Park Perfection at Zion

Instead of heading around to the Grand Canyon’s north rim (to which we said “next time”), we continued north past Lake Powell, stopping at the Glen Canyon Dam, where we were afforded some prime people watching. From there we made our way into Utah in order to check out at least one of the famous desert National Parks.

Glen Canyon Dam, behind which Lake Powell extends for miles

Sister wives, a sight almost as interesting as the dam

We opted for Zion National Park, conveniently in the southeastern corner of the state so not too much driving was required. We definitely plan to explore the other Utah parks once we're living in Colorado, with Arches and Canyonlands at the top of our list.

The drive through the east gate to the south gate, where the campgrounds are, is absolutely breathtaking. The eastern half of the park is lined with rocky hills that are home to big horn sheep (which we tried to coax out of hiding by calling “Here, biggie hornie!”, but no dice). Some of the rocky hills have patterns on them akin to paintings: it looks like someone dragged a gigantic brush along the stone while it was still malleable. One of the most interesting spots is a rock called “checkerboard mesa.”

The dividing point in the park is a mile-long tunnel, dug in the 1930s, which has three “windows” that slow down traffic a bit as car passengers strain to get a first glimpse of the fantastic views. The tunnel opens out to beautiful mountain vistas and switchback roads, bringing wide-eyed drivers down into the canyon.

West of the tunnel

We headed straight to the nearest campground to stake our claim, and while there were a good deal of campers in the 100+ sites, we didn’t have a problem (and we suspect the campground never filled). So, we set up camp and headed off to explore the park before nightfall.

Zion Campsite

Compared to the Grand Canyon, Zion is perfection. It is the kind of park that literally forces you out of your car in order to explore the grounds: the main road down the canyon is limited to the free park shuttles which pick up and drop off at about a dozen spots throughout the park and run well into the night. Also, the park is totally manageable: whereas it takes hours to drive to different spots along the Grand Canyon (5 hours from the south rim to the west glass overlook, which we couldn't do), it took us about 30 minutes to get from the visitors center to the riverwalk path at the end of the shuttle’s road. It’s a great place. On top of that, as with any park out west, the place is teeming with wildlife. We saw at least a dozen deer out eating before dark, including the mamas and their spotted fawns. “Little guys” -aka lizards- were parked near paths, keeping close watch on the visitors. We even saw a tarantula (thanks to the shuttle bus driver, who nearly ran the little thing over)!

Fawn

Orange wildflowers

Squirrely

Our daylight was pretty limited, so we ended up doing probably the most popular hike in the park, but it wasn’t overly crowded. The out-and-back hike was mostly paved, a little to our dismay at first, but it ended up being great because the flora and fauna held our focus. The squirrels, which looked more like a combination of prairie dog and squirrel, were hilarious and completely unafraid of people, holding down their ground in the middle of the path in a sort of man vs. beast game of "chicken". At the end of the hike is the start of The Narrows, another “trail” which literally uses the river instead of a pathway, and is so-called because the cliff walls close in on the river creating a more and more narrow river. We did a bit of The Narrows, enjoying tromping through the cold river water until it got a little too deep for us to risk damaging our expensive cameras. Plus we weren’t prepared...next time we will wear swimsuits!

The Narrows

It felt great to come "home" to our campsite, and we could definitely see ourselves returning to Zion, staying at the campground for multiple days, taking the shuttle to trailheads, and exploring more of the park by foot. Instead we moved on, to the call of flashy (and maybe a bit trashy?) Las Vegas.

The Grand Canyon: National [Amusement] Park

Located a couple of hours from Sedona, the Grand Canyon’s south rim has been turned into an amusement park of sorts. With parking lots full and people clogging the sidewalks and vistas, it’s a little overwhelming. We stopped in a few spots to snap photos, and while the immense canyon was incredible, we were a bit more focused on getting to the campground.

Kristen at the edge

Grand Canyon campsite

Luckily, we arrived in time to grab one of three campsites that hadn’t yet been claimed. By the time we set up everything and started on dinner, the sun was setting and there was a steady stream of cars looking for open campsites. The weather was cool enough to require long sleeves and pants, a first for us so far, so we cozied up next to our first fire on the trip, staying up in the dark hoping for another chance at the Perseids meteor shower before turning in for the night.

Fire starting

Camp dinner

We woke up after a fairly restful night and headed to the Desert View Overlook, which is normally choked with people but we arrived early enough to have a few minutes to get some good photos. Taking mental note that the next time we visit the Canyon, we want to a). see the less-traveled North Rim, and b). hike in and around the Canyon. Then we moved on.

