5110 Miles.
19 Days
8 States
Our Route.
Friday, September 28, 2007
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Home at last
850 miles is a long day of driving, but me managed to get in last night and sleep in our own beds again! It was a great trip, but it's still nice to be home. We'll post a few more random things from the trip when the mood strikes, but for now it's time to relax!
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Shelf Road
Today was, sadly, our last day of fun before heading home. 800 miles more to go, almost all of it inside of Texas. Did I mentioned that Texas was BIG in my first post when we left there? Anyhow, drove to shelf road this morning, which is the "premiere sport climbing area in Colorado" according to our otherwise useless guidebook. There are allegedly around 1000 established climbing routes in this area, 500 or so of which are bolted, which is required for our method of climbing. As was expected for a weekday, the place was completely deserted, so we had to spend awhile wandering around to try to figure out where everything was. We figured out that from the 1st parking lot we stopped at, the closest wall was a mile hike away. We tried another area further down the road, and wound up hiking in from there. Our map was very inaccurate, so we wound up hiking alot further than we had to and turning around before we eventually found some of the walls.
Now the hard part -- Finding a route on the wall within our skill range. We spent awhile walking around the base of the cliff eyeballing the bolts up there, and deciding most were well outside of our ability. Once we found one that looked promising, I attempted to climb it and quickly determined that it too was outside of our range. Drats. Some additional searching yielded another route, which I was able to setup far more successfully. Annette got stuck 1/3 of the way up or so and came back down, but Matt managed to fight his way to the top eventually.
Even though we had only climbed one route, it was getting late and we all wanted to go to dinner. We found a great place in a nearby town that made fresh pasta onsite, which is hard enough to find in Austin, much less a tiny little town in the middle of Colorado. Very tasty! Afterwards, we had planned to put some additional miles behind us, but decided to call it a night and settle in early. 800 miles to go, but we're hoping that a big 1 day push tomorrow just might get us back to home.
Now the hard part -- Finding a route on the wall within our skill range. We spent awhile walking around the base of the cliff eyeballing the bolts up there, and deciding most were well outside of our ability. Once we found one that looked promising, I attempted to climb it and quickly determined that it too was outside of our range. Drats. Some additional searching yielded another route, which I was able to setup far more successfully. Annette got stuck 1/3 of the way up or so and came back down, but Matt managed to fight his way to the top eventually.
Even though we had only climbed one route, it was getting late and we all wanted to go to dinner. We found a great place in a nearby town that made fresh pasta onsite, which is hard enough to find in Austin, much less a tiny little town in the middle of Colorado. Very tasty! Afterwards, we had planned to put some additional miles behind us, but decided to call it a night and settle in early. 800 miles to go, but we're hoping that a big 1 day push tomorrow just might get us back to home.
Rocky Mountain National Park
Annette here. Yesterday we went to Rocky Mountain National Park. Since it was my suggestion, I am writing the blog entry for it. It was a beautiful park with stunning scenery especially with the fall foliage and we also had a surprise snowfall. Yes, you heard correctly, it snowed several times throughout the day. We had originally wanted to drive the Trail Pass Road, which goes across the park and maxes out at around 12000ft elevation, but because of the snow, we were only able to go part way. It was cold up there!!
Afterwards, we decided to drive around the other existing roads viewing the scenery and then headed towards the 3 lakes trail recommended by my awesome cousin, Chris. The hike was exhausting because it was a one way up hill of nearly 2 miles. The high altitude, around 9500 ft to 10000 ft really wiped us out. But in the end, it was well worth it. The scenery was beautiful, which I think I mentioned already and then after we reached the last lake on the trail, it started snowing again. I was glad it was snow instead of rain. We were also glad that the hike back was all downhill. Since words can't do it justice, more pictures are below.
