Mark Twain: “Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails."
Okay, I really meant to chronicle every day of our road trip in real time -- and I managed to write one entry, about the end of our first day. Well, we were sooooooo busy and were having soooooo much fun that I completely forgot to write each day.
Suffice it to say that our road trip was fun, entertaining, very educational, very memorable (in a good way), great bonding time, and very, very tiring. I drove between 2500 and 3000 miles in 12 days (don't do that!)
Over the next few days, I'll describe the trip just in case someone else is considering doing something similar and wants to learn from my experiences.
Between main destinations, we stayed in motels -- not fun but expedient.
Our first main destination: We went to Arches National Park and saw all the requisite arches and hiked all the requisite trails and had a good time. But it was way, way too hot, too sunny, and too crowded! The first day, in fact, we had to wait in a car-line for nearly an hour just to enter the park. Fortunately for us, all the campsites in the park were filled, so we found a beautiful site just beside the Colorado River on BLM land just adjacent to the park. The sites were very large, mostly treed, with very clean pit toilets. No water, though. The campground ran through the Colorado River Canyon, just alongside the Colorado River. We had beautiful red canyon walls hovering over us from both sides of the river. One evening, we got to watch around 8 bighorn sheep somehow scampering on what appeared to be pretty much sheer cliffs. It was quite a sight.
I have very few regrets from this trip. Here's the main one: We were tired and didn't visit Aspen, Independence Pass, Twin Lakes, and St Elmo, all old favorites of mine. I regret that very much -- but there are always other trips to be taken.
