Mesa Verde

Monday- traveled to get to Cortez, CO. From Central City, CO. Started off 41 degree in mountains at 7am, Emmett was so cute and said Thank you for taking him to the beautiful mountains. Entered Utah at 11:45am 75 degrees and Moab at 1:41 for a quick fuel up. It was nice seeing where we would be coming back to later on the trip too. Arrived to Cortez at 4pm and the hit up the town visitor Center and Walmart, of course the pool was the next hot stop for the kids.  

Tuesday- it was 46 degrees waking up and we decided to get to park earlyish at 8:30. Started off at park visitor center and we're happy to hear that Emmett could probably do the tours we were told he couldn't the day before. They tested the ladders and tunnel and we were set for two tours. Sammie picked up junior ranger packet and started working on getting her badge. Stopped at high point overlook Park Point for great views. On the way to the first tour saw a wild horse in the park. Sammie was ecstatic to see a beautiful creature roaming in the park. At 10:30a was our tour of Balacony House cliff dwellings. It was a huge 30 foot ladder to get in and kids loved the tunnel had to go through also. Foot holes were used on side of cliff too. This was our favorite of the day with very good park ranger guide with Sammie has a junior ranger helper. 

The next tour for the Cliff Palace one that we rushed to at 12:30 and had quick sandwiches in the car before. The artwork in the tower was amazing. Also saw they now use clothes and slinkys to keep birds out of the dwellings. Then we did the mueseum and Spruce Tree house and got to go down into a Kiva and Sammie got her junior ranger badge. Stopped at some ruins on the top of the quesa also and overlook of? Then the kids got tired in the way out of the park and passed out. Got back to site and Sammie made rock sculptures, they swam some more and we packed up for the next day of travel to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon!

On the Road to the Grand Canyon - Day Two

It was warm and humid overnight in Nebraska, we slept will all the windows open and the fans running all night long which kept us comfortable.  We got an early start to the driving, leaving our "urban camping" spot at 7am sharp and headed out of Lincoln towards Denver, CO

Nebraska is flat

For a while there wasn't much to see out the window as Nebraska is very flat and the landscape doesn't change much as the miles go by.  When we got closer to the western edge of the state the plains were broken up by smaller rolling hills and more trees.

As we did yesterday we stopped for a quick lunch at a truck stop parking lot, and again just as yesterday we were very efficient and were on the road again in under 30 minutes.

We stopped again for fuel when we got closer to Denver.  As we got into Denver, my navigation unit started to give me some strange directions, but we have learned to trust it as it's usually routing us around some road closure or some area that's not safe for large trailers (we have an RV specific GPS).  This time though, I had entered an incorrect destination.  In fact I somehow entered a point on a dirt road about 16 miles from where we wanted to be going.  The good news is that in order to get to that point, we ended up driving through mountains just west of Denver that were absolutely stunning.  Kelly and I even joked about telling everyone that we made the detour on purpose for the views.

Our next surprise was that the campsite I had booked was also in these same stunning mountains.  I hadn't looked into the details of the campground we selected for this nights stay well enough.  We have had very good experiences for these overnight stays at KOA campgrounds, so when we were planning this trip, I just looked for a KOA near Denver and booked it.

The Central City KOA just west of Denver is at 8800 feet at the top of a mountain and has gorgeous views from all directions.  We got to our campsite and were in awe with the view.  I couldn't have been more surprised or happy with staying here both tonight and on the way back.

Some storms passed nearby shortly after we got settled in here, and after the rain passed I was able to get this photo of a double rainbow over our campsite

We ended up meeting some great people, one couple was on their way through from Wisconsin heading towards Yellowstone, The family in the site just behind ours was from Memphis and had their two young grandchildren along with them, so Emmett and Sammie got to play with them for a while. They even joined us as we ended the night with some s'more's around the campfire.

We are heading out in the morning to Mesa Verde National Park near Cortez, CO

On the Road to the Grand Canyon - Day One

The air was calm and cool and the sun was just starting to glow above the horizon as we all loaded into the truck and headed southwest towards madison for our first leg of the trip.  We even ended up leaving about 15 minutes ahead of schedule at 4:45am

Leaving town

We drove straight on through Madison and made it all the way into Iowa before we needed to make our first potty / fuel stop.

We drove on and made a quick lunch pit-stop near Des Moines.  We've gotten pretty good about keeping these on-the-road stops short.  We ended up at about 25 minutes for our lunch stop, which is great!

Lunch on the road, in a parking lot

It seemed like almost no time and we were crossing the border into Nebraska and our destination for the day was only a few hours away.

Welcome to Nebraska

We are visiting some family that live in Nebraska so we are up for some urban camping this evening, parked near their house.  It was great that we could work in a quick visit with them while we are on our way!

Urban Camping

We plan on heading out of here at about 7am tomorrow morning as we make our way to our next stop just outside of Denver, CO

Route to the Grand Canyon

The trip to the Grand Canyon is a bit longer than our last trip to Yellowstone, just long enough that it would be uncomfortable for all of us to stretch it into a two day route.  So we'll be spending fewer hours in the truck each day, but we'll be adding a day to total three days driving to and from.

As we did on the Yellowstone trip, we'll be breaking the driving up a bit by staying a day at some additional destinations on the way out and on the way back.  We will be spending a day around Mesa Verde National Park in southwest Colorado and at Arches National Park on the way back.  We also have overnights in Omaha, Nebraska and Denver, Colorado on each trip.

According to our Garmin, the trip totals 3,814 Miles, here is how that breaks down by day.

Miles per Day

Wish us luck!  We are heading off to our first overnight bright (well maybe dark) and early in the morning.  We'll be posting here photos and stories of our adventure

Grand Canyon Phantom Ranch

There is a ranch deep within the inner canyon.  Last year when we were doing some preliminary planning for our Grand Canyon trip, this looked like something that I absolutely wanted to put on the itinerary.  

Photo Credit: Grand Canyon National Park Service - Flickr

When we started doing some deeper research we realized that this is one of a few things that might not be feasible for this trip. There are three ways to get to Phantom Ranch; an intensive hike, a raft, or a mule ride into the inner canyon. The hike takes about 4 hours down and 8 hours up and would be too difficult for at least one of our children to endure. Rafting is out of the question due to Sammie's current aversion to boats.  We looked a little deeper into the Mule ride packages, but the cost is much more than we are looking to spend. Staying at phantom ranch looks like it would be an amazing experience and it will definitely be something that gets added to our list to do when we come back to the park later in life.  

Take a look at the video NPS has produced about visiting Phantom Ranch, If you plan on including this in your plans, know that they recommend booking very early, reservations open up 13 months in advance

Grand Canyon Excitement

Sammie and Emmett are getting really excited for our trip as it has been a common topic around our house for the past few weeks.  We have our route planned and our campsites booked, now we need to gather some more information on the sights we want to see and the experiences we want to do.

Sammie's Arizona research notes

Sammie has been doing some research on Arizona as a state and has put together some notes that she wanted to share.  Emmett wanted to join in and talk about the big trip as well, mostly he wants to see "lots of animals" and "have a picnic on a big hike".

Listen to the Audio below