Thursday June 13th - Grand Canyon here we come

What a night that was.  I loved sleeping truly in our own paradise, it was beautiful.  And seeing Arnie and Henry return from their morning routine in the midst of the canyon was priceless.

After a quick (cold cereal) breakfast, we headed towards Natural Bridges national monument.  I am not quite sure what determines a national park vs. national monument.  There were plenty of acres at Natural Bridges, and even camping, but it is a monument.  There are three bridges there to view/hike to.  It was very picturesque and a nice little hike down to the final bridge.

After a nice break from driving we headed South towards Arizona.  We treated ourselves to lunch in Bluff, Utah.  It is a little town founded by Mormons quite some time ago, stagecoaches and all to prove it.  As we pulled into the Twin Rock cafe, there was an RV with "MEDIA" signs on it.  It was the Media truck for the Race Across America.  Yes, believe it or not, there are crazy men out there who literally race from coast to coast...in less than 10 DAYS!!!!  Seriously, they sleep very little and bike a ton.  We were blessed to be on a road with them, a couple of days into the race.  We talked to the media guys a bit, they were exhausted as they have to follow the bikers and film non-stop, and they never stop.  We probably saw/passed about 20 of the riders before we got on another road, but it was great while it lasted.  Nothing like the tour de France and the parade that goes along with it, but still unbelievable.

The ride into the Grand Canyon was not fun.  I was tired as I had driven a lot the day before and was trying to sleep.  But it is official, the worst roads in all of N. America are in Arizona, seriously HORRIBLE!!!  I don't know if being Indian territory has something to do with it or not, but just really bumpy, beyond uncomfortable in the RV.  We pulled into the East entrance of the park around 4pm.   We did a quick stop at one of the look-out areas and headed to the RV park to set-up and take showers before it got dark.  Here are the pics, but trust me, they get 500% better tomorrow!

 So we settled into our site for the night.  Grandpa made us Chili which was great.  It was nice to be among trees again, and cool evenings to sleep in.  Tomorrow we will do some biking to the various lookouts, check out the visitor center and take part in Constellation night.

Wed June 12th - Goblin Valley and 'the middle of no where"

After three wonderful days in Moab, we were off to Goblin Valley a state park due West of Canyonlands, but about a 2-2.5 hour drive as like many things in Utah, you have to "go up and around" vs. directly to it.  Last time we came to Utah back in 2009, we visited Bryce and Zion national parks (and for those who are interested in our opinion, they are better than Arches and Canyonlands, but the town of Moab was better).  While there we visited Coral Sand Dunes and Kodak chromocolor state parks and they were great.  So when Arnie said "we have to do Goblin valley" based on his past experience, combined with my recollection of HOW GOOD the state parks were on our last visit, off we went.

It is hard to explain Goblin valley.  I think the pics will do best.  It is a little land of "figures" that look more like mushrooms than goblins, but they are everywhere.  Very easy to climb for the kids which they loved.  We headed "into" the valley and just explored.  We took Henry with us and he was a trooper, as the sand was HOT.  We would try to find him shade and he would dig deep to get to cooler sand, but I eventually walked/slow ran with him out of the canyon to cool off his very hot paws.  The only downside of Henry is he is black, so he gets hot easier than most.

The highlight was we had the best game of hide and seek ever.  First the kids hid and I looked for them, Claire won that round.  Then me and the kids hid and Dad looked for us...he never found Claire and I that is how great this place is.

After a couple of hours in the canyon we headed to the RV for lunch and to cool down.  Thank god for the Generator, it can run at any time and give us air conditioning.  For those non-RVers, today's RV's are very sophisticated.  You can go  up to three days without a "hook-up" as the lingo goes.  There are full hookups - Electric, Water, Sewer, just electric, electric and water.  For the most part I tried to get full hookups, as it is just easier.  It also would cause me less stress.  But in many of the national parks, they have VERY LIMITED full hookups, and they go years in advance literally.  We have not had a full hook-up since Moab.  Now, we are not "using" the RV in LA.  It is parked in Andrea and Bob's drive-way.  So it will be 6 nights without a hookup - which now makes me nervous on how cold the refrigerator will be!!

