Michigan to Oregon 2019 - Day 5 - Arches National Park, part 1

August 25 - Sunday
New Castle, Colorado to Moab, Utah

We traveled west on Interstate 70 as there wasn't really a good two lane alternative.

Colorado River canyon

The Palisade area is known for its peach orchards and wine vineyards.

We made it to Grand Junction in time for mass at Immaculate Mary.

We sat in the very back thinking Doug could escape easily if he started coughing too much. What we didn't know is that there was a baptism scheduled so we were at the front of the action for awhile.

Good bye, Colorado

Hello, Utah. The speed limit went to 80 mph which really felt way too fast and not much of a limit at all since we have mostly been on 2 lane roads for a couple of months. We took a break at the Visitor's Center in Thompson Springs to get a map. It was already 97F.....what a difference from the Rocky Mountain tundra yesterday!

This area, just west of Arches National Park was a CCC center and then it was a Japanese concentration camp during World War II. The first people put here were moved from Manzanar in California, a place that we visited in 2018.

Since it was 104F when we got to Moab, we did laundry, shopped for lunch for tomorrow and did some hanging out at the local bike shop.

Donna found her Utah souvenir there.

We had dinner, then we headed to the park to catch the evening light.

The Tower of Babel

Balanced Rock. It is 7:15 and it is 98F.

The Fiery Furnace

The sun set at 8:00 and it was still 95F.

So much for having a shorter day than yesterday. It was so warm and so beautiful that we found it hard to leave the park before dark. It was still 84F at 10:00. We are planning to get up early and see most of the arches before noon tomorrow as the forecast is for more of the same.

Michigan to Oregon 2019 - Day 4 - Rocky Mountain National Park

August 24 - Saturday
Greeley to New Castle, Colorado

Our route took us north of Denver and through Loveland. We stopped at the visitor center there to pick up a map. We also found this sculpture covered in locks, just like the bridge in Paris and in Mainz last summer.

Things are starting to look a little drier.....

and rockier too. The Big Thompson River canyon.

In 1976, these two law enforcement officers lost their lives while working to save people from a major flash flood event in the canyon that took the lives of 140 people.

In the Rocky Mountain National Park heading up Trail Ridge Road at the Long Peak viewpoint.

What the Many Parks Curve Overlook looked like on the phone.

What it looked like on the ground.

Looking east at the road we had just traveled.

Getting higher and higher.

We might have been a little jealous except the road is so narrow with almost no shoulder that biking it can't be very relaxing and you aren't going to be able to do much scenery watching.

We are between 11,000 and 12,000 feet now, it is pretty windy and only 51F.

This little guy greeted us at the trailhead for the Tundra Communities, elevation 12,090.

It is very windy and it doesn't feel like August anymore.

There are 130 square miles of tundra in the park.

The wind chill factor made us VERY glad that we had our micro puff jackets with us!

This was our toasty lunch spot....well it was mostly out of the wind.

And it was a good place to watch this cloud that looked a lot like the wing of a bird.

It made for good people watching too.

Time to move on.

The little specks down there are elk. We've seen plenty of them during our time working in the woods but most people haven't had that opportunity.

The sad thing was to see so much bug killed trees in the park. It just looks like a big fire waiting to happen.

Milner Pass - 10,759 feet but out of the wind so it was already warming up. 

Looking east at Poudre Lake.

And looking west towards the Pacific Ocean, our home territory. It felt good to be back on the west side of the continent in a strange, unexpected way.

Our last stop in the park was Holzwarth Ranch where it was back up to 70F.

This is the Colorado River only a few miles from the headwaters.

The ranch was also a resort for many years.

Dinner in Kremmling at the Grand Adventure Brewpub.

That is a wildlife bridge across the road.

The Colorado River with a lot more water.