Darlene and I met up with Greg, Erin & Merritt and Resi, Troy & Aiden for a very warm weekend of camping at Pinnacles National Park this past weekend.
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(And sorry guys, the first batch of photos are pretty messed up by my not noticing until our hiking snack break that I had left my camera set at a very high ISO. Just think of it as an old-timey filter…)
Continuing on our way home from Wisconsin, Darlene and I came across Colorado National Monument just outside of Grand Junction and decided to have a look. I’d never heard of this place but the scenery was gorgeous and there were fantastic views and rock formations in every direction throughout the park. We ended up spending a couple of days to check it out and do a little hiking – click through for the full gallery:
On our return trip from Wisconsin, Darlene and I made our way down through Iowa and Missouri and across Kansas with one overnight stop and then into Colorado stopping off in Denver but failing to find anywhere nearby to grab a campsite. (Ended up in a motel parking lot north of Boulder.) We stayed a couple of nights in Rocky Mountain National Park to do some hiking. The long views weren’t all that great because the smoke from the huge California wildfires were filling the skies even in Colorado.
Heading south, we found a spot to camp for a couple of nights in national forest land outside of Winter Park and got in some high altitude (10,000′) mountain biking. We visited Dave and Martha at their new home in Evergreen before continuing west on I-70. We camped out a couple of nights and did some trail riding in the hills above Eagle and had to wait out the mud in the morning in order to get the Traveling Cat Adventure Vehicle™ safely down the mountain again.
We also took some time to ride along Glenwood Canyon and tried to hike up to Hanging Lake late in the evening but ran out of time. We came across a mama bear and her two cubs climbing in the trees near the trail though:
Continuing our trek out to Wisconsin along I-90 and across South Dakota, we visited and hiked around a bit in the Badlands National Park and encountered some bighorn sheep. The park campgrounds were full but we found dispersed camping (with lots of other folks) just outside the northwest entrance.
We weren’t able to visit some of the other interesting sites in the nearby Black Hills area (like Jewel Cave or Wind Cave National Park) because a severe thunderstorm and hail warning drove us north out of the way. The next day I dropped Darlene off at the Rapid City airport so she could fly home to make her doctor’s appointment (she’s currently on medical leave due to a hip injury).
I continued on with Pan and Hera and visited the Minuteman Historic National Monument, which was well worth the stop.
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After stopping over in Portland to visit Glenn and Michele and make a couple of repairs (as well as visit Outside Van), we finally turned east to truly head for Wisconsin. Two of the few tourist stops we made along the way was the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, Montana and the Devils Tower National Monument in Wyoming. The Museum of the Rockies has a few rotating exhibits but its showcase is its dinosaur collection which includes “some thirty-five thousand specimens, including the world’s largest collection of Tyrannosaurus and Triceratops, along with America’s largest collection of dinosaur eggs, embryos, and babies”.
Continuing on but before we came upon Devils Tower, I had to sit Darlene down the night before our arrival to watch “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”. We arrived early the next morning (before 7 am) to beat the crowds. (Apparently it gets crazy busy there everyday from 10 am to late in the afternoon.) Darlene slept in on the early morning drive and awoke to this view out the campervan window:
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Darlene and I went down to Pinnacles National Park for dark skies to watch the Geminids meteor shower Wednesday night:
That’s a 20-second time-lapse I made looking south towards Orion about midnight, covering about 90 minutes that didn’t include any light trails from passing airplanes. And here’s a still shot.
Continuing my October road trip and coming straight from Bryce Canyon National Park, I was lucky to be able to snag the last remaining campsite on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon without a reservation – otherwise I would have had to drive all the way back out of the national park bounds to camp somewhere for the night. The North Rim is pretty cool though in that it gets only 1/10 as many visitors as the south side of the canyon.
I was surprised to find that the North Rim campground is right on the edge of the canyon – not a good place to go sleep-walking! ;-)
On arrival that evening, I hiked the Transept Trail over to the viewpoint by the Grand Canyon Lodge as the sun went down. The next morning I made it out to Bright Angel Point before returning to break camp and spent the rest of the day checking out all the amazing and varied vistas along the Cape Royal Road.
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As part of my October road trip to Utah and Arizona (with Pan and Hera in the Traveling Cat Adventure Vehicle), I finally visited gorgeous Bryce Canyon National Park. I stayed a couple of nights at the Sunset Campground and walked or biked to the nearby viewpoints and trailheads to avoid the packed parking lots. I definitely suggest that the prime hike to experience is the Peakaboo Loop trail (and I suggest going clockwise). It was fantastic! And you should combine it with the Navajo Loop trail (don’t skip “Wall Street”) and/or the Queens Garden trail.
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