Arnie also wanted to do the Wild Horse slot canyon which was 2 miles down the road, still in Goblin Valley.  The hike was ranked really high and recommended by some friends.  Well the women in the group were WIPED out, I mean spent from the time in the valley.  I am guessing real temperature was 105, but with the hot sand felt hotter.  I have never sweat so much so quickly.  My girls said "no way" to this and I knew my mom would want to sleep, so I stayed in the RV too.  Well the boys LOVED the hike, and it was EASY!  Bummer, but still glad that we got some rest.

So off we headed south towards the Grand Canyon.  Our goal was to get a few hours of driving in to make Thursday's drive to Arizona a bit shorter.  We didn't know where we would stop, but felt OK with no hook-ups, so it would be an adventure and it was.  Around 7:00 I started to think ok let's find someplace (and I was driving, so took control of the situation), so we can have dinner and get everything set up before sunset (remember...no electricity hookup).  We were in Southern Eastern Utah, north of Lake Powell, entering the Glen Canyon recreation area.  This is a very large canyon that sits on the northern edge of Lake Powell.  Lake Powell is the huge lake the Colorado feeds before going into the Grand Canyon, like Lake Mead is coming out of Grand Canyon.  The odd thing is we stopped in the Hite area.  It had a HUGE boat launch, literally 150 yards long, 25 yards wide, but the river was dry.  Rainy season is July- August, so I am guessing it is BUSTLING then, but we were the only people here, in this massive canyon, with our own rest area and clean bathrooms and it was FREE.

I thought this was awesome.  The kids and my dad were a bit spooked by it all.  We had a great dinner, played on the boat launch (Ben brought a basketball and is trying to dribble 1,000 times a day, so this made that task easier).  We even broke out the sparklers for the first time.  Henry loved exploring the lake bed with Arnie and it was a night I won't forget for a long time. 

Off to the Grand Canyon tomorrow.

June 11th - Moab Day 2

For those of you who have not been to Moab, I want to provide a bit more perspetive on the town.  The population is about 5,000 people.  Historically it was a mining area, but over time the mines got shut down and now it primarly relies on tourism as it's industry.  Like most of Utah, the population is primarily Mormon.  Like any tourism area, the population swells during the "season" so in the summer many college students come to Moab to work the tours - whether it is kiking, moutain biking, Hummer, rafting or other tours for the most part about 75% of the leaders are seasonal kids coming to hang out in Moab.

The "downtown" has your normal "franchise" places like McDonad's, Subway, Pizza Hut and more.  Then it has lots of local restaurants, art galleries, excusion booking shops, and of course tons of t-shirt/camping equipment and more shops.  The main drag is probably 5 miles long, with the entrance to Arches and the N. side of Canyonlands.  About 30 miles N. on 191 you would hit Route 70 which runs from Denver to Salt Lake.

Tuesday morning we had to be back at MAC for our 8am Rafting excursion on the Colorado.  PT our guide in Mesa Verde said we must do this while in Moab.  For those who are rafting enthusiast, this is not the Arkansas in Colorado, or Cheet/New in W. Virgina, or even the Penobscot that I did in Maine.  They said it is Level 1/2 but it was really level 1.  Very calm with barely any rapids, but it was BEAUTIFUL.  The Colorado portion we went on runs along Rt. 128, which as I said prior is the 2nd most beautiful scenic drive in the US after Rt. 1 down the California N. Coast (think Carmel).  The river literally cut the canyons, just as it did in Canyonlands, and all the way down to the Grand Canyon.  Just being on the water and seeing the view was amazing.

On top of that we met some really great people.  On the bus ride out we sat next to Ben and Kylie.  Both early 20 something BYU students or recent graduates.  We think they are an item but no one wanted to admist it.  They both work at MAC but had the day off, so they go to go down the river and enjoy their day off.  The gave us the scoop on the guides and the sweet deal they get.  MAC is owned by a morman family, and they have free housing for their guides.  Two double-wide trailers, 18 girls in one and 18 guys in the other.  Right next to each other.  Imagine that, coming to Moab for a great summer or year and bunking with lots of other single young mormans in paradise, not too bad.  Ben and Kylie had a kayak, as did Arnie and I so we spent a lot of time talking to them on the river.  They were also the splash instigators, you knew if they came near your raft you were going to get wet.

