One Busy Day

August 1, 2007
So another hard-core Dosch day, brace yourself * am not sure you can even handle reading about it.

Woke up at 6 before sunrise, got dressed and set out on a sunrise hike to landscape arch. The largest freestanding arch in the US. Awesomely framed by the setting moon.



Next packed up camp and set out on another whirlwind day.

First did another driving tour of Arches for the ideal photographs with morning sun. We had Delicate Arch that is kind of far away but is the Utah post card picture.

Second caught the Elephant parade

And the double arch

And then pictures of the three gossips and sheep rocks

Absolutely awesome campground, awesome park. I would love to come back here. Could spend a lot of time here and checking out Canyonlands some more


Then we drove into Moab, picked up a few groceries and tried to track down some souvenir bumper stickers to decorate our cooler.

We then drove to Capitol Reef national park. We were first pleasantly surprised by a peach orchard with you pick your own fruit for a buck a pound. These things were awesome and we got to use this awesome fruit picker to help.

Picked up another stamp and headed down the scenic driving route which was just surrounded by breathtaking beauty. We even went down this narrow dirt road. Which seemed like we were in a corral reef without the water.

Well Our GPS led us to highway 12 which is a challenging but spectacular byway and gave us access to the Dixie national forest and place caked the national staircase monument. These our some pictures from our drive just to show how incredibly great the scenery was that wasn’t even in a national park.
We then went to Bryce canyon and the amphitheater/canyon is the highlight here. The weather wasn’t super cooperative but we certainly snuck our fair share of great views and photographs though. We even foolishly risked our lives for a brief moment until thinking twice as this sign warns of the impending doom during a lightening storm. This place was great and although we don’t have pictures we saw some “pronghorns” which are antelope like creatures and the fastest four legged creature on our continent and the second fastest in the world to the cheetah.

Pictures

New Ettiquet e to make this a little easier. I am going to post about 5 pictures from each day and when it is all said and done with our trip we will post all of our pictures. Hope this is helpful. It should make it a little easier for me and really who doesn't want that.

Elk, and Three more stamps

July 31
I warn you didn’t even know I could humanly handle a day like today.
Here our a couple pictures of our camp site

Woke up, packed up camp and snuck in one last hike at Sprague Lake to squeeze all we could out of Rocky mountain park Boy was it delightful.

First off piece of cake hike only .5 miles and handicap accessible. We were first treated with spectacular views on mountains perfectly placed on the lakes with ideal lighting and

Then we were truly blessed with an awe inspiring nature moment when a group of 8 elk with 2 babies crossed the lake in front of us shortly followed up by 6 others including 2more babies and 2 males. The pictures speak for themselves

Then we took on a tough but gorgeous drive through the continental divide. It was exhausting yet jaw dropping at the same time we even drove through this Glenwood canyon.

The chaos happened we decided to find the Colorado National monument and get our first stamp of the day as you can see the elation spread over my face.

Now I thought camping at Arches wasn’t enough so we went straight to Canyonlands Island in the Sky district, saw some awesome sights as the pictures show and even went on a hike to this great arch,

The absolute absence of sound in this canyon was creepy but really awesome at the same time. Silence does not happen enough.

Did I mention we got another stamp here too?

Went to Arches snuck in just in time to get our third official stamp of the day and just went crazy with a camera capturing all of the recommended early evening photographs, I hope you enjoy a few of them.

Finally made it to camp in time for me to cook in daylight, set up this awesome camp site as you can see from these pictures and typed up a couple of blogs as I watched the moon rise through our tent window. But I better get to bed now as I am thoroughly exhausted since I forgot to mention I woke up at 3:40 and couldn’t get back to bed and Laura was up by 6. Another busy one tomorrow hope you can keep up on our trip of a lifetime.

Action Packed Drive and Some Hikes and a full Moon

Well the days are about to get action packed so I hope you can handle it.

We set off around 8:30 for an early morning drive up Old Fall River road a dirt path that is really only open for about three months of the year when all the snow is melted. This steeply climbed up the side of the mountain with many spectacular views. We encountered an awesome waterfall, some great mountain pics and some nice pictures with the snow still in the background. They had a cool gift shop up at the top and the road down was a little easier to travel as it was paved and called trail ridge road.

Two random stories from the trek upwards.

First we saw a van going up with both of it’s side doors open, taking the corners quickly and realized it had children with no seat belts on in the van. I guess that is why they call it natural selection but I call it second-degree murder.

Second another vehicle stops right in front of us and stars videotaping, we think that there is some awesome animal in front of her. It is just a rabbit. She took about 5 minutes to get the bunny to move. “Excuse me, Mr. Bunny, could you please move Mr. Bunny?”

On the trek downLaura swears she caught two bears on video. And it is very possible

We finally made it back to camp after a nice picnic lunch and had a delightful mid day campnap.

Headed back into Estes Park to Notchtop bakery for some blogging and ds’ing.
On our way back into the park saw a field of chilling on the side of the road just having dinner.

Before Dinner we went on an awesome but strenuous hike to Nymph Lake and Dream Lake. The uphill climb was very satisfying with lilies at Nymph Lake as a nice resting spot but Dream Lake lived up to it’s name.

Finished up with a campfire and tried to capture the full moon on camera for you.

Scrambled eggs, Tea Bag heaven, and some Sweet mountains

So it is extremely weird to be at the end of my day, be in a tent and be typing away about the adventures we had but Laura is journaling right next to me so it all works out.

We started off today around 7AM which was really like 8 am our time so we viewed it as a great sleep in. Showered and had had great breakfast and visit with Aunt Amy and Grandmom penny. Really good visit, good hostesses and for some reason extremely fun to talk politics with.