Afterwards, we decided to drive around the other existing roads viewing the scenery and then headed towards the 3 lakes trail recommended by my awesome cousin, Chris. The hike was exhausting because it was a one way up hill of nearly 2 miles. The high altitude, around 9500 ft to 10000 ft really wiped us out. But in the end, it was well worth it. The scenery was beautiful, which I think I mentioned already and then after we reached the last lake on the trail, it started snowing again. I was glad it was snow instead of rain. We were also glad that the hike back was all downhill. Since words can't do it justice, more pictures are below.
Sunday, September 23, 2007
The Open Road
We spend today driving to Estes Park, Colorado so that we can visit Rocky Mountain National Park tomorrow. Hopefully it won't rain, though it might. We got in early enough to do laundry, which was nice. Since the day was pretty long and dull, here are the highlights.
1 - We found a bagel shop for breakfast. Annette was very excited.
2 - Lunch at A&W in a truck stop. Matt was very excited.
3 - We can go to sleep finally. I am very excited.
1 - We found a bagel shop for breakfast. Annette was very excited.
2 - Lunch at A&W in a truck stop. Matt was very excited.
3 - We can go to sleep finally. I am very excited.
Rapid City, SD
Annette Here. Just a quick blurb about Rapid City, which is the tourist hub if you want to see Mt. Rushmore and the Badlands. It's a quaint town nestled in the Black Hills of SD. We stayed at the Dakota Pines Inn, which was inexpensive and nice. If you find yourself there, we recommend eating at the Firehouse Brewing Company and Sanford's Grub and Pub.
Mt. Rushmore, Badlands and Wall Drug...
Annette here. Yesterday was quite a busy day. Our first stop was Mt. Rushmore, a true American Icon. Luckily, we arrived in time to catch the free Ranger guided tour. We learned the history of the monument site and why those 4 presidents were chosen.
After we were finished with Mt. Rushmore, we started the 2 hour drive to the Badlands. On the way to the Badlands, we kept spotting these strange billboard advertising signs sponsored by Wall Drug. Normally, we are the type of people to ignore advertising, but these billboards just dragged us in and we had to stop at this place called Wall Drug. It was the true definition of kitsch. You could buy everything from ice cream to cowboy boots and they even had an animatronic T-Rex. One of the billboards we passed mentioned a T-Rex. Now, for those of you who were kids in the 80's, remember the Yes and Know Trivia Books with the invisible ink, well I found one and bought it and yes, the copyright was still 1986. Anyway, realizing that we had spent over an hour at Wall Drug, we decided to press onward to the Badlands.
We weren't sure what to expect there, but it turned out to be quite an interesting geological area. On one side of the road is grassland, the other is a beautiful vista of rugged small mountain terrain and canyons carved out by the river. The terrain is fragile and erodes about an inch per year. The park also had a prairie dog town and wow, there were lots of them and they were really cute.
We only had enough time to do 2 short hikes and one of them finally took us off the boardwalk. By the time we finished the hike, the sun was setting and we headed back to the hotel.
After we were finished with Mt. Rushmore, we started the 2 hour drive to the Badlands. On the way to the Badlands, we kept spotting these strange billboard advertising signs sponsored by Wall Drug. Normally, we are the type of people to ignore advertising, but these billboards just dragged us in and we had to stop at this place called Wall Drug. It was the true definition of kitsch. You could buy everything from ice cream to cowboy boots and they even had an animatronic T-Rex. One of the billboards we passed mentioned a T-Rex. Now, for those of you who were kids in the 80's, remember the Yes and Know Trivia Books with the invisible ink, well I found one and bought it and yes, the copyright was still 1986. Anyway, realizing that we had spent over an hour at Wall Drug, we decided to press onward to the Badlands.
We weren't sure what to expect there, but it turned out to be quite an interesting geological area. On one side of the road is grassland, the other is a beautiful vista of rugged small mountain terrain and canyons carved out by the river. The terrain is fragile and erodes about an inch per year. The park also had a prairie dog town and wow, there were lots of them and they were really cute.
We only had enough time to do 2 short hikes and one of them finally took us off the boardwalk. By the time we finished the hike, the sun was setting and we headed back to the hotel.
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