Thursday, July 16, 2009




Indiana-Found a really sweet park to stay in. There were showers, it was quiet, and there were these really cool waterfalls.



St. Louis, Missouri
This was a really fun stop. I had no idea there was so much history there.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009



Camp site in Kansas. Looks all peaceful now...




Maroon Bells

Day 3-5

I spent the weekend in Colorado visiting a friend. The town was a great, cute little town with a lot of character. We had a great time relaxing and hiking. It was great to spend time with a friend and explore a new place. On Saturday we hiked to a lake and saw the Maroon Bells, which is a famous mountain range. One of the highlights was the bus ride to the trailhead. It was just so enjoyable hearing a play by play of every alluvial fan and rock formation on the 25 minute ride to the trailhead by the bus driver. Let's just say Roxy was less than pleased with the frequent stops. The hike iteself was a lot of fun and was great to be hiking again! On Sunday night we had Mexican cuisine and danced the night away to bluegrass music in the park!

On Sunday, I drove through Denver and into Kansas. As I write this tonight, I'm still in Kansas and less than thrilled. Let's just say I might have seen one to many cornfields today and religioius billboards. I realized around 8:00 that the time had changed to be an hour ahead. So not only did Kansas leave me bored without any mountains, but it also stole an hour from me :( I found or should I say stumbled upon a campground in good ol' Millford, Kansas. Apparently I'm the only person tent camping and everyone else is hiding out in their campers (now, I'm actually writing this last night, which will be important later). Well, not everyone. There are two ladies cruising along gossiping in a golf-cart, who kindly directed me to set up wherever I wanted. They've got to be on at least thier fifth lap around the grounds by now! Anyway not only is Kansas a little on the flat side, there is a heat warning in effect today. So it's about 9 million degrees in my tent right now. I'm hoping the breeze keeps up and the predicted thunderstorms were just a blunder of the weather guessers.

Writing the next morning...

Ok, so turns out the weather guessers were right. It started with some lightning, which I could handle. What I couldn't handle were the strong winds that picked up in a matter of a minute. I'm talking winds that were knocking Roxy from one end of the tent to the other. I had to lean my whole body to one side of the tent to prevent the wall from folding over. Now I understood why everyone was in a camper. I managed to rescue Roxy to the car and drug the tent and its contents to the car. I was able to take out the poles but had to just throw my tent in the car and empty it out in the car. It was terrifying, even for someone who likes wind (like me!). Anyway, long story short, I ended up sleeping in the car. Hoping to get out of the wonderful state of Kansas today and move on to new territory! Hope all is well!

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Day 3 Utah

Yesterday, I started the day off early and headed off to Arches National Park (Utah). Arches was definitely a stop worth making. There are many more parks in that area I would like to check out too. Utah is so beautiful to drive through with the redrock, but the desert it quite daunting. I tried to capture some photos of the drive. Unfortunately Roxy was less amused and more interested in snoozing...surprise, surprise. The weather made the experience even more interesting because there was storm rolling through. The way you could see it raining in the distance and watching the storm clouds roll in created a new mood.

Arches was definitely a cool spot and made the looooong drive worth while!

Another picture from Arches National Park. As most things, it's impossible to capture the essence of the rock structures with a camera.