After spending so much time at Arches on Saturday Sunday, we were left with only a few hours to explore Canyonlands National Park. This is a large park that is divided into four different districts by the Colorado River and Green River. The district that we explored is called the Island in the Sky. Once inside we found multiple amazing overlooks of the surrounding canyons from up on the 1,000 foot sandstone mesa.

If we had more time I would have loved to explore the off road vehicle trails, but since we were limited on time we mostly drove to the various overlooks and took in the incredible scenery. We did take a two mile round trip hike at the southern tip of the region, from the Grand View Point Overlook. Although there was no real goal we were trying to reach at the end, the hike provided nonstop views of the canyons and surrounding landscape. Kim called it the coolest hike that we took of the day, and I would have to agree. It wasn’t as cool as seeing the arches earlier in the day, but this hike was better than the hikes to the arches.

I’ve added another photo gallery for pictures from Canyonlands that can be found here. We didn’t take quite as many pictures as we did in Arches, but I still think there are some really good ones.

I’ve started sorting through the over 500 pictures we took while in Utah and the other surrounding states. The first batch of pictures that are ready for viewing come from Arches National Park. I knew going into this weekend that this was going to be my favorite place we saw, and I was not disappointed. It truly is an amazing place, and I’m not sure that the pictures will even do it justice, although there are some pretty good ones.

We started the day by driving toward Balanced Rock, which is a sandstone boulder the size of three school buses that sits atop a pedestal of mudstone. The mudstone weathers away more quickly than sandstone, and this will eventually lead to it’s collapse. There is a short hike around the rock but we opted to save our energy for later hikes and try to avoid the big crowds.

Our first hike came in the Devils Garden section as we decided to head up and see Landscape Arch. Landscape Arch is the largest known natural rock arch in the world. It spans 290 feet and at it’s thinnest is only 6 feet thick. At one time you could hike all the way up to the arch, but since some larger pieces fell from the arch in both 1991 and 1995, it is no longer allowed. This arch really could fall at any time.

From there we headed toward Delicate Arch, the most famous thing in the park. We opted to take the longer hike all the way up to the arch instead of a much shorter hike to a viewpoint one mile away from the arch. The hike is 1.5 miles each way and it ascends 480 feet in elevation. But doing this hike is so worth it once you finally come face to face with this massive arch. The longer hike also helps avoid the crowds. When we finally arrived at Delicate Arch there were only a few other people there. It was very easy to get as many pictures as you wanted. In fact, I found it hard to stop taking pictures. It definitely was the highlight of the park, and made the tiring hike well worth it.

All of our pictures from Arches can be found in this photo gallery. There are 45 of them there, weeded down from the 140ish I started with. I hope I didn’t leave anything out. Enjoy!

Along with all of the amazing sights we saw this past weekend in southern Utah, we also did a little camping. I reserved a spot for us in the Buckboard campground before we left so that we wouldn’t have to worry about it when we got down there. It cost $9 extra to do this, and even though the campground was likely only 25% full, it seemed worth it.

We didn’t get up to our site until sometime around 9PM on Saturday night. I quickly made a fire while Kim prepared a couple of drinks for us to enjoy with our Chex Mix dinner. Once everything was all setup we sat down and enjoyed the fire for a couple of hours. After some time I heard a grunt from over my right shoulder. Immediately I started thinking of the sign I read when coming in. “You are now entering bear country.” And from the look on Kim’s face, she must have been thinking the same thing.

We both quickly got out of our chairs and headed for the safety of the car. I turned the headlights on in an attempt to see what was out there, but we saw nothing. We waiting for ten or fifteen minutes, kind of hoping to see something, but we saw nothing at all. We went back to the fire and only minutes later heard the same exact sound. We were thinking that maybe the fire or something else had made the sound before, but after hearing it twice we weren’t willing to take any chances.

I cleaned up the campsite quickly and we both retreated to the car. We watched for awhile longer but never saw a thing. It was safe to say that we were both a little freaked out from the experience and we’re feeling pretty safe inside the car. And that’s where we spent the night, sleeping inside the car. So much for being one with the outdoors. More stories from our weekend to come later this week.

I guess my weekend started a day early! I still was working today, but doing so from a resort is a little tough. I’ll be sure to make my updates next week worth it. Lots of pictures to come. Back to playing shuffleboard…

Hello from Salt Lake City. I’m working from a Hampton Inn while Kim is out doing her own work things. Later today we will head back up into the mountains for a couple of days and then over the weekend we will explore southern Utah. We drove out here last night cutting across the southern part of Wyoming, thus adding another state to my visited list. The drive was very scenic and fairly easy, minus the high winds for most of the trip. We took some pictures along the way, but I don’t have any way of getting them off the camera right now, so it will have to wait until we’re back in Denver.

