Dead Horse Point, truly a sight to see...

The area surrounding Moab is chock full of things to see and do. From biking and hiking to off road jeeping and rafting it would take more than a single lifetime to do it all. Since life is short, the trick is to simply do as much as you can while you're visiting this rock we call Earth.

Yukon takes in the view

I think I may have been out to Dead Horse Point many years ago when Moab was still a sleepy, yet to be discovered, backwater town. While the town has undergone its fair share of change in the intervening years the spectacular vistas remain as breathtaking as the first time I saw them. In my last blog I had promised a short video featuring Dead Horse Point so here it is. Much of Utah, for better or worse depending on your perspective, remains a cell service/Wi-Fi desert so finding a place to load video has been tough.

Dead Horse Point is a high mesa and features a narrow outcropping where cowboys used to trap wild horses. Apparently they had some horses corralled and left them behind for some unknown reason. The name, Dead Horse Point, tells the rest of the story. Today there is a nice Visitors Center, two very nice campgrounds, and a network of hiking and mountain biking trails that meander the canyon rims taking you from one jaw-dropping vista to the next. As is typical in many places, early morning and early evening are perhaps the best times to take in the grandeur but really any time of day is fine. The Desert changes with the shifting light and clouds so nothing ever seems to look the same twice.

I'm not going to lie, when we were there it was still getting downright cold at night and we had a fair amount of rain, sometimes heavy. Such is the price of admission to some wonderful places. If you're like me and believe a cold, wet day in nature beats a warm, dry day in the office you would have loved the conditions. Not so much my darling wife, but that's another story...

On the road again...

I couldn't wait to get back on the road again and here I am sitting in a campsite at Escalante Petrified Forest State Park overlooking a beautiful lake in actual sunshine and WARMTH.

My sweetheart and I, plus two overly furry Suburban Huskies, left Denver about a week ago heading west through yet another Spring snowstorm in the Colorado High Country. Will I ever get tired of driving Vail Pass through the blinding white stuff? What could make it more fun than that... Well,  just for grins, how about we throw in a 26 foot camping trailer behind the truck that we're taking out for the first time? Creeping down the west side of Vail Pass in a snowstorm is a great place to see if the trailer brakes really work.

Those that know me would have sworn I'd never be caught dead in an RV as I've always been more of a tent-sleep-on-the-ground kind of guy. I guess the die was cast when we got a Sylvan GO tent camper, albeit at my better half's insistence, when we went to Alaska a couple of years ago (see some of my prior blogs about the travails of THAT trip) to accomodate all the cold and rain that the Yukon and Alaska could muster (and it was a lot). So yeah, I've become a cream puff in my golden years.

Fortunately we slid through Vail unscathed and the good news? That white stuff wimped out and turned into just pounding rain that would follow us off and on for oh, the last seven days. We did survive Glenwood Canyon without the now required rockfall road closure and Grand Junction actually graced us with a teasing touch of blue skies.

Crossing the line into Utah we took the back road from Cisco down into Moab where we stocked up on supplies (is there a nicer City Market in the whole wide world than the one in Moab?) before heading to our stop for a couple of nights at Dead

Horse Point State Park. I'll be putting up some video in a couple of days, but if you've been, you know what a pretty place that is.

From Dead Horse our next stop was Goblin State Park which I think is one of the best places to see this side west of the... Atlantic. Yesterday was a travel day, thankfully in nicer weather, taking us through Capitol Reef National Park and the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument before reaching our current abode. A special Thank You to our President and Congress for keeping the government open so we could get a glimpse of OUR national lands.

Weather forecast for Escalante Petrified Forest State Park is partly cloudy with temps in the 60's. I don't think we'll ever see the 70's this summer, but compared to Vail Pass in a blizzard, we'll take it!

Yukon admires the view
at Dead Horse S.P.

Congratulations

I'm sitting in the nosebleed section of the Magness Arena at D.U. awaiting the graduating class of Thunderridge High School class of 2019. Kudos to my final nephew Jakob for making it this far. As I'm sure the Valedictorians will gamely point out, a brave world awaits. It's been a long, long time since my High School graduation and it's both amazing and scary to contrast the world when I flipped my tassel all those years ago with today.

The words lockout and lockdown as well as the phrase 'shelter in place' were not yet in our vocabulary and yet just last week and just a short distance from Thunderridge there was another school shooting at the Highlands Ranch STEM school.

The world these new grads face is full of challenges my generation never faced. Are they ready? Time will tell. Will they live up to the aspiration to leave the world a better place? Again, only time will tell.

As I gaze out at their impossibly young faces I can only hope for the best and wish them luck as they tackle the world my generation and those that have come after are handing into their care. God bless and God speed Class of 2019!

On the Rocks

How are you luvin' that late season winter weather? Aahhh, Springtime in Colorado.

In anticipation of an upcoming trip, and suffering from a bout of cabin fever brought on by watching snow flakes tumble from the sky in May, I thought I'd grab my wife's camera and head up to Red Rocks Park to see what it looks like all covered in the white stuff. Now, Red Rocks is many things to many people. From concerts, to Film and Yoga On the Rocks, from Easter Sunrise Service to running stairs, not to mention great hiking trails and biking as well as being home to the Colorado Music Hall of Fame, Red Rocks is a gem of a park.

With the weather supposed to turn warm with highs approaching 80 degrees this week we have, just perhaps, left the cold and snow behind us for good although up in the mountains avalanches continue to plague backcountry travelers. When the snow starts to melt in earnest the rafting season should be outrageous. I did some filming at the Buena Vista river park of a guy getting in some kayak gyrations in what had to be some really cold water but he still looked like he was having a blast.

And while up at Red Rocks in the snowy weather I took some pics of some views of the park you might not get to see if you only visit on a nice summer day. The Park takes on an ethereal appearance in wintry weather for those brave enough to get out to see it. Soon enough we’ll be moaning about how hot, rather than how cold, it is. Aahhh, Springtime in Colorado... Get out and enjoy!