The 2nd half of our tour Claire went on the kayak with Arnie and I joined the raft.  Claire is always up for a challenge.  She is a very typical middle child, can go with the flow, but also up for some challenges.  She is not blessed with as much natural physical talent as her brother or sister, but as you will see in the pics, she is the first to sign up for anything.  In the raft we were with this very nice family from Syracuse N. Y.   Frank, his wife Liz and their son Tim.  We had a blast talking to them as they are a Hockey and Lacrosse family like we are, so we had a ton in common, and they loved that Ben was playing both of the sports in OHIO of all places.  Upstate NY is Hockey and LAX land, so they loved that the midwest was embracing both sports.  Here are some nice pics of me and Arn, and Claire with her Grandpa, congratulating her on her great job with the kayake.

In the afternoon we headed back to Arches, we needed to get our National Park passports stamped and I really wanted to see the Arches.  Little did I know I would get dragged into the Fiery Furnace, but you  heard about that.  Unfortunately there was just not enough time to get into the Northern part of Canyonlands.  You have a prettty long drive to get into the park and we just couldn't pull it off.  We also promised the kids they could go into the pool that night.  So we went back to the campground for a nice dinner and evening in.  Tomorrow we will head to Goblin Valley state park about 2 hours away, it is due West of Moab, but no direct route of course. 

Until tomorrow.

Moab Day 1 - June 10th

Happy 2nd week of our adventure, wow we packed a lot of miles into the first week, that is for sure.  Thankfully we got through Colorado before the wild fires began, so sad for everyone affected by it.

We are going to be behind a bit on the updates, as we are often without any cell service.  We do have a Verizon MiFi in the RV, but when you are in the middle of no where, it doesn't help, it has to get service from somewhere and there aren't many cell towers in national recreation areas (where we stayed, all by ourselves at the Hite location of Glen Canyon recreation area) or in Navajo territory, which is what we drove through yesterday and now even at the Grand Canyon where I fear the signal is to little to upload pics, but I will try.  If this goes up today (June 14th - it worked, if tomorrow June 15th, it didn't).

Day 2 in Moab was going to be a bit of an odd day, in that I had to travel for business.  I am officially in between jobs, and will go back to a new assignment, yet to be determined when I go back.  But before I left my boss and President asked me if I would close out one item for a big project and I agreed.  I can't tell you much about it, but I would need to travel to Los Angeles and likely NY during my time away.  The good news is we could not travel commercially as we would have some new products with us for the meeting, and they can not be checked, so my President would arrange for one of the company planes to pick me up.  Three days before leaving for the trip we go the date for the LA meeting and began to arrange for travel.  Unfortunately the runway at the Moab airport is not long enough to land the plane, so I would drive to Grand Junction, Colorado and meet it there, about a 90 minute drive.  My biggest issue was finding a rental car in Moab from a company open on a Sunday when I would need to pick it up.  Thankfully my admin Susan worked her wonders as she always does and found us one.  The good news is it was in the same building as Moab Adventure Center, so we booked our excusions as the same time :)

So we were all set, I left early to be sure having never done the drive and got to the airport at 8:15 am.  I had no idea where to go to meet the plane, so I asked in the main airport and they gave me directions.  The plane was due to arrive at 9:30am, but go there a bit before 9am so I was glad I got there early.  It was so nice to see Jennifer's face when I walked to the plane, while it has only been a week since I left, Jennifer was in Japan my last week so I had not seen her in over 2 weeks.  The trip to LA was fine, great views of Utah national parks and Vegas from the plane and smooth landing at LAX.  Our car was able to come early and we even had time to meet our agency partners at the Beverly Wilshire hotel and drive them to CAA.  The meeting could not have gone better.  Despite me having vacation brain, I was able to pull it all together and deliver a strong pitch to the audience.  They liked what we presented and we met our objective.  We were all very excited as it could not have gone better.  We did a quick debrief on the sidewalk outside as my main objective now was to make it back to Moab by our 6:15pm Hummer tour.  We called ahead to the plane and told them wheels up would be 1:30 vs. 2:15 as planned, and off we went 45 minutes early.  Here are some pics of my trip. 