Surprising Sedona

We left Albuquerque in a whirlwind with our sights set on Sedona, Arizona. We made two notable stops along the way. First was Gallup, NM, a small town near the NM/AZ border which Hollywood put on the map thanks to the many westerns which were filmed near there. The town is famous for the El Rancho Hotel (and motel), located on historic route 66 and built in the 1930s specifically for traveling film crews and silver screen stars. The main lobby area of the hotel is beautiful and unique, with an enormous stone fireplace flanked on either side by twisting staircases to the overlooking second floor. Rooms are named for the stars who frequented them. And the food smelled delicious, though we opted for our own cheaper fare.

El Rancho

The second stop we made was Petrified Forest National Park. Highlights of the park were the vistas overlooking the Painted Desert, and learning about how the fallen logs turned to stone over the years. The park is one of those over-managed places, where you can’t walk anywhere off the path (at least in the parts we saw). It was sort of disappointing in that way because you couldn’t get a good look at the majority of the petrified wood. But after 30 minutes of walking around and stopping at as many pieces as possible, we were ready to move on.

Crows at Painted Desert

Petrified wood

Petrified wood detail

We could feel a repeat of the Carlsbad experience creeping up on us as we drove past Flagstaff and into the forest that leads to Sedona. As the sun was setting, we passed three campgrounds with no vacancy (it was Saturday night...), and the only RV park in Sedona did not allow tent camping. Outlook not so good.

After driving the resort-style main strip of Sedona, we landed at a motel called the King’s Ransom. The room was more expensive than we’d wanted but in the spirit of preventing another Carslbad bad motel experience, we bit the bullet and took their last room. Loren was quick to check out the attached restaurant, Elote Cafe, on Yelp and as it happened we’d landed at one of the best places to eat in Sedona! After a long wait which included sampling some of the leftover wine from ABQ and some of Elote Cafe's fresh margs, we soothed our growling stomachs around 10pm mountain time/9pm Arizona time. [Q: Why doesn’t Arizona follow Daylight Savings?]

Elote Cafe

We were also fortunate that our room had a walk out patio from which we could wander into the courtyard-ish area to watch the Perseids meteor shower. It wasn’t the best stargazing we’d seen (thanks, West Texas, for spoiling us!), but we each saw at least 5 shooting stars. We passed out after fighting to stay up to see the rumored hundreds per hour, which never delivered.

King’s Ransom Hotel

The next morning, filling up our bags with continental breakfast fruit and having a couple of boiled eggs, we set off again to see more of beautiful Sedona. We made a mental note that this place could be a candidate city for retiring: beautiful red rock mountain vistas, nearby Slippery Rock State Park (which we didn’t have time to see), a nearby National Forest, emphasis on outdoorsy activities, and a ton of spa resorts. Kristen revised her take once she realized she’d gotten heat rash after only spending about 5 minutes outside to take some mountain photos. That place gets HOT! All in all, though, Sedona is a place we plan to at least visit again.

Albuquerque: Vacation from our vacation

Albuquerque was such a good rest stop for us, offering a soft bed, cool house, warm shower, full kitchen, wireless, and a chance to see more of the Olympics. After sleeping ourselves out of the sleep debt we’d accrued while tent camping/acclimating to the high elevation, we made breakfast and set off for the climbing gym to start “training” for our upcoming outdoorsy lifestyle in Colorado.

From the gym, we met Loren’s mom for sparkling wine tasting at Gruet Winery, where we loosened up, and then to REI for some camping supplies. To top off the spoiling, Kristen was treated to a mani-pedi.

Gruet

For dinner, the group went to the quirky and fun Range Cafe for delicious food and clever drinks. Below are some highlights.

Appetizer: Green Chili Strips w/creamy cilantro sauce (a must-try!)

Margs. Can you guess which one was Loren's? (hint: it's pink)

Coconut-cranberry mojito, a perfect combination of the best flavors ever.

Loren's adorable grandparents, aka Mom and Papi

Day two started with renewed energy. The Subaru (aka Subie) got its oil change, Kristen practiced yoga for the first time since setting off on the trip, and we made it to Petroglyph National Monument just before the visitor center closed. Because of the sun glare, the glyphs were a little trickier to find! Afterwards, the whole group made it out to dinner at Pasion Latin Fusion, where we shared 2 bottles of wine and some delicious plates for dinner.

Petroglyphs

Us and glyphs

Good company, good weather, good food, good drink. Thanks so much to Vilma and Jim for being our generous hosts!