We then headed out but found a great farmers market and stocked up on some fresh fruit, veggies as well as some gourmet homemade pasta blends. A good find for someone who likes to camp in style.

Then we went to a Mecca of sorts for Laura. We went to the Celestial Seasonings Factory and took a fun tour.

This is an awesome dress made out of tea bags

We also of course bought some fun tea. They had a special storage shed for the peppermint and spearmint and it was spectacular as it instantly clears out your sinuses and smells absolutely delicious.

We then tracked down bakery/café recommended in one of my guide books. I love guide books probably too much. We had a delightful lunch and then geared up for big doings. Laura had Chicken Lips for lunch. We are big fans of this place , The Notchtop Bakery Café and they could see us make a reappearance tomorrow.

Oh yeah that’s right folks the third national passport stamp.
And we also discovered a new childhood classic book.

Boy who could ask for much more. We were efficient camp setter uppers.
We then set out for some hiking we first trekked around Bear Lake and saw some great views. Any time you see a 14 000 foot mountain set on a lake it is not something you usually complain about.

We then set out on a 3 mile hike up to a waterfall called Alberta falls and could actually feel our lungs burn. The whole lack of oxygen was true but boy was it worth it. Everybody would deal with some dizziness for a view like we had.

When we got back to camp we had received a citation for handi-wipes being left out with the possibility of attracting bears. I think bears must like to be really clean.

Attended a brief ranger program telling great stories of Rocky mountain national park
And then enjoyed a great meal cooked in the dark with our gourmet past and some gourmet Portabella and Swiss brats and Mexican Squash.

We also saw a spectacular full moon while sipping some new tea. I am not sure if you can say you have lived until you have seen a full moon in mountains. If you can’t tell I love vacation.

CornFields, No Stamps, Family Visit and Coors Field

I can’t believe we keep getting up at 5 am. It’s ridiculous. Isn’t this vacation? Again we got on the road by 6 am . Butt hey when you are bringing Absolute Dosch Road Domination to I 70 then you got to bring it hard core. When showed up to our car we discovered that we had not picked the greatest parking spot and ended up with yellow leaves covering our windshield and hood.

Laura took her first driving West leg of a road trip and did great. She definitely has lessened her grip on the steering wheel compared to our first road trip she helped driving on.

A little bit of disappointment as there were no stamps to be had. After two great passport stamps it was a little disappointing. Brown versus Board of Education in Topeka, KS was closed and the other two options were about 90 miles off the beaten path. Not really an option when you are trekking to see grandmom Penny.

There is absolutely nothing in the Big state of Kansas. In fact a highlight was buying a magnet that said Kansas Blows with a Man being blown by a tornado.

The other stop we debated was these hand painted signs advertising the world’s largest prairie dog( 8, 000pounds), rattlesnakes, elk, pigs, Russian Boars and 36 inch donkeys.
When we actually got to the stop the sight looked like rusted cages and extremely creepy , way too much for us too handle, a place straight out of a horror film.

The highlight of the day was definitely getting to Denver in time to visit with Laura’s Grandmom Penny and Aunt Amy which was awesome.

We then drove in to downtown Denver and went to baseball game at Coors field.
First we ate at a creepy Mexican place which claims to have the best jazz in Denver the El Chalupatec and had the special smothered burrito which had a very unique sauce on it. It was the kind of place that even though we were recommended it in our baseball road trip guide book it was extremely creepy and warm with no AC.

The actual park experience was great. We passed on Rocky Mountain Oysters. No fried bull testicles for me. They had a cool Place called “the Sandlot Brewery “ with excellent beers and has been rated of the best small breweries in America. Kind of cool to see the mountains while at a baseball game. Can’t beat 4 dollars for a ticket to a baseball game which really creates a unique family viewing experience.

Our GPS is amazing. We are loving life, I’m getting to bed earlier and that is a wrap especially since I have no clue when this will actually get posted.

Presidential Houses, Cornfields and a Royals Baseball Game

So it was on around 5 in the morning today July 27 we wrestled ourselves out of bed, got ready and were on the road by 6:10Am.

Total Driving today 525 miles. Not too bad. I did the driving while Laura held down the DJing.

We stopped at the world's largest truck stop and just ate what we packed for lunch for breakfast since we couldn't find anything we wanted to eat in Iowa.

We did randomly get our first passport stamp. The passport is the guide to the national parks. Any national park, historic Site, Monument has a stamp with the date you visited which you can stamp your passport with. We checked out this little town in Iowa to get our first stamp. Here is a picture of Laura who has completely embraced her passport.

We stopped at this interesting gas station. I am not sure if I really need to comment on this.

Then we were so incredibly lucky that we got to get another passport stamp. As you can see I am beyond ecstatic with joy and finding The Harry S. Truman National Historic site.

We then went to the baseball game at Kauffman Stadium. Great Tim. nice park with a cool fountain, good barbecue, beer vendor wearing his merchandise, random cute baby just wearing a diaper, and a weenie race. hope you get the gist from all these pictures.

As I said lots of cornfields today. My first night as a travel blogger has went way too long as my wife is fast asleep. Tadahito Iguchi was traded but at least I hear Devin looks great in camp. Off to bed to Colorado we go tomorrow.

It's time to start writing again

As some of you may know I used to be all about writing long random ramblings while in college. i thoroughly enjoyed rapping about my theories of life and musings that entered my mind. Well I missed it. It's been years since I have been in this habit and I am about to go on a near 4 week vacation with my beautiful wife so I figured why not dominate your time with some long drawn out ramblings about our trip. If anything it will give me something to do on this trip when my wife is lost in the world of Nintendo DS and keep me away from exploring the horrendous season that is the 2007 season of the White Sox. Well I hope you enjoy it. Feel free to stay tuned in for whatever floats my fancy. And July 27th the true adventure begins