While I was gone the rest of the gang headed to Arches national park, which was about 5 miles up Rt 191 from our campground.  The goals was to be there by 8am to see if they could get a ranger guided tour to the Fiery Furnace (FF).  We tried back in April to book it but the earliest date available was in July.  People always cancel so Arnie was hoping for that, but it didn't work out.  The good news is you can get a back country hiking pass for the FF, you just have to watch a 5 minute video and get some instructions.  Before going to the FF, they hit some of the Arches for which the park is named after. 
The Fiery Furnace is not really that hot.  Moab in general is scorching as I said in a prior post, often well above 100 degrees, but as you make your way DOWN to the furnace (quite a climb down which  means you end with a long climb up) there are lots of canyons and other areas that well shading and quite cool, which is great when you are baking in the sun.  On the first hike down, which Arnie, Ben and Claire did (it was a bit much for Grandma, Grandpa and Sarah) they went "left" and got to some slot canyons which the kids loved.  They got to scale walls and that was all I heard about when I got back. 

They also went and saw many of the highlights of the park like the arches (Windows, Delicate, Balanced Rock, North Window, South Window, Double 0 and more).  That is me and the kids in the last photo...poor Arnie waited like 5 minutes for the nice German couple next to us to move but fnially gave up.  That reminds me, our friend Alecia nailed it when she told us "prepare for entering Germany and China" in the Grand Canyon.  I would say we entered it in Moab and it EXPLODED in the Grand Canyon.  You can tell whose economies are dueing well.  For every 1 Japanese we have encountered there have been 100 Chinese.  They are on tour buses, and as you would expect speak little English.  The German's are in RV's, typically cruise America, often younger than the Chinese, but 80% of the time without children.  I was very excited and impressed my kids the other day when we met a family (that means we took each others's pictures for one another) and I was right when I said I thought they were Norwegion, and even more impressed was the family :)

The second time we went to the FF we want "right" and boy did mom hear about it the entire time, how boring this side was, and so on.  Let me tell you, it is VERY hard to please a 10, 9 and 7 year old on a daily basis for 12+ hours...hard work.  On these "back country" hikes they actually tell you to "not" follow the ranger guides (not sure why, guessing they don't want their groups too big).  But when you are in the middle of no where, are told to stay on the trails, and in sand shoe prints show up quite well, it is impossible.  But this drove Ben nuts, "mom you are breaking the rules" was all I heard.  So we would end up finding the ranger group - which made me happy as I was confident we weren't going to get lost, and then just hang back for 5 minutes and then go into where they went.  The only time we didn't follow them was the ascent out of the FF back to the parking lot, and let me tell you "the trail" that Ben found was not the right one.  Can't believe what we scaled to get back up to the top, thankfully we were all safe, but very hot and sweaty for sure. Here are some great pics from that day as well as Tuesday when they were kind enough to take mom back to Arches so I could see it.

When I arrived back in Moab, around 5:45 I quickly met the gang who was out to dinner and got the keys to the RV so I could change.  Thank goodness my father-in-law reminded me to pack a dress and heals for my meeting in LA, I would have totally forgot.  But I was excited to get out of my heals and back into my flip flops, t-shirt and shorts for our Hummer tour.  We signed up for the Sunset tour which was from 6:51-9:15.  Really had no idea what to expect, but were excited.  The tour literally scales the canyons.  At times were were ascending rock faces about 300 yards high, at an angle of at least 50 degrees.  THe first half I sat in the back seat with the three kids, this is the bumpy and exciting area.  I wanted to take pics and didnt want them sitting alone.  But this was the real experience, like the back of the rollercoaster.  You felt everything and it wsa exciting.  We all screamed a lot.  Of course the kids told Daniel our driver to scare them, go as fast as he can and so forth.  They goated him the entire time. The second half of the tour Sean joined the kids.  Sean was the only non Zucker-Prokosch in our Hummer and he was great.  I would say he was a 26-28 year old Army reserve who lived in Virginia.  He is originally from PA, south of State college so we talked about that.  He also was a huge Boy Scout like my dad so they talked a ton about that.  He was on an adventure like us, but traveling alone since Memorial day and he had to be back by June 20th to the base in VA.  He had a blast with the kids too, he is pictured in one of the pics below.

All in all I highly recommend the offroad tour. I am not a big fan of motorcycles, motorbikes, ATV's, etc.  I had a lot of experience with them as a younger women, and not always pleasant so I tend to stay away from them.  But the Hummer was totally different, this thing was a machine, literally.  Was amazing what it could do and you felt so safe.  Others were in normal JEEPs and I don't think I would have felt the same.  After a wonderful sunset over snacks we headed back and ended our first day in Moab, which was wonderful for sure.  Tomorrow we will raft down the Colorado and head back to Arches, but you have already heard about that.