The Road to Lesser-Known NM

Okay, who would’ve thought that the lush, verdant spot featured in the photo above is New Mexico? Our decision to take the “scenic” road from Southern NM up to Albuquerque may have been our best idea yet. With wildflowers of purple, pink, orange, white, and yellow lining the road, we were surprised again and again.

Roadside wildflowers

We stopped in Silver City, a small town which reminded us of a mix of Richmond VA and Santa Fe, where we got delicious lunch and happened upon a great coffee shop. The road we took from there, Route 180, is sandwiched by two national forests and dotted with small towns along the way. We beelined from there to Pie Town (no joke), which was a bust because the two cafes in town that serve pie were CLOSED!

Lunch at Diane's in Silver City - Spicy chicken and green chile sandwich

Three Dog Cafe, Silver City

Silver City Strip

Luckily we had enough time to make it to the Very Large Array, a network of large dishes that work together to listen into deep space, which was famously featured in the movie Contact (a favorite of Kristen’s). Another two and a half hours of driving landed us in Albuquerque at Loren’s Mom’s house by dinner time!

The Very Large Array, part of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory...Think "Contact".

UFOs, White Sands and a glimpse at Factory Farming

Roswell UFO Museum

Turns out, Roswell is a decent-sized city! We’d both been expecting a sleepy, dusty ranch town, but were pleasantly surprised to find creature comforts, including Wi-Fi at Starbucks for blog posting. We paid a visit to the UFO museum, which started out feeling kind of legit but degraded into jokester territory soon after, especially with the “artistic depictions” of extra terrestrials based on “witness accounts”. Unsure of what we really believe about that fateful day in 1947 when a rancher may or may not have come across a UFO crash site, we set off again on the road with thoughts of Independence Day and the X-Files.

The drive included our first glimpses of large-scale cattle yards. At first, they almost looked like junk yards, because all we could see were black, white, and brown tones squished together so tight you couldn’t make one end from the other. It was pretty disturbing when we realized what we were looking at, especially contrasting that with the big green open fields we’re used to seeing with cows leisurely strolling along and curled up under a tree. While we didn't get any photos, below is a map we found showing the density of factory farms by county across the country. We were in the deep red zone you can see in southeast NM.

Factory farming map

We made it to White Sands National Park with a couple of hours to spare before sunset, and got to explore some of the famous gypsum sand dunes. It’s strange but incredibly beautiful to see the starkly white sand, which contrasts so strongly with the natural tones surrounding it: blue from the sky and mountains of orange and purple. Next time we’ll follow the lead of some of the families we saw, who’d been smart enough to bring sleds and saucers to ride the dunes.

White Sands

Sand angel

Instead of sticking around for the full sunset at White Sands, we jumped at the opportunity to scope out the campsites at a nearby state park in daylight. Racing to Oliver Lee State Park, which is at the foot of the Sacramento Mountains, we experienced our first casualty: a swallow dive bombed right in front of the car, hitting with a bang. The poor little thing was in the grill of the car when we stopped at the campsite. Sad.

On a happier note, the State Park was great. We got to watch the last colors of sunset, a bit of lightning in the distance, and a couple of shooting stars all from our spot. Camping in state parks has not disappointed so far.

Oliver Lee State Park, NM

We brought with us a cold bottle of Chardonnay from our gas station pit stop and enjoyed it with our Mountain House dinner (just add boiling water). In the absence of a proper lantern to light our camp area, we hung a little flashlight from a nail, until Loren had the idea to place it in front of a jug of water, which worked out pretty well to illuminate our space.

Campsite, Oliver Lee State Park

Camping with Wine

Incredible Caverns at Carlsbad... Bats, not so much

We broke in our shiny new National Parks Pass at Carlsbad Caverns, and the splendor that unfolds during the hour-long self-guided walking tour is otherworldly. We were continually struck by the vastness of it all. Next time we may up the ante to try for a guided tour of a lesser-known cavern.

Carlsbad Caverns

Loren spelunking

Carlsbad is also famous for the population of Mexican Freetail Bats, which set out in search for their dinner every night at dusk. Crowds gather at the area facing the entrance of the main cavern, which has been made into a stadium of sorts (called the Bat Amphitheater). A nervous park ranger talked to the crowd for the 30 minutes preceding the bat flight, and we all waited in silence (sans cameras by law, because they disturb the bats) for the huge cloud of bats. Ultimately, it was a huge disappointment: the most we saw was a slow trickle of bats probably amounting to a few hundred? maybe a thousand? which was sort of cool. We never got an explanation from the nervous park ranger, who didn’t even really acknowledge the letdown, so we remain baffled. Maybe the bats knew something we didn’t? Maybe they weren’t hungry? Who knows. Guess we’ll just have to come back some other time...

