We are home from our trip which was sort of a national parks tour in the Colorado area. I think we went to at least 6 different ones. We started off visiting Jason’s sister who lives near Denver and went to see the Body Worlds exhibit at the science museum. We also saw the flying mini cows at Larimer square but unfortunately I accidentally deleted those photos.  With a 5 hour layover on the way to Denver I had half a sock knit before we even touched down and hence it was quite easy to complete the first lemon drop sock as we headed out on the start of our driving tour beginning with Colorado Springs.

 

 

In Colorado Springs we visited Garden of the Gods and Florissant Fossil Beds and spent the night at the Crescent Lily Inn before heading south the next morning.  We stopped at the Royal Gorge bridge on our way down to the Great Sand Dunes National Park where my hiking boots died.

We pulled over briefly at the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad on our way to the Petrified Forest National Park and La Posada Hotel in Winslow, AZ. We made our way past Meteor Crater on our way through the painted desert to the Grand Canyon’s north rim the following day where our car registered 108 F as we passed through the reservation land.

We enjoyed two days in a little cabin on the North Rim and we were treated to a fantastic lightning show at dinner with a fab view right out of the dining room. There had also been recent forest fire activity and the helicopters were actively toting water as we drove in through the Kaibab forest, supposedly the 44 most scenic miles in America.

I did a little extreme knitting at the highest point in the grand canyon. (Too bad I didn’t think of that earlier in the trip- the sock was there but missed some cool photo ops) From there we drove on through Four Corners and picked up some fry bread to taste.

In the Cortez area we visited Mesa Verde National Park and had a fabulous dinner with local Angus beef and local wine from McElmo Canyon. From Cortez we had quite a trek back to Denver but nevertheless we stopped off at Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park before slogging through a torrential downpour in the mountains.

Back in Denver we took a day off to recover from the drive and did laundry and cooked dinner for Lori and Micheal. The following day we hit the trail for our longest hike yet, 8 miles through Rocky Mountain National Park. Earlier in the trip we’d bought a second 2 gig memory card and it was put to good use here! On our last full day of vacation we visited  Shuttles, Spindles and Skeins, grabbed lunch at the Dushanbe Teahouse and had dinner with Jason’s Aunt Linda and Uncle Ray.  Over on the sidebar you can find the complete and weighty album of over 250 photos whittled down from some obnoxiously large number- enjoy!