Durango, Colorado

We pulled into downtown Durango late Thursday afternoon. We found the train depot where we had reservations the next morning, and then we walked around a bit. We had dinner and drinks at an upstairs balcony bar. 

Durango has lots of campgrounds and RV parks, but we found that all but 2 of them are closed until May 1^st! We stayed at the Alpen Rose RV Park. It was surprisingly quiet. The bathrooms were clean , the showers were great, they had laundry and a huge dog park with a view. They even had staff that came to our camper and walked Ruby while we were on our train ride!

On Friday we took a narrated tour on the Durango Narrow Gauge Railroad. We all thought is was really cool! Our guide was in character as General William Jackson Palmer and entertained us for the 5 hours up to Cascade Canyon (where we got out for lunch) and back. 

I took tons of notes about the train and the historical stories. I'll add some more details at some point. Ryan's journal will have to suffice until then :)

After the train ride we walked around downtown Durango. We went to a french bakery, Jean Pierre's, to see if we recognized any of the treats from one of our favorite shows, The Great British Bake-Off. We ended up walking on a trail along the Anamis River to this park for some play time before Ubering back to our Ruby.

Durango is really interesting. Carl and I both think that it is at the beginning of a huge boom. We even thought about looking into buying a vacation rental here because it could be a lucrative investment. But, then we realized it's too far from home to really be worth it (and we aren't really looking for an investment;). If anyone's looking for an investment though, we predict Durango real estate will nearly double in the next couple of years! 

We all agreed, we would love to see more of Colorado some day. 

Canyonlands National Park ~ Needles

Ella has had a cold since the day we left. It seems to be getting worse and she spent most of the night coughing, which means we all slept very little. We packed up quickly this morning and on the 50 minute drive from Willow Flat campground to Arches NP we were trying to decide what we wanted to do within Arches. Many of the roads and attractions within the park are closed for construction. When we reached the turnoff for the visitor center we found a wait of over an hour, just to get into the park!! The kids said that they had already seen several good arches, so we drove on past! I do really want to go back at some point when they finish the updating.

We were able to get gas, fill up our water tank and get fire wood in Moab as we drove through. The drive to the southern part of Canyonlands NP ~ Needles, was not surprisingly beautiful! We didn’t get as lucky with the 14 first come first serve sites in Squaw Flat, but we were able to get a great spot just outside the park at the privately owned Needles Outpost. The kids (and Carl) ended up spending tons of time scrambling on the rocks right behind our site while I wrote posts for our first several days. When we first arrived there were a handful of the biggest wasps we’ve ever seen, they caused quite a bit of drama with both kids, but they soon tired of us and flew away. We spent a couple of hours playing card games under our shade structure while hiding from the blazing sun. We had our fist smores, a beautiful sunset and crummy showers! By evening Ryan had come down with Ella’s cold, but she seems to be feeling a bit better. We all shared water bottles and such the first few days, so now Carl and I are just crossing our fingers that we don’t get sick…

The next morning was more rock scrambling and then we went to the Needles visitor center and hiked the Cave Springs Trail. In addition to the amazing views, we saw lots of animal tracks, and cowboy camps. I especially liked how they used flattened tin cans to seal the edges of their grain lockers.

Canyonlands National Park ~ Island in the Sky

Monday morning, after playing around for a bit and enjoying breakfast we headed into the Northern part of Canyonlands, Island in the Sky. We were super lucky to get a site at one of their 12 non-reservable sites. We were all excited to set up camp somewhere where we would stay a few nights. I was excited to spend some time cooking a good lunch!  I made morroccan turkey burgers on pita bread with a garlicy yogurt herb sauce and cucumber, tomato & feta salad. It was delicious!!!

After cleaning up lunch we headed to Mesa Arch. The short hike was a great introduction to the area. We ended up talking to another family from Folsom as we took pictures for one another!

Carl and Ryan both have this thing, where when we pull into a campsite, if there is a large hill, mountain, rock outcropping, or such nearby, they declare that they must climb it! You can see them as specks on top the rocks pictured below. So, Ella and I took quick outdoor showers and started dinner. I outdid myself again with an amazing beef, veggie and barley stew made in the dutch oven in our fire pit. It’s funny that Ryan doesn’t really like this soup at home, but as he ate several portions he said that I can make it every week camping!

 We hiked directly from our campsite out to the Green River Overview for sunset. It was spectacular. We decided to end our day of great food with a camping dessert that rivals smores, bananas stuffed with good chocolate, wrapped in foil and cooked in the coals until they are deliciously oooey-gooey. I didn’t get a picture of them, darn- guess we will have to do it again soon!

On Tuesday we hiked the Grandview Trail. It was so amazing that we all took tons of picture and the first mile took us over an hour!

 As you can see, we are thoroughly exhausting the children!!

 After our hike we had a quick lunch of leftovers and went into Moab. We hit a grocery store to pick up a few things and then took Ruby to the Moab Bark Park. It wasn’t a great park, the ground was covered in large shredded bark which stuck to her fur and our clothes.

That night we had reservations for the Canyonlands at Night Boat Tour.  It included a dutch oven dinner, which was good. The boat ride on the Colorado River was too long and slow. The kids got bored, but were respectful. Some of the stories were good, but most were religious. It was too bad that it was extremely overcast and we couldn’t enjoy the full moon or night sky. Next time we will plan a rafting adventure instead.

Welcome to Utah

Crossing into Utah was anticlimactic at first, but it soon became gorgeous! We needed dinner as we hit a small town in the middle of nowhere. Google reviews led us to the best restaurant in town…a taco truck parked at a disabled gas station. The food was medicocre at best, but we were able to fill our bellies and our water tank, so we were happy!

Again it was dark as we were trying to find a campsite as we rolled into Moab. We lucked out and a camp host at one of the BLM camprgrounds directed us to their overflow lot for the night. We set up quickly, got the kids in bed and set up chairs to watch a sheriff’s team rescue two climbers on the cliffs above us.

I was completely awestruck when I popped out of the camper the next morning. The canyon was gorgeous! I enjoyed a short walk and mini workout with Ruby, who was the exact same color as the dirt and canyon walls.