 & 2: From home to Nebraska and Colorado

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So I was planning to leave home at 7am on Saturday – a little ambitious given that I had a few things to get ready.  8 o’clock would have been fine as well.  In any case as I was loading up – I never had a chance to fit-check everything – I realized that my telescope case takes up way too much space.  In the end, I ended up pulling the passenger seat as I did on my 2006 road trip.  Oh well, I was on the road at 9:30.

Programmed my GPS to take the shortest route – which is not the quickest as it literally takes the shortest mileage route.  This is actually kind of nice as you end up taking the smaller state highways and it’s a bit more scenic.  The downside is of course it’s slower – but the GPS showed only an hour difference, what the heck!  Well, there are also some issues with construction and detours…  That extra hour was turning into about two hours – given my late departure this was making for a long day.

Somewhere in southwestern MN just above the IA border I decided to go back to the fastest route.  This put me on I-29 down to Omaha and the I-76 over to Doniphan where I was spending the night.  Maybe not as scenic, but better none the less.  I got to my campground a little after 7pm.  Got setup, made dinner and crashed.

Sunday morning I was on the road again about 9:30 and arrived at my campground near Golden, CO a little after 4pm MT – another long day but at least I have the extra hour of sunlight to work with.  Speaking of, time to go make some dinner!

On to Utah tomorrow!

Days 11&12 – end of the line

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After the scrub of the launch on Wednesday morning I got a few hours of sleep and then hit the road about 11 o’clock.

While reviewing the route I realized that swinging through St. Louis would add less than a hundred miles to my route.  Having driven past the Gateway Arch numerous times and never stopping, I decided to make a stop there.

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After driving all day Wednesday and catching a few zzzs at a rest stop in Kentucky I arrived at the arch at 10 a.m. on Thursday.  I snapped a few pictures and took the ride up to the top – it is a very impressive structure.  There’s actually quite a bit to see in the visitor area, but I had stretched my legs enough, so I got back on the road just after noon.

So the final leg of my trip from St. Louis to home took about 12 hours, including stops.  I walked in my door just after midnight after being on the road for 36 hours – man I’m beat!

Scrubbed

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After hanging out at the hotel last night and watching the weather go downhill fast, I was honestly expecting them to scrub the launch due to that reason.  It would have been the first time since 1995 that they had to scrub due to weather before fueling the tanks.  Well their weather guys decided shortly before 11 p.m. that the weather was improving and that they would commence fueling.  As I left the hotel, the rain had indeed subsided to a very light drizzle, however there was still lots of lightening occurring.

I stopped to grab a quick bite to eat, since I was expecting a long night and kept tabs on the progress – things seemed to be going well.  Leaving the restaurant, I got my tickets and vehicle pass rounded up and headed towards the visitor center.  Had a bit of a scare when I got to the security checkpoint and all of a sudden couldn’t find my vehicle pass. They waved me out of the line and I frantically searched the car – it’s a small space – where’d it go?!

Turns out it had slipped almost completely behind the passenger seat – I got back in line and was waved through a couple minutes later.  Crisis averted!

Got to the space center with the usual eager anticipation – so far so good on the launch pad.  It was about 12:45 and the first bus out to the NASA causeway, the viewing area, didn’t leave till 2:45.  I caught the 1:00 a.m. showing of the 3D IMAX film about the space station – very cool.  The movie let out about 1:50 and I headed over to the Launch Status building for the 2 a.m. briefing.  I no sooner sat down when over the PA the announcement was made that the launch was being scrubbed at 1:55 a.m.  What a letdown.

I hung out with a few other people to hear the first briefing at about 2:30 – no news other than what was already known – a very similar fuel leak as last Saturday and on STS-119 (which I missed in March).  It’s back to square one for NASA to figure out what’s going on and fix the problem.  Safety has to be the number 1 priority.  The next launch window opens July 11 – but whether they Go then or later depends on how the troubleshooting proceeds.

I hope to somehow make it back down here when they’re ready.  For now, it’s time to begin the long trek back home.  While I had some nice visits to several national parks along the way, I must say that this trip has been a bit of a disappointment given the failure of the main objective.  Oh well, it’s all about the journey and not the destination as they say – whoever they are…