Day Fourteen: Glenwood Springs, Colorado

We left Zion National Park, or rather entered it, as our means of egress was actually to drive into and across the park to exit on the opposite side, this morning. Before going I got one last shot of the place from our balcony after the sunrise:



Once through the park, driving extremely slowly on winding mountain roads, we stopped for gas, and I'm not sure if this local eatery was getting at some sort of double meaning with their advertising. Perhaps eliminating unnecessary letters to save on electricity?



The fall colors are quite nice in the area.



We entered the Red Canyon in Dixie National Forest:



Had a couple of the tunnel roads...they made you wonder, was it really easier to bore through the rock more than shift the road to the right a few yards?



We entered Bryce Canyon National Park, and did not stay long, but went to three of the observation points. I would say something grandiose, like, "there are no words to describe Bryce Canyon!" but there demonstrably are, unfortunately: "Bryce", and "Canyon". That semantic niggle aside, I am looking forward to returning here to spend more time. It kicks the pantalones off the Grand Canyon in some ways. I'm going to just post all the pictures we took and not belabor you with forced commentary:



















So with mild reluctance, but an eager spirit to make miles to our west, we departed, and continued north and then east across the stunning landscape of Utah. Many of these pictures are somewhat underwhelming in that driving at 70mph in frequent rain, a majority of pictures had to be discarded regardless so only a subset are available. Here is a typical roadscape with beautiful trees on each side.



Lots of these rock formations about.



The San Rafael Reef, I believe, from my map. Shrouded in mists, rather ominously!



Impressive bit of natural architecture. What is amazing is these are not in a National Park. Not in a National Monument, National Forest, or state park, even. I assume the government owns the land. If these were located in Missouri or anywhere east where we consider a minor hill a mountain, they would hands down be a full-fledged National Park!



Good sport in the back seat:



Into Colorado, I kept trying to get a good shot of the river by the interstate, and this was the meager best I could get while at speed:



Tomorrow will be an interesting day, regardless. The plan has long been to drive through Colorado and stay in western Kansas, driving back on Sunday to KC. We shall see. On the road, a sense of general vacation fatigue settled onto us at long last, and we considered the semi-maniacal task of driving straight through tomorrow. But, there's the question of the weather, where a first major snowstorm is expected here overnight. We'll see if this vacation ends officially tomorrow, or Sunday, or who-knows-when if the Colorado weather gods get really nasty with us.

Day Thirteen: Zion National Park, Utah

Still in Zion, a somewhat simple day that doesn't lend itself to a lot of commentary, in that all we've really done is sort of wander around and look at things, which is the proper and expected activity in a place like this. We were expecting rain all day but it has been sunny and cool all day, with no signs of oncoming storms as of this afternoon.

Here was a shot at the entrance to the park, where the morning sun brightly illuminated the top of the canyon walls, wreathed in clouds.



We rode the shuttle to the Temple of Sinawava, which sounds like it belongs in a role playing game from the nineties, and we walked along the "Riverside" trail.




I know I'm fast becoming cliche-sodden when I insufferably trot out that old "pictures can't express blah blah blah" line, but, well, it is sort of applicable.



Gretchen was, of course, most interested in playing in the sandy dirt.



The canyon floor and river:



Me trying, again, in vain to show the scale of these walls:



One of the great things about Zion is the vibrance of the colour...plenty of green, in comparison to the Grand Canyon, contrasting with the very rich red of the earth and rock.



The river:



Thought that this strange cutout in the canyon wall was interesting. Many stories tall. I wonder if the rock just fell away at some point.



The shelf halfway up on this cliff had a carpet of trees and vegetation that give a semblance of scale.



Angel's Landing, seen through the window of the bus. The first time we came to Zion I was ignorant and thought "hey why don't we hike this?" I learned more about it and wised up.



The Patriarchs, shrouded in clouds. Shooting through bus windows doesn't really help the image quality, sorry.



Back in town we realized, much though I had vowed not to, we would in fact eat lunch at the fusion Thai/Chinese place that charges way, way too much for food that I would barely pay McDonalds prices for in Kansas City. I mean, it isn't terrible, but it's not that great, and certainly doesn't deserve the insane prices it commands. However, what I vow in Kansas City is different than in Springdale, for the alternatives were even more expensive and less impressive. This is not a good town to save money on food in.

The horses at least have a fairly readily available source of food:



Tomorrow marks the beginning of the final stretch, three days of driving and we're back in KC.

Day Twelve: Zion National Park, Utah

This morning we departed Barstow, after pillaging and ransacking their delightful breakfasting area, replete with all manner of upscale hotel breakfast fodder, of a decidedly non-continental nature. We ran straight into a surprisingly vicious desert rainstorm. Impressive winds and quite a downpour, but we were heading east and in no mood to remain perpetually in bad weather so we powered through. Once out of the rain, driving was a bit less tense, but the clouds were treacherously low and brooding. Took a picture or two of the yucca trees and the low-lying clouds:



And the clouds over this mesa were interesting:



We finally crossed out of California, that beloved, though ape-shit crazy state of my nativity, and passed into Nevada. Nevada is the sort of state that would be a bland, uninteresting ranching state like Idaho without gambling, and one can spot any highway border with Nevada by the unspeakably garish gambling settlement planted inches from the actual state line. No, I didn't take any pictures.

But we drove through Vegas, which I've never been profoundly fond of, and the traffic and omnipresent advertising did little to win me over, but we had one last In-N-Out burger there and enjoyed the less-expensive-than-California gasoline. Cheers to Angle, though!

Next up, the corner of Arizona, a state I've come to be rather fond of. Not much of it to see when chipping the northwest corner on I-15, but the Virgin River Gorge is impressive. We took copious photos while passing through but none really display the massiveness one observes, deep in this rather narrow chasm, hurtling through at 55mph. Here's one such insignificant shot.



