July 19, 2011: Hello everyone and welcome back to our daily, er, weekly travel update. Today we are excited to be traveling to Capitol Reef National Park in southern Utah. We've never been to Capitol Reef before, and are really looking forward to it. This is especially since I was reading this year's "Gear Guide" from Backpacker magazine, and they test-drove everything in Capitol Reef and kept raving about its awesomeness.
We stayed the past two nights in Grand Junction, Colorado, and visited Colorado National Monument. This is a place that has never really been on our radar; I had actually read someplace that it talked about the Colorado plateau (which encompasses five or six states) and thought that it was just a randomly-placed visitor center talking about some boring points of geology. But I was wrong. We were all wrong to underestimate this place and not come here sooner. It is absolutely gorgeous. It's 4,000 feet from the valley floor to the top of the mesa, with the rocks at the bottom of the canyon 1.5 B-b-b-b-b-billion years old. When you get all the way up to the top, to the brand-new gray rocks all the way at the top of the canyon, that's where they find all of the T-Rex bones. We recently heard people talk about this park and how unique it is and its wide diversity of color, but there is really no way to describe it in words. At least not in my words. We also visited the dino museum in Fruita, which was really cool with the giant robotic, life-size, super-realistic, super-scary T-rex. Many parents kept hilariously waiting until their children were up to it, face to face, before pushing the "animate" button, causing it to lunge forward, bare its teeth, and roar loud enough to blow your hair back. Needless to say, the place smelled of urine and tears. I did get to actually ride my bike on the famed Lunch Loops in Grand Junction, so called because they are short enough that you can ride them during your lunch break. It's set up as a web of short interconnecting trails, a lot like Dryer Road Park in Victor, except that here the uphill climb might actually send you into cardiac arrest and the dropoff if you fall off the trail, well, you're on top of a mesa. The real excitement is riding "Raven's Ridge" at the edge of the mesa, so called because ravens are actually bursting out of the trees and shrubs as you ride past.
Did I mention that yesterday was Jerry's birthday? 63. Mom is next week. We went out to an Eye-talian restaurant called Carlino's, which is a chain based in Texas. And you know how those Texans know Italian food! (If you're not picking it up, I was just being ironic.) But it was spectacular, even impressing the Italian chef on his birthday. Better than the Macaroni Grill, on par with or better than Carrabba's. But the best part is this… it was Family Night. All "family size" entrees and appetizers 50% off. And it was happy hour. Drinks 50% off. And it was Dad's birthday. Free dessert. So we fed - no, stuffed to the point of gluttonous regret - eight people, drinks, appetizers, salads, bread, entrees, dessert, plus the included tip… $100. I'm not even kidding.
I'm actually typing this on the road while Liz drives, and the road is under construction, and the feeling is actually quite a bit like being on an inflatable raft in a storm in the middle of the ocean. And I think I might barf.
Before coming to GJ, we were in Glenwood Canyon, a spectacular area carved by the Colorado River. We went there because of how beautiful it was, but also because of how much you could do there… hiking, biking (both paved trail and MTB), rafting, etc. But the funny thing is that while everyone in Glenwood Canyon knows there's a lot to do, nobody seems to know where or how to do it. Trail maps don't exist. Go into your local bike shop (and spend money) and get a shrug of the shoulders. More likely is that this is the stingiest group of outdoor enthusiasts anywhere, who have just decided that they aren't go to share. Well, screw those guys. We had fun anyway. It was nice just sitting in camp and relaxing. Our kids actually made friends with other kids. We went to see Harry Potter (in a theater that was only 15% full… weird). We watched "Wyatt Earp" because Doc Holliday lived and died and was buried in Glenwood. We didn't go rafting because the snows - and so the river - are at record levels this year. The rafting companies are happy because by this point in the summer business is usually way off, but they've had to modify some routes. I went to talk to the guy about it, to see if we wanted to go. You just don't want to hear the word "unsurvivable" from the owner of a rafting company. We did make good use of the Glenwood Canyon bike trail, a 19-mile-long paved trail, but only 3.5 miles were open as the rest is underwater. Gabe and I did the zipline across the river. The scariest part wasn't actually the zipline, but having to cross the wooden slat bridge (with gaps between the slats) to move between platforms. Be sure to check out the fantastic "Now what do I do?!?!" picture of Gabe on the bridge.
See you soon!
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