Waiting for bats

Since we’d waited until dark for the bat cloud which never came, we set off even later than expected in search of a campsite in downtown Carlsbad, which turned into a search for a hotel in downtown Carlsbad. We ended up staying at a cheap motel, which was possibly the most disgusting place ever...Lesson learned: opt to set up camp in a State Park (even in dark) rather than staying in a crusty, cheap motel.

Caverns Motel - If this motel were even on Yelp I'd rate it a 1.

Camping Oasis in West Texas

We made it through most of western Texas and arrived at Balmorhea State Park with just enough daylight to set up camp and eat a delicious meal of fried spam and veggies. The night sky opened up above us for some of the best stargazing we’d ever seen, and the moon waited to rise until about 2 hours after sunset, giving us plenty of time to play with the camera and tripod to get the settings just right for the star-filled sky: we could even see the Milky Way. Everything was perfect and wonderful until a few hours after we retired to our tent, which was when the coyotes decided to come out and wreak havoc and stir the dogs in a nearby campsite. The crazed barking, yipping, and yelping went on until about 5am, which is when Kristen decided she couldn’t listen anymore and tuned it all out with ear plugs.

The Milky Way

Morning brought peace again. We made a delicious camp breakfast of fried eggs, spam, and onion with some Sriracha, served with coffee. By the time we packed everything up, the temperature had soared into the 90s, so we opted to pay a visit to the Spring for which Balmorhea State park is known. The Spring has been developed into a pool, equipped with a 3m high dive (the water was approaching 30 feet deep on that end), lots of little fish, and a crowd of underwater adventurers: snorkelers and scuba divers. The cool water and high dive ensured we were wide awake before setting off on the road again.

Breakfast: Fried egg, spam, onions and coffee

Natural spring / pool at Balmorhea State Park

Soft-shelled turtle (first-ever turtle that Loren admitted was not cute)

BBQ at its Best

Taking the expert advice of our hosts, we decided to head to one of central Texas’s most famous barbecue restaurants before leaving Austin. Salt Lick is located about 30 minutes south of Austin in a ranch paradise, a sprawling complex housing both a vineyard and restaurant. At the heart of the operation is a giant BBQ pit, which patrons see on the way to their seats, a peek at what’s to come. We arrived around noon on Sunday, which happens to be about an hour after Salt Lick opens, and the parking lot was already about half full. In order to sample as much as possible, we shared a heaping plate called The Rancher, which features the four meats (ribs, brisket, sausage, and turkey) served with cole slaw, potato salad, beans, pickles, onion and a huge chunk of bread. Barbecue at its best. In order to enjoy it fully and not enter into BBQ-coma, we ignored the bread and beans. Breakfast of champions!

The Rancher

In the aftermath of our feast we drove out to Hamilton Pool, a supposedly beautiful swimming hole oasis, but the 2+ hour wait to get in scared us away. It was a tough decision, but we will definitely come back to Austin, during which time we will definitely put Hamilton Pool at the top of the list.

By the way if you’re looking for a gift from Austin, check out the Salt Lick Cookbook full of drool-worthy recipes – they may or may not be the best barbecue recipes in all of Texas.

Austin: New Favorite City?

The results are in: Austin is amazing. We definitely need to live here at some point. In the few hours that we spent around town, we walked the super-cool S. Congress strip, ate the best tacos ever [Torchy’s at the South Austin Trailer Park, a food truck/trailer haven], splurged on a "cake shake" [exactly what you think: cake blended into a milkshake], recharged after our sugar coma with delicious iced coffee at a place known for hot dogs [Frank’s, the coolest restaurant/bar/cafe/music venue we’ve ever been to] and found the house of our dreams [a deal at $700K, slightly out of reach, considering our zero-income status right now]. Austin has won the city challenge so far. Special shout-out to Matt Fedor for the air mattress and awesome hospitality!

Selection at Allens Boots on S. Congress

We didn't even need candy...the rich sugary aromas were enough!

Food trucks abound

Torchy's Tacos trailer

Kristen's pick at Torchy's: the "Trailer Park", served "trashy"

Loren's Torchy's taco: The Crossroads

Frank

Iced coffees at Frank's

With the host! Thanks for everything!!