While searching for things to do in Utah, I stumbled upon 43 Places, which I have been addicted to ever since. It is pretty easy to find the most popular destinations not only in each state, but also in different areas like cities, national parks, etc. Many of the things we have planned for this weekend came from this site. They also have cool maps you can add to your site, like this one below. Check it out…

If you didn’t already know, I am visiting Cincinnati this week. I flew in late on Saturday after our snowboarding trip. Our departure out of Denver was delayed and we were forced to switch aircraft after the engines wouldn’t start on the first! Fortunately, we all received free DirecTV service during the whole flight for the inconvenience. Unfortunately, I couldn’t watch basketball as that channel was not available. I spent most of the time watching Animal Planet instead. I am still holding out that Frontier Airlines will offer the TV service for free on all flights, and maybe add some more channels. Even if this doesn’t happen, more airlines should start following in their footsteps and adding TV service. It is a wonderful way to pass the time while in flight.

Well I survived the plane rides to Maine and back with no problems! The first flight on Thursday morning was from Denver to Baltimore, Maryland. This was one of the longer flights I’ve been on in awhile. My addiction to playing sodoku while on planes helped pass the time well. After a quick stop in Baltimore we finally arrived in Manchester, New Hampshire. This was the same airport we used for our trip to Killington last year.

We met up with our friend Tracey, who was flying in from Chicago, picked up the rental car and were on our way. We had a pretty good drive ahead of us, but passed the time with looking for moose and playing with the car’s Neverlost system. In case you were wondering, I still have yet to see a moose. After a few hours drive we finally arrived at Sunday River. This marked my 35th visited state!

From there we got the keys to our condo in one of the North Peak Buildings and later met up with all of the others who were driving in from Boston. After catching up for a couple of hours we all headed to bed so we could get an early start on the slopes Friday morning.

The next couple of days was spent skiing and snowboarding throughout the entire resort. Though the runs are not as long as they are out here in Colorado, the conditions were still pretty good especially when considering the lack of snow so far this year. There were some icy spots and packed surfaces that lead to some nasty bruises for some in our party. I don’t think I took any really bad falls throughout the two days, and I am in very little pain today. I must be getting better!

The one thing that was not fun was the temperature. Each morning when we woke up it was below zero! This is not taking into account the wind chill, this was the air temperature only. Also keep in mind that this is the Fahrenheit scale and not Celsius. It did warm up late morning the second day, which led to some great conditions. As we were leaving on Sunday morning, it started to snow. This seems to be a new trend for us, leaving the mountains just as it starts to snow. Perhaps we’ll have better luck this coming weekend.

As you are reading this, we should be on our way to Bethel, Maine for a weekend at Sunday River. If you remember our trip to Killington, Vermont last year, this trip will be with the same group and some additions. I hope to have just as much fun as last year, minus that incident on the plane. Full review to come Monday…

Following the lead of Kottke and some other higher profile bloggers, I have put together my list of cities that I visited in 2006. In order to qualify for the list I had to spend at least one night in the city, so afternoon day trips did not count. I went back through the travel category to compile the list, so I don’t think I missed anything…

• Kansas City, MO *
• New York, NY
• Killington, VT
• Omaha, NE
• Cincinnati, OH *
• Loveland, OH *
• Salt Lake City, UT
• Park City, UT
• Greensboro, NC
• Minneapolis, MN
• St. Paul, MN
• Lawrence, KS
• Cleveland, OH
• Seattle, WA
• Vantage, WA
• Denver, CO
• Branson, MO

* Visited more than once.

On Sunday morning we explored Table Rock Lake for a little bit and then continued south along US-65 into Arkansas. I already had Arkansas on my states visited list, but Kim did not so we decided to make the trip. Our route took us through Eureka Springs, a little town nestled in the Ozark Mountains. We took a detour around the winding streets of the town and even visited the Christ Of The Ozarks statue.

From there we continued west on US-62 to Bentonville where we had lunch. I decided that we should eat at Zaxby’s after reading some online reviews. It was definitely a good stop as this restaurant easily rivals Chick-fil-A in the fast food chicken department. Zaxby’s takes a little longer to prepare the food, but the wait was well worth it.

Once lunch was over we continued the drive north on US-71 back to Kansas City. For the first time in awhile, the upcoming move was the last thing on our minds.

Eureka Springs on Dwellable