Utah's Big Five..........this time minus one!

Four of Utah's Big Five!

 

At the end of October, we left the Silver Bullet at the Montrose/Telluride Airport and flew back to Florida.  If you're a regular reader of this blog, thanks, and you know that this is something we do frequently.  The Montrose/Telluride airport has a great monthly rate that made it very easy and affordable.

On Wednesday, December 7 we flew back to Montrose/Telluride and found the Bullet right where we left it and ready to go.  We're now on our way to California to spend Christmas and kick in the New Year's with Sarah, Joey, James and Emma.  Me and my "birthday buddy, Emma will also be celebrating our birthdays on December 31.  Same day, but I've got her by a few years!  To make it even better Ben will be joining us for two weeks.  Having everyone together is the perfect Christmas present for Beth and I.

The Silver Bullet just needed a little snow dusted off the windshield and it was ready to go

It's a little over 1,000 miles from Montrose to Sonoma California, where our Airbnb is located.  We won't arrive there until December 18, meaning there's a lot of adventure to be had along the way.  First up was enjoying some time revisiting Utah's "Big Five" (sometimes referred to as the "Mighty Five") as they are affectionately known.  The Big Five are Arches, Canyonlands, Bryce Canyon, Zion and Capital Reef National Parks.

We've enjoyed visiting many of our 63 National Parks through the years.  This includes the First US National Park (Yellowstone), the most visited (Smokey Mountains), the largest (Wrangell-St. Elias in Alaska) and the only US National Park in the Southern Hemisphere (National Park of American Samoa) and a whole lot more.  They're all special and we'll keep working on checking more off the list as we wander about.  In February of 2018, we spent some time exploring all five of Utah's Big Five.  Earlier this year we spent several days at Zion.  This time through Utah we were only able to visit four of the Big Five..................Capital Reef, sorry we missed you, we'll try to swing by next time we're passing through.

I'm not going to spend a lot of time blogging about specifics of the parks.  If you're interested in reading more details, the links below will take you to some previous blogs.  This one will be mostly pictures from our time in the parks and along the way.  I will make a couple of recommendations on very scenic routes that we really enjoyed.   Between Grand Junction, Co. and Moab (gateway to Arches and Canyonland) Highway 128 runs along the Colorado River and is really interesting.  Our friend Wayne Sallade who lives in Grand Junction and who we visited with briefly when passing through recommended this route..........Thanks Wayne!  Between Moab and Bryce Canyon, Highways 72, 24 and 62 are great!  As is often the case, the journey is as good as the destination.  That's certainly the case with these two drives.

Parts of Highway 128 between Cisco and Moab are "open range".   Watch out for cattle while enjoying the view. 

The Colorado River runs alongside much of Highway 128 between Cisco and Moab

A few shots along the drive from Moab to Bryce Canyon.........

There were great overlooks.......

Interesting clouds that looked like a giant wave coming at us............

and a few icy patches!

Zion National Park (2018)

Bryce Canyon (2018)

Capital Reef (2018)

Arches and Goblin Valley State Park (2018)

Canyonland (2018)

Zion National Park (February, 2022)

Arches National Park-Moab is the gateway to both Arches and Canyonland National Parks.  We love visiting the parks in the "off season" when the crowds of summer are gone.  When we drove into Arches, we went the first eight and a half miles without seeing another car!  We estimated that we saw around two dozen different people on the more than six miles of trails that we covered that day.

Here are some shots from Arches:

Inside the North Window

The North (left) and South (right) Windows from the appropriately named Window Trail

Double Arches

Broken Arch

We're not real good with "selfies".  We're really not good trying to make a half a heart and take a picture at the same time.  I think it took us three tries!

Landscape Arch

Although Bryce National Park is more famous for it's Hoodoo's, there are plenty in Arches, too

Quite a balancing act!

Canyonlands National Park-It's an easy thirty-minute drive from Moab to the Island in the Sky entrance to Canyonlands National Park.  On clear days you can see mountains more than one hundred miles away from many of the overlooks in the Islands of the Sky section of this 337,000-acre park.

We had perfect blue skies in Canyonlands.  The Park Ranger told us that the mountains visible in this photo are close to forty miles away

The Green and Colorado Rivers run through the Islands in the Sky section of the park before merging near the southern end

Plenty of "Wide Open Spaces"

Great views all around in Canyonlands!

Bryce National Park-It's about a four-and-a-half-hour drive from Moab to Bryce National Park.  The first half of the drive is along I-70.  The second half is on very scenic small highways 72, 24 and 62.  This part of the drive is fantastic!

