California - Death Valley, Yosemite, Sequoia

We've been having a wonderful time touring California and visiting with friends for the past two weeks or so. California seems to have something for everyone, with a full range of different environments (coastal, desert, mountain), vibrant city life, and a fair amount of natural fauna (from sea otters to slow motion road crossings of tarantulas)

From left: Ben, Ricky, Sophie's mum, Sophie, Joe, Karen



And...best of all (as Karen states) this is where Jelly Belly jelly beans are made! Paying homage to their mighty governator with one of their famous jelly bean mosaic pictures was only half the attraction! But this was a great free factory tour and we had a really fun time - they even let us keep the hats!



Between staying with friends and seeing the JB factory, we also managed to squeeze in a few national parks - here are the highlights:

Death Valley - The hottest and driest location in the US. However, we experienced the park after a huge rainstorm, which meant that many of the roads were flooded. Imagine that - flooded roads in the desert. This park wasn't as outright visually impressive as other parks (admittedly, our enthusiasm was somewhat deflated by the oppressive heat), but there are several gems tucked away in this massive desert landscape. Unfortunately, the unpaved roads in this park were the worst we've yet experienced, which limited the depth of our exploration, yet one of the highlights had to be hiking in Mosaic canyon - a slot canyon carved through great expanses of polished marble.




Yosemite -
We were shocked to find this park still crowded in the middle of the week at this time of the year. The scenery was beautiful, but somewhat lessened when it's you and 50 other people taking the same picture or walking the same trail. However, the glacier-carved faces of El Capitan and Half Dome never fail to impress. FYI - Yosemite Falls are not falling at this time of the year, though other park waterfalls still contain some water.



Kings Canyon / Sequoia -
Lured into Kings Canyon by the promise of seeing black bears (we've been in bear country for 2 months and haven't yet seen one....the closest we've come is bear scat.....at least we think it was bear scat), it turned out to be a very scenic trip into true wilderness. Very few people shared the park with us, which was a welcome change from Yosemite valley. We wandered alone through alpine forests, crossing pristine streams next to towering granite cliffs.....but still no bears.



Adjoining Kings Canyon to the south is Sequoia National Park. Sequoia trees are amazing - not only tall, they have a massive girth....they look like something out of a cartoon. These trees are beautiful to look at, with rounded tops and warm red bark (which can be up to 2 feet thick!). The General Sherman tree, which Ben stands in front of, is considered to be the largest living tree on the planet (by volume). Some stats: ~2200 years old, 275 ft (~84 m) tall, with a base diameter of 36.5 ft (11 m). Unbelievable.



Not that anyone ever reads this (you're allowed to make comments, you know), we're headed back east along interstate 10 towards friends in Texas. Then it's the long haul back to PA.

PS - if you know anyone interested in a 2001 red Chevy Blazer.... let us know!

Too many National Parks to list... (Utah, Colorado, Arizona)

We're writing to your from an internet cafe (which just happens to be in a bail bond place - yay) in sunny Las Vegas. We had a fun evening on The Strip last night and even managed to come out ahead with our 5 cent gambling splurges.

Sorry for the long break between posts, but we're learning that internet access is few and far between if you don't have your own computer (and it's expensive, to boot!) As it has been awhile, we've visited quite a few places, so be warned - this is going to be a LONG post. We'll break it up by parks, and you may also want to break it up into multiple readings. Or, grab your coffee or beer, sit back, and (hopefully) enjoy!

CANYONLANDS - NEEDLES DISTRICT
We saw our first true rain of the trip here - some real "gullywashers" complete with impressive lightning displays. As such, we spent a good deal of our time looking at the scenery through rain-splattered windows. However, it still managed to impress; being down among the canyons gave us a whole new perspective. Because of all the rain, there was a bit of a flood across the road on our way out of the park, but we threw common sense to the wind, slapped on the 4WD, and drove on through - yee-haw!



MESA VERDE
The only cultural US National Park - you'd recognize it from images of the Ancestral Puebloan (also called Anasazi) cliff dwellings. Really enjoyable - particularly crawling through the 1.5-foot wide exit of the Balcony House tour. Here we met Ranger Dan, a great bloke who makes a mean eggplant and anchovie pizza - and his roomie Ranger Mitch. Good times!