Then into Utah, home of the Momos! On highway 9, getting close to Zion:



Beautiful ridges on the outskirts:



So we checked into our hotel, and after unpacking, I took my laptop onto the balcony to work on my work emails. This was the view from my "desk":



Also from the balcony:



The family went for a swim. Nice view from a swimming pool:



Gretchen loves swimming, need to start this girl on swimming lessons.



Sun starts to set...



Gretchen loved the horses next door!



I decided to grill, so we picked up some italian sausages and peppers to cook, and I headed back towards the picnic area. They had a little spot right next to the river:



Nice backdrop to cook by.

Day Eleven: Barstow, California

So today's travel blog is a bit of a mixed bag. Relatively boring day, driving through the central part of California from the coast, but will get to that later. First, some few remaining pictures from San Simeon yesterday.

At sunset the trees were well illuminated:



This cluster of trees caught my eye:



We were working on tiring Gretchen out by having her play outside, so we spent some time in this gazebo.



Where she took on as her task the predation, decapitation, and dismemberment of dandelion flowers.



Another walk by the beach:



The surf at dusk:



Signs are posted everywhere about not feeding the wildlife but something tells me the surprisingly tame squirrels have sorted out how to game the system.



And here is the same fellow leaping for the jugular vein in rage as he learns I have been coaxing him near with a proferred hand of naught more than pebbles. Gretchen follows my lead, in her less subtle way, by picking up pebbles and throwing them at the squirrel who wisely decides to make acquaintance with tourists more amenable to breaking the posted rule.



OK, back to the trip. We passed a delightful night that evening until about 2AM when Gretchen decided that WOW she was sure AWAKE! and wanted to do anything but keep quiet and go back to sleep. We eventually went on a drive which at long last put her to sleep again, and we got some more sleep. It was nice to see the ocean under a full moon, very entrancing, particularly when one is yearning for sleep anyway.

So this morning we got off and passed inland towards Paso Robles, Bakersfield, and Barstow. Paso Robles is a nice area dominated by vineyards, and we noted a large quantity of "report drunk driving!" signs which became a bit funnier when interspersed with the dozens/hundreds of "Wine Tasting Next Right!" signs put out by the vineyards.

Bakersfield is a nice enough town, it's a decent size and seems to have lots of the accoutrements of a medium-sized city, such as a Trader Joe's, which we gave our patronage, but try as it might to be cosmopolitan, the air smells of cattle manure. Not an altogether bad thing, it is likely better smelling than vast swathes of New York or Paris. At least there is the sense of old-fashioned farming and ranching there.

Tehachapi was cute, particularly the huge hills of the Tehachapi Wind Farm and the hundreds of windmills, precious few of which were turning. I wonder what it cost the Californian taxpayer to put in. I wonder how much each year the bill is for maintenance. I like to amuse myself with the thought that when proposing the initiative, none of the dingbat lawmakers responsible bothered to consider much in regards to ongoing maintenance costs, but I could be wrong.

Finally, we passed Barstow and went on a dozen miles to Calico, a ghost town/theme park I remember from many years ago. We didn't actually spend a lot of time there. Strangely there were mostly foreigners there, like at the Grand Canyon. Whole busses full of Japanese, and a number of German and French visitors were audible. It's a quaint sort of thing because you pay for admission, and then most everything inside is a shop where you can buy things. If you can work out paid admission to a shopping mall and get busloads of foreign folks eager to deplete travellers checks in your retail stores you've got on to a good thing.

The famous CALICO written in the hillside:


Walking up to the rock shop to buy a piece of amethyst:


Very interesting rock formations, layers of sedimentary rock obviously contorted and squeezed:

Day Ten: San Simeon, California

Yesterday after bidding fond farewells and heartfelt yet insignificant thanks to our hosts/relatives in Diamond Bar, we drove up the coast. Up being in a northerly direction, I should probably specify. But we took a brief stop in Solvang, where we discovered the place has been increasingly o'erwhelmed by tourists such that the wait for a plate of pancakes has become somewhat ludicrous. I grant that Solvang has always existed for no higher purpose than tourism and pancakes, but still, we gave it a miss this time, and I vowed instead to learn how to make my own sodding Danish pancakes.

We landed, so to speak, in our usual haunt on the central coast, the San Simeon Pines resort. It was spitting in a weird Californian way all day, a totally different sort of rain than we are used to in Missouri, where it either is raining or isn't, but a limbo-esque rain that leaves you perpetually neither quite wet nor quite dry. Across the street for a brief walk to the ocean:



It's quite nice there even in worse weather. The sun peeking out over on the left; the rays shooting through had a very nice effect.



Playing the "throw a rock towards the ocean and then panic when the waves come up to get your precious rock" game. We're still learning the precise rules of this game.



On the boardwalk by the sea.



Playing in the largest sandbox she has ever seen. Hopefully with less cat poop.



The pines for which the place is named are quite interesting in shape.



This morning we went to what is the coolest playground I've ever seen. A few feet to the beach!



She (Gretchen, I should specify) loves getting close to the waves and then running away. Although she will occasionally insist on being carried for extra safety.



Sand sampling!



The "puppy" was less able to quickly move away from incoming waves.



Back at the resort, we stayed at a little vending machine lobby while folks finished cleaning our room, and Gretchen took it upon herself to correct the egregious errors made by the folks in charge of decorating. If you can imagine, they had placed the three flower pots on three SEPARATE tables! Hah! And hadn't even so much as placed a plastic bead necklace over the pots! Amateurs.



Then after grabbing a pizza in town we went up the coast to see the elephant seals.