Capitol Reef, Canyonlands, Arches NP, Colorado, & The Rockies.

Truckin' on through the Capitol Reef National Park, Utah.

The ole van impressed us on these back-country dirt roads

It was very hot the whole day.  We hardly wanted to get out of the car :(

In the middle of nnnoooowwwwhhhheeerrreeee :0 (360 Degree shot)

Cool store inside a big rock (sign outside the door read - "gas prices are not my fault!"). Fueled up and got cold beverages here for the scenic routes coming up.  At the intersection here, at least 20 trucks with boats were passing through coming from nearby Lake Powell.  It looked like lots of fun.

Took the scenic route 24 to scenic route 95 and crossed the Colorado river in southern Utah. There she is.

Hite, UT, a town across the Colorado River in the distance pictured here (yes there is a town there), was a gold mine boom town. 

Highway 95 in southern Utah views

A natural bridge :) Who knew it was a national monument?! If you can see it in the picture here, that feature was around 240 feet tall.  No one was at this monument though - seemed like it was the least visited monument ever.

Sunset as we were leaving the monument after cooking dinner in the parking lot.  Jarrett made Spam.  "Delicious," he says.

Cannot see it well here, but this part of Utah was actually a pretty lush forest...the trees were all really low though.  Not like the east's lush, thick, and tall forests.

Stayed a night in the small town of Blanding, Utah where Jarrett woke up early and saw this gem (sunrise at 6:00 am).  The plan was to get an early start before the heat set in, but unfortunately, we fell back to sleep after the alarm went off.

So we made it to the southern part of the Canyonlands National Park before it got too hot and saw some of these

This, which was also in the Southern Canyonlands, was prehistoric tribal drawings on the walls of dark rocks.  These date back to 1300-1600 BC

We Cruised on up to Arches National Park from here, not before stopping in Moab, Utah, to see about renting dune buggies.  We decided it was way too hot to take some buggies out, but got some brochures to potentially come back at a better time of the year.

This is me during the one hike we managed to do in Arches.  Sweating profusely.

We unfortunately didn't get many close ups of the Arches, because to didn't want to get out of the car into the heat :P (lameeeooos).

Arches National Park - "it was so hot,  we could barely do a 10 min hike!"

We decided we had enough of the desert and decided to move on over to the Rockies.  Despite the wildfires which suggested excessive dryness, the area actually appeared quite lush (compared to the desert, that is).

It was neat to see trains running trough the Rocky Mountains.  We didn't get the shot here, but this train was coming out of a huge hole in the side of the mountain.

This was literally the same day, as Arches and Canyonlands.  We were so happy to be out of the heat of the desert and into the cool Rockies.

I guess it was sort of ironic, as soon as we got to this historic silver mining town (Georgetown, CO), it poured down rain.  We also came to find out later that Grand Junction, CO, the town we just traveled trough and stayed a night in, caught on fire after we left...it was like the fires and dryness was everywhere we weren't.

The beginning of St. Mary's Glacier (kudos to the Lisa)

On our way to the top of the glacier! The best part was sliding allllll ttthheee wwaayyyy ddooowwwwnnnn.  There was "a couple of college kids," as they described themselves, who were hiking up to the top with their ski's and snowboards to shred down St. Mary.  Captured video of them shredding.

On top of the mountain!  You can't see it here but in the far distance a storm was brewing with lightening and everything.  I think just about the worst place to be during a lightening storm in the Rockies is on top of one of the highest peaks in the area, on the tundra, above the timberline (i.e. no shelter).  After debate about "weather" or not we should stay to see if the storm would "just blow on by," as Jarrett suggested, we decided to be safe and head down the mountain.

Pretty glacier mountain flowers.

The next day, we drove the van to the highest peak that a paved road could take us to.  This is a veiw from the top of Mt. Evans right outside of Idaho Springs, CO.  If you squint, you can see the Denver skyline.

This is Summit Lake, just a couple hundred feet in elevations below the peak of 14,000 ft Mt. Evans.

On top of Mt. Evans and over 14,000 ft - the 2nd tallest peak in Colorado, and boy, it was so cold at the top we had to break out the jackets that were stuffed in the back somwhere.

The Van at the summit.

Can you see the Marmot?  We also saw 5 mountain goats (not pictured here).  Two parents, two playful kids, and one lone goat who we called the uncle.

Jarrett rode all the way down Mt. Evans on his sweet road bike.  Had to stop to take his jacket off.  I stayed close by to make sure he didn't get altitude sickness, pass out, and fall of a cliff.  After this, we meandered around Idaho Springs, got dinner at a Microbrew called TommyKnockers and spent the night here.  The next day we went rafting in clear creek with a company called Liquid Descent.

An old gold mining site. (Jarrett says he was born in the wrong era)

A totally radical whitewater rafting company! Class III and IV rapids dduuuddddeee!!! No one even fell out! psh!  After we went rafting, we headed north to Estes Park, CO and Rocky Mountain National Park

 We got some food at Poppy's Italian restaurant in Estes Park, CO and walked around the touristy town and then saw this gem: Sky/sunset from the peaks at Rocky Mountain National Park

In the distance is Wyoming.  That stick is so the snow plows know where the road is in the winter when they get over 10-15 feet of snow at the tops of these hills.

This was a rain storm in the park...starting to think they were making this "fires emergency" up

Above the timber line! Luckily, we did not get elevation sickness, but we did get these cool photos!

Very beautiful sky's here at Rocky Mountain national park

Elk! (It seems as though every animal responds to my mom's high pitched "mimi" voice).  After we spotted these chaps, we settled down and camped in one of the campgrounds in the park.

This is a shot from the lunch patio at the Boulder, CO National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).  This was our first encounter with nearby fires (okay maybe it wasn't a made up story).  You see that dark spot in the sky?  That was smoke from the fires.

That little dot in the clouds is a helicopter.  You can see the smoke from the fire to the left just above the mountain. The helicopter is headed towards it to drop a big ole bucket of water.

The dot in the sky is the helicopter just above the fires outside of Boulder, CO.  The fires here were pretty well contained at this point.

That night, we discovered that the locals were throwing an independent film and microbrew festival here in Boulder, Colorado.  It was called "Clips of Faith" and the videos ranged from outdoor sports and comedies, to singing and dance. (I cried during two videos lol).  The goal of this film festival was to raise money for the local bike co-op.  It seemed like everyone here was in good shape and liked to do everything outdoors.  To all the IBM'ers reading this, notice the two folks rockin' the IBM chairs in the middle ground of this picture.

Chicken Cheese Quesadilla (I was doing Jarrett a favor by saving him the calories and eating it all)