SAN JUAN SCENIC HIGHWAY
Following advice from Ranger Dan, we headed north on this scenic highway route through Colorado mountain country - reaching our highest road elevation to date of 11113 feet. This drive had it all: gorgeous mountains, crisp clean air, and lovely yellow streams....? Yes, yellow. A history of mining has added some new colors to this area through leaching from the mine tailings.



BLACK CANYON OF THE GUNNISON
As it was so convieniently located near the scenic drive, we thought we'd visit this most famous of national parks (no, we'd never heard of it either). We were pleasantly surprised at the dramatic scenery that this park had to offer - sheer dark grey walls laced with pinky-white veins of pegmatite dropping thousands of feet to the river below. Here we found Painted Wall, the tallest cliff in Colorado (2250 feet) carved by the action of the river alone (don't ever underestimate the awesome cutting power of the Gunnison River!)



PETRIFIED FOREST NATIONAL PARK
We thought that a brief jaunt down to Arizona was in order, so we zipped down to this park. This is really a 2-for-1 deal with the crazy colors of the painted desert plus the mind-boggling abundance of petrified wood scattered about - from wood "chips" to neatly cross-sectioned chunks to hundred-foot long logs. It was amazing to us that the exterior of the petrified wood still looks like...well...wood, yet the inside can contain a myriad of crystalline colors.



GRAND CANYON
No tour of US national parks would be complete without a visit here. We were lucky to have wonderful visibility, and spent both a sunset and sunrise on the south rim. The scenery here is on an unprecedented scale......the river flows thousands of feet below exposing rock nearly 2 billion years old while the opposite canyon rim is over 10 miles away. Pictures just can't do it justice.





MONUMENT VALLEY / VALLEY OF THE GODS / MULEY POINT OVERLOOK
We took a very scenic route back up into Utah, passing by some amazing rock formations on the way. This drive included 3 miles of gravel switchbacks up the face of a cliff with 1000-foot drops....fun for Ben, not fun for Karen. The views from Muley Point over the Goosenecks were worth it, though. Plus, we also stumbled across a small pool tucked away in the rocks, teeming with life.




NATURAL BRIDGES
A small side trip rewarded us with views of these massive rock formations (FYI - a natural bridge is formed from stream erosion, while an arch never had a stream flowing through it). Look closely at the photos to spot the little people there.




CAPITOL REEF
We took the road less traveled in this park, spending most of the day on dirt/gravel roads and finally needed to use our 4WD, high clearance vehicle. We were rewarded with feeling as though it was our own private park, where we viewed amazing roadside scenery (rock layers thrust up at 70 degree angles, exposed ancient oyster beds, and vibrantly colored dunes), hiked into a canyon, and made our way to a phenomenal panoramic view of the waterpocket fold from the Strike Valley overlook - as Ben said "it was as through the backbone of the earth was laid bare for us to see."




BRYCE
Hoodoos rule in the surreal landscape of this park. Shades of orange, red, pink, and white abound in what Karen describes as a "sugar-candy landscape." Getting up in the early darkness for yet another sunrise (aren't we supposed to be on vacation?) was well worth it as each passing moment illuminated another layer of the complex canyon floor. We really enjoyed our hikes down into the canyon (one by day, the other by the light of the full moon). We gained a new appreciation of these structures by wandering amongst them.





Norm - this last one with big dipper is for you!

ZION
In this park, for a change, you are at the bottom of the several-thousand foot sheer cliffs of the beautifully colored sandstone of the Colorado plateau. We did some really fun hikes here from a little rock scrambling in Hidden Canyon to wading through 55 degree (Fahrenheit) water in the Narrows.





Though it may not sound like it, wading through frigid, fast flowing canyon water sometimes reaching waist high over slick river rocks was really good fun (thanks for the tip, Matt and Katie). An added bonus was meeting a fellow Narrows hiker, Heather, who shared our 9-mile trek.



We're headed to California to meet up with some friends for some more, you guessed it, camping! Hopefully we get to use their internet for our next update!