Arizona!

    

When we saw Mount Rushmore, Yellowstone National Park, Jackson Hole, Snowbird Ski Resort, Bryce Canyon, and Everything else the pictures just didn't do them justice. I know that's been said before, but it's the truth! Today we saw the Petrified Forest and the Painted Dessert. OKay.... here's what we saw:

                In all fairness, it was very interesting how this is the only place in the WORLD that has petrified wood with these colors. It's all due to the minerals that settled in the wood over 200 million years ago. So... it is Very interesting, it's just that the pictures do tell the whole story this time. It's a "forest" of pieces of wood that's turned to stone.

            The Painted Dessert was pretty enough to see, it's just that this is what it looks like. Maybe we're spoiled now, this is week 5 for us and we've seen some beautiful things! From here we drove to the Canyon de Chelly National Monument - one of Arizona's "Best Kept Secrets". It's in the Navajo Reservation. The Navajo Indians live in the canyon during the summer to take advantage of the coolness, streams, rivers and trees. In the winter they move up to the plateaus because it' warmer. This was beautiful and interesting also.

           The drive there and back was pretty cool too. We saw wild horses and windmills.

Tomorrow we drive to Albuquerque, New Mexico to catch the Balloon Fiesta. We lucked out with our timing. We scheduled a balloon ride for Rusty on Friday! We'll keep ya'll posted.

Tootles for now.

Hoover Dam

Now we're in Las Vegas Baby! What a wild and crazy place! It's unusually hot here too - 103 degrees!

We saw Hoover Dam today and took the tour. WOW, what an interesting and impressive place!

We also saw some Big Horn Sheep on our way back to our campsite.

Tomorrow we leave for Arizona and then Wed. we'll explore the Petrified Forest, at least that's the plan. We'll tell ya'll what that's like as soon as we know.

Tootles for now.

   

Bryce Canyon!

We spent the day in Bryce Canyon today and we must be getting acclimated to the altitude and getting used to the mountains finally because we hiked down the canyon and, of course, back up without as much puffing as usual - who knew?

Tomorrow we drive to Las Vegas and plan to tour Hoover Dam. We'll Letcha'll know how that goes.
Tootles for now!

Snowbird to Cannonville, Utah

  Today we checked out of the Ski Resort in Snowbird, drove South through Utah and saw more beautiful scenery.

Once we got to our campsite, we got organized in our Trailer again and took a scenic drive.

     

    

We figured out our journey home and we've updated our map.

Tomorrow we're gonna' explore Bryce Canyon. We'll let ya'll know how cool that is.

Tootles for now!

   

    

Snowbird, Utah

We're in Snowbird now. It's the timeshare week we thought we'd throw in for showers without worrying about holding tanks, electricity, TV and a little civilization. We're staying in a studio in the Cliff Club.
http://www.snowbird.com/lodging/clifflodge.html. We still have to turn the sofa into a bed each night, but we're pretty used to that now. We're on the 7th floor and have these views from our balcony.

On our hikes we've seen beautiful scenery too. Yesterday we took the Tram up and hiked down. The Tram takes you from 8,100 ft. to the top, which is 11.000 ft! With my fear of heights - just between us - I was glad to hike for the 3 hours to get down the mountain instead of taking the Tram for the 15 min. ride back. The hike was nice with these views.

 

Today Rusty took the Tram up and rode his bike down the mountain. He got an All-Day pass and did this multiple times! He loved it! - Me, I took pictures - happily! 

To answer some of your questions:

- The temperature in Yellowstone, Wy. had highs 57-60 w/lows 27-34. Now in Snowbird, Utah the highs are low 60's and the lows are high 40's.

- If you want to see the pictures enlarged, just click on them. If you want to see them even bigger click again. For example can you see Rusty waving from the Tram in the picture?

- We haven't updated the map with our return plans because we don't have complete plans just yet.

Yellowstone to Jackson, Wy.

We had fun the last few days in Yellowstone, we saw Old Faithful again with blue skies, and did more hiking to beautiful views.

Driving through the Grand Tetons was beautiful too!

Tonight we're gonna' have a fancy dinner at the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar and Steakhouse in downtown Jackson Hole. The bar stools are saddles and the place is full of old west memorabilia. There's lots of mounted animals and the tables are slabs cut from tree trunks. It's gonna' be lots of fun! Tomorrow we leave for Snowbird, Utah. We'll update again as soon as we get a chance.

Yellowstone National Park!

We’ve been off the grid since we got to Yellowstone Nat’l Park. We found a spot near Old Faithful that we can get wireless access and thought we’d update ya’ll quickly. This place is amazing with breathtaking views and wonders. Here’s a few pictures of what we’ve seen so far on our drives, hikes, and adventures in Yellowstone.

For those of you familiar with Yellowstone we’re staying at Fishing Bridge. We’ve had dinner at the Lake Lodge, and driven through a winter wonderland – yep, it’s snowed while we’ve been here. We’ve seen Old Faithful and several geysers, hot springs, mud pots and fumaroles. But to top all that off yesterday on our way back from our hike to see Lehardy Rapids we came on a huge bull Bison on our trail coming back towards us. We stepped off the trail and waited for him to continue on. He moved towards Rusty –much too fast for me – and they were eye to eye when he snorted and checked him out before he went on his way down the trail. WOW, what a rush! This buffalo was as tall as we are! It was an aggressive move, and he was way too close!

We’ll get back with ya’ll as soon as we can get back on the grid. Until then, thanks for the comments and emails.