Gorgeous Gorges Trip, Day 10/Vacation Wrap Up!

Spring Break day 10

Sunday, March 22, 2015

Holbrook, AZ to home!

It was a beautiful morning in Holbrook when we loaded up Ghillie for the last time. We did a little letterboxing around town before beginning the final leg of our trip home. Our plan was to take highway 77 all the way home - a long drive, but we knew it would be more scenic and less busy than the interstate. Curtis picked several letterboxes on the way back to help break up our drive. Our first stop was at some wetlands near Showlow.

Well this isn't like any trail we've walked on before...

We were excited because we were going to drive through the Salt River Canyon. This is just a 7 mile section of highway 77 that goes down and up the Salt River Canyon - we had done it twice before, but for the first time, we were going to get to drive it in daylight! It takes a bit longer to go down, up, and around all the switchbacks, but it's more worth it during the day when you can enjoy the views. ;)

On the North rim

We stopped at lookouts on both the North and South side of the canyon for the views...and for letterboxes. The good news is we found every letterbox that we set out to get today! Oh, except for one sketch one hiding behind a hotel...Don't hide letterboxes behind hotels, people. Really. :)

From the South Rim

Here is one thing about Ghillie that we are absolutely loving: While it is an automatic, it has the ability to easily switch over to a 6-gear manual when needed! This is a WONDERFUL thing that is becoming popular in newer cars. Curtis used it a ton on vacation whenever we were going down long downhill sections and we were marveling over it the entire time. It's an amazing thing to be able to switch from automatic to 5th gear manual without having to stop! The only thing that drives us crazy is everyone on the road who doesn't have it and wants to just fly downhill and wear out their brakes!

The Salt River

One last vacation selfie!

After this, we finished up the remainder of the drive to Tucson. The highlight of this was seeing the bright spring colors all around the desert. The lowlight was being stuck behind slow Sunday afternoon drivers the entire time...oh well, the most important thing is that we made it home safely!

Actually, the most important thing is that we were finally reunited with our baby! We are SO thankful to have found Kennel Nirvana in Tucson. It sounds like Charlotte had a blast during her visit, and became BFF's with a Border Collie puppy. The owners were very knowledgeable about animals and we know she was in good hands. If you're looking for a great kennel for your pets in Tucson, check this place out!! 

It was such a happy reunion when she came out to see us for the first time, and we were all smiles on the drive home! We celebrated with pizza and snuggles for the rest of the night. :)

Day 10 Wrap Up: Drove 230 miles, found 4 letterboxes.

Highlight: Getting our baby back :)

Alright folks, now that we are done with the reports on our Spring Break Vacation, it's time for the final ranking on which Utah National Park was our favorite! In order from least to greatest, here it is:

5. Arches - Sorry Arches, you fell in last place! This was a combination between it being such a busy park, having a "primitive trail" that did not live up to its name, and honestly having nothing but arches to show, and we saw natural arches at almost every park that we visited! Better luck next time!

4. Canyonlands - We honestly didn't think that we could give this a fair rating, considering that you need to backpack to enjoy this place to the fullest. Still, it was huge, and we know there is lots more to see. However, from what we saw, it didn't come across as being jaw-dropping, mind-blowing, stop and stare forever gorgeous. Don't take it personally Canyonlands, you're still beautiful!

3. Bryce Canyon - This came as a surprise to me. I thought Bryce would rank higher just from looking at pictures beforehand, but our friends were right - you can spend as much time here as you like, but at the end of the day, all you've seen are hoodoos. Still, it ranks 3rd because of the great views both in and above the canyon, and we really enjoyed seeing it in its snow-covered beauty!

2. Capitol Reef - Our expectations were set high thanks to friends who raved about this park, and we are pleased to say that it met up to the high standards it was given! I think this is the park that we did the most hiking in, and we were able to see a lot and enjoy the colors, canyons, and rock formations all around. And there's still so much more that we haven't seen! We will be back to visit someday, Capitol Reef, we promise!

And our #1 park for this vacation was...

1. Zion!! Whooo! I'm convinced that this wasn't just because it was the first park we saw - it was honestly the only one where I sat down to take it all in and thought to myself, "I never want to leave." Even though there were so many people on the day we visited, that didn't take away from the grandeur of the canyon or the great reward from the challenging hike. Angel's Landing still ranks as my favorite hike from the trip as well. If I had to choose one park to visit again, I would come here and do a backpacking trip along the rim. 

Thank you to Holly & Paul, Lydia & Jeff, and Mitchell for all your suggestions and letting us borrow books and maps! One book we found especially helpful throughout the entire week was Hiking from Here to Wow: Utah Canyon Country by Kathy Copeland. It described all the hikes we did so well, and I wish we could have a book like this for every state that we live in! Definitely check it out if you're headed to Southern Utah to do some hiking!

That's all for now! Be sure to check back later or subscribe to our Youtube channel to see what videos we create from our trip. :)

Gorgeous Gorges Trip, Day 9

Spring Break day 9

Saturday, March 21, 2015

Blanding, UT to Holbrook, AZ

Canyon de Chelly National Monument and Petrified Forest National Park

Today started with a long, long drive. Our goal for the day was to drive from Blanding, UT to Holbrook, AZ, and visit Canyon de Chelly in Chinle on the way to break up the drive. We had done this drive before on last year's spring break, so we were prepared for how long and boring it was! Thankfully, we were back in radio signal and had a nice choice of radio stations to get us through the desert. :)

The view for the majority of the drive...