Near Sunset Point on the Rim Trail

The fresh snow on the Hoodoo's made them even more spectacular

A nice view of the amphitheater from the Rim Trail

Natural Bridge

Inspiration Point.........we had it to ourselves for a few minutes!

Something we should have invested in many years ago!  These crampons are made by Yaktrax (Amazon).  They're very inexpensive and really improve your footing in icy conditions.

Zion National Park-This is our second visit to Zion this year.  We were here in February as well as back in 2018.  It's the second most visited of all our National Parks.  However, at this time of year it's pretty empty and you can actually drive through the park without having to take a shuttle.  During our five-night/four-day stay the highs were typically in the 30's and lows in the 20's.  It was mostly sunny the first two days.  We did have a couple of really nice snows that transformed the park into a winter wonderland for the last two days.

The Virgin River runs beside Zion Canyon Scenic Drive.  There's plenty of great trails and pull outs along the way

Near Sand Beach

We shared the Grotto Trail with around 10 Big Horn Sheep........

sometimes they only showed their arses!  

On Saturday night Springdale hosted their annual Christmas parade.........

In addition to floats, decorated bikes, firetrucks and a marching band the town was lit up nicely!

Reindeer...........

Mule Deer!

Then it snowed..........

Which made our last two days in Zion even better!

Next up-This morning we leave Zion and head for a place that's a little different..........Las Vegas!  We'll be there for four days before moving on to California.  We're thrilled that Ben is meeting us in Las Vegas and we'll all be together for Christmas!  

What happens in Vegas....................will be in the next blog!

  

Kicking in the holiday season Pennsylvania style

Western Pennsylvania and Pittsburgh are always welcoming and fun!

As is often the case these days, I seem to be a little behind on my blogging.  The "retired life" pace can be quite hectic at times!  Christmas is now just fifteen days away and I'm finally getting the Thanksgiving blog written and posted!

Our original plans were to spend Thanksgiving in Florida with Ben flying down to be with us, however, our plans changed.  He was unsure of what his days off would be, we had plenty of Southwest Rapid Rewards points and found some inexpensive flights that avoided the heavy travel days.  So, we decided to fly up to him and spend Thanksgiving in western Pennsylvania. 

We arrived in Pittsburgh on the Friday evening prior to Thanksgiving week.  Winter had arrived a few days earlier, it was cold and there was a nice covering of snow on the ground at his house.

Allie on Guard Duty...........

Allie off Guard Duty!

Although Thanksgiving was still a few days away, several of the small towns were wasting no time getting into the Christmas season.  We enjoyed spending a bit of Saturday afternoon in both Franklin and Slippery Rock.  There was a very nice Christmas tree display in Franklin's Barrow Civic Theater, and the downtown was buzzing as they were getting ready for the evenings parade and tree lighting ceremony.  The wind chill had the temperature in the teens, so we decided not to stick around and headed back to Slippery Rock, which was also in a festive mood.  Several blocks of Slippery Rock's Main Street had been blocked off and the streets were filled with merchants, organizations and churches selling crafts and offering treats and hot drinks.  One of the local banks had a Christmas cookie decorating booth that was quite interesting.  They had worked really hard and had a wonderful booth and were so kind to everyone.  Unfortunately, it was so cold all the icing for the cookies had frozen into giant clumps that resembled playdough that had been left out of the container for several weeks.  Thankfully the temperature warmed up nicely after the cold start and we enjoyed nice, seasonably chilly temperatures the rest of our visit.

A creative use of Christmas straws and popsicle sticks on one of the many trees on display in Franklin

Yuletide carols being sung by a choir in Slippery Rock!

Main Street Slippery Rock was in the Christmas spirit..........and cold!

I had to eat that hot dog in one bite before it froze in my hand!

Although the weather outside might have been frightful, the fire in Ben's cozy house was so delightful!

Had Ben not moved to Slippery Rock it's quite likely that we would have never discovered everything there is to do around Pittsburgh.  We always enjoy visiting and they really do it up for Christmas.  We enjoyed visiting the Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens near the University of Pittsburg campus, which was fully decorated for the Christmas season with their annual Holiday Lights display.  

Entrance to the Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens

It was warm and festive inside!

One room inside the conservatory had a huge model railroad display featuring the National Parks.  This is Saguaro National Park

There were both indoor and outdoor displays.  The tall building in the background is the Cathedral of Learning, a 42-story building that's the centerpiece of the University of Pittsburgh Campus

In keeping with the spirit of the season, we visited one of Shadrack's Christmas Wonderland drive through holiday light displays.  Never heard of Shadrack's?  Well, neither had I!  They actually have eight different locations including one in Tampa (I guess I need to get out more).  This particular location is in Butler, which is just a short twenty-minute drive from Ben's house.  It was fun driving through the choregraphed light display.  We were now fully in the Christmas spirit, although we hadn't even celebrated Thanksgiving!

