Canyon country

When I last wrote to you we had checked into our site at Rocky Mountain National Park. Our site had incredible views- hey, ALL the sites had incredible views. Everywhere you turned it was picture perfect. We spent yesterday hiking up Glacier Gorge to a lake situated high in the mountains called Loch Vale. Going up was kind of tough since we had quite an incline to hike. But once we got to the top, I felt very rewarded. Absolutely stunning. A pristine lake surrounded by craggy snow capped mountains. Unreal.

Being in the mountains takes a curious toll upon one's body. I noticed that my head had a constant dull ache and I often felt nauseous and short of breath. But, it seemed by the second day we were there I felt better. One has to remember to constantly drink water and slather on sunscreen since it's easier to get dehydrated in the higher altitudes (less moisture) and the UV rays are more intense.

In the evening we attended a ranger talk about squirrels, chipmunks, and marmots. We found the marmots particularly interesting. They are these pudgy little guys that look a bit like beavers. They spend a lot of time eating and sunning themselves upon rocks.

We had another night of sketchy weather. There was a lot of thunder and lightning over the mountains in the distance but (fortunately) it never reached our campsite. However, it robbed us of sleep and we had all had another restless night.

In the morning we woke up early and packed up camp around 8 am. On our way out of the park, we drove up into the alpine tundra area of the Rocky Mountains. We stopped to briefly explore an area at the top of a mountain. To me it looked like the surface of the moon, spartan and bare. It was very cold and windy. I thought I heard Mike say he was going to hike around the hills for a little bit so I decided to find him. Half a mile later, and I thought I saw him in the distance. My fingers began to tingle and I felt dizzy since the air was so thin. Why was he walking so fast? What if I pass out before I can't reach him? Then I turned around and he was behind me. I had been following someone else entirely. My oxygen deprived mind had been playing tricks on me.

When we drove out of the Rockies the air felt downright soupy and thick with oxygen when I breathed. The landscape changed dramatically as we drove into Utah. Brown, yellow, pink, red, white, and striped mountains. Lush green trees and then petrified sand dunes. Blobby buttes and then striated mesas. The temperatures got higher and we drove further into the desert.

We arrived at Moab, Utah late in the afternoon. It was quite a shock to drive into this commercial town and see people and intact functioning buildings (as opposed to ramshackle hovels falling over on distant plains) in the middle of the desert. We gassed up and drove to our campsite at Dead Horse Point. As we approached our site, we saw the mountains in the distance were on fire. Later we found out that lightning had struck the night before and started the forest on fire.

Before the sun went down we checked out Dead Horse Point- an incredible red canyon. The pictures we took don't do it justice.

It was the first time I'd ever camped in the desert. Foolishly I walked around barefoot until Mom told me to put on shoes. Not listening too closely to her, I put on my flip flops. I ended up stepping on some teddy bear cactus and got all sorts of spikeys in my toes. Ouch! At least I didn't step on a scorpion.

The desert smells really good. It's a warm spicy sort of scent. We were all enjoying a beer watching the stars come out when we noticed it started getting really gusty. Before we knew it, we had a bit of a sandstorm on our hands. Mike says I'm exaggerating when I say "sandstorm" but I am not. Ask the moms. The wind was blowing sand at really high speeds into our eyes and ears. I even had sand in my teeth. Trying to sleep was absolute HELL. The tents kept flapping and I thought we were going to get blown away. Finally Mike and I got sick of hearing the wind violently whip our tents around and we slept fitfully for the rest of the night inside the car.

Obviously none of us slept that night. Groggy, we got up at sunrise and packed up camp before the temperatures skyrocketed. We drove over to Arches National Park. It was searing hot, but the scenery was super intense and beautiful. Monstrous red sandstone cliffs, arches, and windows. Again, I'll post pictures when I have more time so you can see for yourself. It's totally surreal. It made me think of the scenery in the Wiley Coyote and Roadrunner cartoons.

We took off from the Moab area in the early afternoon and shot across the desert. There was a stretch of 100 miles with absolutely nothing- no gas, no water...and it made me really nervous. I tried not to think about our car breaking down as I sipped the last of the water from my bottle. If we broke down out there, we'd be dead. It was still gorgeous scenery nonetheless.

We finally reached a place called Salina and gassed up, had lunch, and replenished our water supply. We didn't stay long before we got back in our vehicles and headed towards Bryce Canyon. We reached the park in the early evening and found a camp spot. Mike and I tried to find a spot that would allow us to FINALLY sleep. We were getting really sick of the wind and not getting any decent sleep. We set up camp and then drove over to Bryce Canyon and watched the sunset. It was incredible.