We had visited Canyon de Chelly together during spring break 2012, but back then we didn't even know it was a national monument - we were just going along with whatever the Navigator group was doing. We didn't remember a whole lot, so we decided it was worth revisiting. It was also about at the halfway point in our drive, so we were ready to stretch our legs and do a little hiking.

We started with a drive on the North rim. We went as far as the Antelope House Lookout, and walked along the canyon rim. Last time we were here, we only remember doing the short hike to the White House ruins, so it was fun to see a bit more of the park. It's a very interesting area, because although it is a national monument, it's on the Navajo reservation and many families live and work in the area. 

After that, we took a drive on the South side. This drive was more scenic as you could actually see the canyon from the road (the North drive is a ways from the canyon and we had to drive over a mile off of the North Rim Drive to the Antelope lookout). We stopped at the White House Ruins lookout and trailhead and decided to do the hike again.

The hike is 2.5 miles roundtrip, and descends steeply into the canyon, across the river, and to the base of the canyon wall with the White House ruins. Going down was easy, unless you keep reminding yourself that you have to walk back up. ;) The trail is made mostly of slick rock and switchbacks until you get to the bottom of the canyon.

The White House Ruins

We didn't really stop or take our time around here - we really just hiked down, took picture of the ruins, then walked up. No big deal, just a quick break from driving. As we were out of breath and nearing the end of the hike up the canyon, I told Curtis, "If we do this 18 more times then we'll be ready to hike the Grand Canyon!" 

His response was "You know that when we do the Grand Canyon, we're allowed to take breaks, right?"

Oh yeah, I was leading and I kept up a fast pace throughout the entire hike. I may have been sore and out of breath, but I was just happy that I was in shape enough to do this. I remember stopping so much last time I was here, and had no hiking experience at all!

Looking down at the White House Ruins from above.

Selfie!

After that, we finished up our drive on highway 191 and made it to Interstate 40. Our original plan was to just go to Holbrook, do some letterboxing, and take it easy, but it was only 2 in the afternoon at this point. We were planning on doing Petrified Forest National Park the next day, but since we had so much time left, we decided to do it today and save ourselves a few miles. 

I am so glad we decided to do this, because the clouds were just perfect today, and made the views of the Painted Desert so much better! We drove to Petrified, stopped at the visitor's center, and planned out our visit. The cool part about the Painted Desert is that they allow you to obtain permits and do your own back-country hiking. We didn't really have that kind of time and didn't feel up for it, but just knowing that they allow that is cool. Other than that though, there aren't any hikes longer than 2 miles, so we just decided to drive through and stop when we felt like it.

We stopped at a couple overlooks for the Painted Desert. I think this was my favorite part of the park - I just loved the bright, vibrant colors.

After this, we continued the drive south through the park. To be honest, the drive is...a little boring for quite a ways. There are interesting parks and overlooks, but for a good portion of the drive, all you can see is...scrub land. It was weird to us that all this could be considered a National Park. It just didn't measure up to every other park we'd seen! But once we took the side roads to different places, it would get to be more interesting. This park isn't like any other, that's for sure.

Another favorite stop was at the Blue Mesa Trail. It's a mile long loop trail that takes you through a badland-looking area...except it's a bluish-purplish color! It was an easy hike and we really enjoyed it. We finally started to see petrified wood lying all around. 

At the beginning of the trail - it doesn't look blue yet...

See the blue and purple now? It was so pretty!

This log is 110 feet long!

The Jasper Forest overlook

See all the petrified wood in this picture?

Curtis lies on the wood to demonstrate how long it was :)

After making it through the 26 mile drive through the park, we stopped at the museum at the end and learned a few things about the area, and how petrified wood is made. Oh yeah, and the skull in the above picture? That was found in Chinle. Crazy!

Beautiful, polished petrified wood

We finished our visit by wandering around the Long Logs trail behind the museum. We had been debating which park was more interesting - this one or Arches - and this last trail might have helped Petrified pull ahead just that much more. There was SO MUCH petrified wood all around!

However, remember what I said about how everything we saw on vacation can be summed up by saying "Cool Rocks"? Petrified wood is also just a cool rock. It is interesting how they are formed, and even more interesting that there is so much of it right here in Arizona! But yes, all we did on vacation is see Cool Rocks and Gorgeous Gorges. That's probably pretty typical though if you're traveling anywhere in the Southwest!

After this, we drove from the South entrance of the park to Holbrook. But we were not done seeing petrified wood...it was mind blowing how much we saw for sale along the side of the road!

My favorite part about Holbrook, AZ: The dinosaurs along the side of the road. :)

All of our exciting maps/newsletters from the parks we visited!

We made it to Holbrook, settled in at our last hotel, and walked to Denny's for dinner. (2nd Denny's on vacation? Yeah, yeah...we just really like breakfast food!) It's always sad when you know a vacation is coming to the end. What made this better though was knowing that (1) we got our Charlotte back the next day and (2) We have another trip planned in a month!

Day 9 Wrap Up: Drove 300 miles, hiked 4 miles, found 1 letterbox.