We finally made it to Utah in September to see the three northern-most National Parks. Our home base with Sue and Dean Hereford for the first two weeks was Moab, which was well situated to get to Arches and Canyonlands National Parks.  The Colorado River runs through the entire area and the river canyons dominate the landscape.  The canyons, rock formations from millions of years of erosion, and the desert…

The third week of our Utah trip with the Herefords was focused on visiting Capital Reef National Park and the surrounding area.  Capital Reef is a large “tall and narrow” park almost entirely surrounded by federal lands including National Forests, National Monuments, and BLM lands. Consequently, if seems like the wilderness goes on forever.  The park is centered on a 90 mile long ridge in the earth’s crust known as…

Well, it was the last stop on our 2020-2021 tour and what a year it was.  We finished up with a stay just south of Colorado Springs, Colorado.  It has always been one of our favorite places because of it’s outstanding weather, the beauty of Pikes Peak towering above the city, the parks and small city feel, and access to such a wide variety of outdoor activities.  Bill and I…

After checking and rechecking the weather and being a little paranoid about ice and slippery roads,  we left Santa Fe and headed to Colorado.  We landed in Alamosa, the nearest town to Great Sand Dunes National Park.  We were rewarded with sunny skies and reasonably warm temps to explore the dunes, the park, and the surrounding area.  Our campsite was nothing special, but entirely surrounded by beautiful snow-capped mountains.  It…

At the end of March, we stayed in Bosque, New Mexico about 40 miles south of Albuquerque for a few days followed by Santa Fe for almost a week.  Our time was largely spent hiking in National Monuments and visiting American Indian ruins. Many of the ruins are at least 700 years old and are the last vestiges of native peoples who occupied the land for thousands of years.  In…

We have passed by Petrified Forest National Park several times while traveling through Arizona on I-40, but haven’t taken the time to see it.  When we cancelled our mid-March stop in Durango (due to weather), we decided to stop at “Petrified” instead.  This was a good move as the park is much more than some petrified wood chunks.  It is also  about the Painted Desert, extinct creature excavations, as well…

The Monument Valley Tribal Park a huge area that straddles Utah and Arizona that contains some of the most scenic rock formations in the world.  It is the product of 50 million years of erosion and lies entirely in the Navajo Nation Reservation territory.  Normally, you can take Navajo tours in and around the entire valley with a Navajo guide, however in mid-March the Park was still shut down by…

While Sedona and Lake Mead are “repeats” of stops in the past, there are some places that are so beautiful that they cannot be resisted.  I could happily visit Sedona every year and never tire of its awesome views in every direction.  It is such a extraordinary combination of spectacular scenery, fantastic hiking, smallish-town charm, good restaurants and bars, unique artistic shops and who could forget the ever present “vortex”…

Lake Havasu is a reservoir created in 1930’s when the Parker Dam was built on the Colorado River. Lake Havasu City was essentially founded in the late 50’s by a real estate developer hoping to capitalize on the lake by building a recreation community.  Over the past 50 years, and despite being in the middle of nowhere, the town has become a water sports and retirement center.  It has a…

After our month-long stay in Yuma Arizona, Bill and I were ready to move on and see some new sights.  While the weather in Yuma was pretty spectacular and the amenities of our RV resort were wonderful, we were definitely itching to get back on the road.  We headed to Ramona, California, a smallish town nestled in the hills and mountains about an hour east of San Diego.  We scheduled…