Bye for now.

Welcome th the playland called Utah!!!!

Wow, it has been a wonderful three days, but I will try to take them one by one.
So Mesa Verde was just great, great hikes, great weather, great guides, great sights.
But we knew what was coming was even better.
Three years ago we pulled the kids out of school for a week in October and came to S. Utah.  We flew into Vegas (baby!...always feel like they go together), stayed there a weekend to see some shows and then headed to Zion.  We rented a very nice log home outside the East side of Zion and hit Zion, Bryce, Coral Pink Sand Dunes, N. rim of grand canyon and some little towns for the week.  It was great.  So as we entered Utah again we had high expectations.

Arnie had been to the Moab area back in 1987 (yes he is old, that was right before he graduated from college) and loved it, so he was excited.  He had two things we HAD to do, an offroad jeepish tour and a hike to the Fiery Furnace in Arches.  Before headed to Utah we detoured about an hour or so to go to the four corners monument.  This is where Colorado, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico come together.  It is officially on Navajo territory, so there were great shops there and we bough some jewelry (mom and Claire the shop-a-holics), Arrows (Ben and my tomb-boy Sarah), and a Christmas ornament for me.  Here are some pics of the monument.

From Four Corners we headed through Arizona to Utah, sort of like we drive through Kentucky to get to Anderson from downtown...similar right? :)

The drive is beautiful as you would imagine, particularly as you get about and hour into Utah and it goes from flat ground to the canyons.  Canyonlands national park is VERY big and only has two entry points.  We only went into the south area on the way to Moab, it is the Needles area.  I wanted to do both, but my "12 hours" away from the trip to go to Los Angeles cost me that opportunity, as it is about an hour drive just to get into the park, nothing is easy out here driving wise.  Here are some pics of the trip up to Canyonlands area (this is the part of the blog were you realized, not quite like driving through Kentucky to get to Ohio).

We were quite nervous going into the Needles area of Canyonlands.  We were 50 miles from Moab, it was 2:30 and the car rental place closed at 5pm.  And I had to have a car to drive to Grand Junction the next morning to catch a plane.  The drive in to the park was 34 miles (but remember, we are driving an RV and these are not straight and wide roads).  We decided to go for it...yes, we are nuts, but we are on a 6 week RV trip so that is a given.  It was so worth it.  When we got into the park and were looking at the canyons Ben said to Arnie and I "mom, I feel like I am lightning McQueen in Cars".  For those who have seen the movie, I think the animators came to Canyonlands to capture images for the two scenes where a) Lightning and Sally go for their drive together and race a bit; and 2) Clint Eastwood's character (the Sheriff) Doc is out racing the canyons and Lightning watches him.  Here are some pics of the Needles area, we didn't get all the way out to the viewpoint of the Colorado river as I was too nervous on time, but in hindsight we had plenty, so bummed about that (got to car rental place at 4:40).

I hope you like the pics, of course they can only capture so much, and scale is always hard but hopefully you are getting the picture a bit.  On the way out was a national Historic site called Newspaper Rock.  It is some Indian Hieroglyphics (sp?) on one of the canyons rock edges.  We have learned how the black forms, but it is confusing and debated, but needless to say the Indians were smart and used it to communicate through images. 

So off to Moab we were after our first glimpse at the Canyons in the area.  We made it to Canyonlands jeep rental on time, and the good news is they are owned by Moab Action Center which is a great place were you can book any type of tour under the sun, literally - Jeep, Hummer, Rafting, ATV, Hiking, Mountain Biking, Hot Air Balloon...

So while I filled out all my papers, Arnie booked our tours - Hummer safari on Monday, Rafting on Tuesday. The only question was would mommy (that's me) make it back on time for the 6:15 departure on Tuesday night.  For those who check facebook updates, you know I did, but you will get the whole story tomorrow.

Off to the RV park we went.  We stayed at Canyonlands RV park in downtown Moab.  Walking distance to everything which was great.  And it had a pool. I haven't mentioned this but Pools are a very important part of this trip.  First to give the kids something to look forward to at the end of our very long days.  Second to cool off.  The temperature in Moab while we have been here has ranged from high of 96 to high of 106...so we need to cool off.

Until tomorrow's update (which will be for Monday June 10) good bye.