Shadrack's Drive Through Christmas Light Display was lighting up the night in Butler

Thanksgiving morning started with blueberry muffins (a Tucker Thanksgiving morning tradition) and a few other treats.  Unlike many previous Thanksgivings, this one required no cooking preparations for the big feast.  We were honored to be invited to join the Quigley Family (Ben's employers for the past three years) to enjoy our Thanksgiving meal with them.......and what a meal it was!  It was prepared and served at a local Amish families house.  It included all the traditional Thanksgiving foods, turkey, ham, dressing, mashed potatoes, corn, salad, fresh baked bread, date pudding, apple and pumpkin pie.  It was all amazing!

On Friday while others scrambled for Black Friday deals, we went back to Pittsburgh.  This time to the downtown area, which was recently recognized on the Today Show as one of the best cities to visit at Christmas.  We enjoyed seeing "A Very Electric Christmas" at one of the downtown theaters as well as strolling through the Christmas Market in Market Square and watching skaters as they made their way around the cities official downtown Christmas Tree.

Market Square in Downtown Pittsburgh...........Ben's ready for the season!

Beth doing a great job of balancing Pittsburgh's official Christmas Tree on her head

The Christmas Story play was in one of Pittsburgh's Theater District Theaters

I'm not sure about Ben, but Beth and I have reached the point in our lives where it's more fun (and safer) to watch skaters than to try to skate!

It was a great ten days of celebrating the start of the holiday season in Pennsylvania with Ben and Allie.  Our family is spread out across the country so we can't always be together physically but we are together in spirit and have so many great memories of past Thanksgivings together, including smoking turkey and ham all night, backyard family football games, laughter and a whole lot of love!    

When we left Pittsburgh on the Monday morning following Thanksgiving the airport was surprisingly quiet.  Two hours later we were back in the Sunshine State and enjoying time with more family.  True to our name of "The Traveling Idiots" we weren't there for long.  Another journey has started, but that's for another blog.  Hopefully I'll get it posted in a little timelier fashion!  

NaNa enjoying an early Christmas with some of the family!

Ouray in October...........Green, Gold and White

September 29 along the Riverfront Trail.

We checked into our Airbnb in Ouray on September 28.  In two days we'll be checking out.  We'll be leaving the Silver Bullet at the Montrose/Telluride Airport and flying back to Florida.  It's been a really fun month of exploring Southwest Colorado, on our own, as well as with some family and friends.

October is a great time to visit Ouray and the surrounding area.  It's a time of transition that would be impossible to capture in words.  Here's some pictures from the past month as Ouray goes from green to gold to white.......enjoy!

Sept. 30........from the balcony of our Airbnb.  There was a light dusting of snow at the higher elevations.

October 3..........Cascade Falls is just a few blocks off of Ouray's Main Street

October 3.........The Riverfront Trail.....Green turning to Gold

October 5.......At a higher elevation just outside of Ouray

October 5............Box Canyon.......judging from his cheeks he's storing up for winter!

October 6.........Gold is overtaking Green

October 10.........that's Cindy on Ouray's Perimeter Trail

October 12..........From the balcony

October 13.......the daily scrabble games have been intense.  We enjoyed playing on the balcony until the afternoon temperatures began to drop.

October 16..........The Riverfront Trail was pretty much at peak color on this day

October 20.......we talked Pam into joining us for a game of scrabble in Fellin Park.  By the time the game was over it was getting chilly!

October 23...............the snowfall in Ouray was picking up!

October 24..........it had snowed most of the day.  The ballfield at Fellin Park was now covered with snow.  By my very unofficial way of measuring snowfall (sticking my hand down in it on the hood of the Silver Bullet), it was about 6 inches deep.

October 24.........perfect weather for soaking in the hot springs!

October 24...........now we're talking!

October 24.........the sun is setting behind us, but it made for great color over the mountains to the east.

October 26..........another heavy snowfall in the morning.  By the afternoon it was sunny and in the high 30's so most of this had melted.

October 26.............this guy was walking down the road enjoying the site of the freshly fallen snow!

October 27.........it had snowed pretty heavily overnight.  We woke up to find the Silver Bullet under another blanket of snow.

October 27.........from the balcony this morning.  More snow is forecast for throughout the day.  I hope we can make it to the hot springs!