June 30

Blair says...

I'm tired. I walked at least 5 miles today, after paddling a boat against the Colorado River's rapids. I then proceeded to go swimming. So, yeah. After the rapids, which were actually pretty awesome for being a level two, if you're a beginner I'd recommend it, I was sitting in the hotel room bored out of my skull. Both computers were taken, and I've been on it a lot anyway, so I asked to follow a trail that I'd seen behind the hotel. Dad decided to come too. It led to the downtown bit of Moab, and after that we just kept going to the main street. This is a really earthy, artsy kind of town, I really liked it. What I didn't realize until we were just walking and walking and I saw how far away we were, was that it was about 100 degrees out and we'd walked 3 miles. It took about an hour and a half. After resting in the hotel room for all of 10 minutes, Dad and I (just us two crazies again) went back to the arches park, and decided to do what we'd missed yesterday. It was a .2 mile walk to the first arch, and I was able to walk on top of it. After an adrenaline filled climb, of course, because we're in Utah dammit, nothing is easy. It was a really cool experience though. Then to the next arch, which we thought would be a short walk, as we could see it. We are in the desert. If its even just a half mile trail, you feel it after a little bit. We got some great pictures, then hightailed it back to the van. We came back after picking up a pizza for dinner, and I went swimming with Brooke. I will have a VERY good night's sleep tonight.

June 30

Molly says...

 Today was fun but that we should *in singsong voice* Start at the very begining thats a very good place to start *and if we don't (repeat were star is) this will be more confusing then it has to be *so confusing..................... Anywho the begining is where molly thinks we should start.

 So at 2 AM Molly woke up because she was very cold (because she was on the cot that was right next to the air conditioning that for some reason and she had fallen asleep with wet hair) so she got up, put some socks on and figured she might be warmer in an actual bed. So she inspected both beds and decided that is was less dangerous to wake up her mom than to chance waking up her sister, Blair. So she got into bed with her mom and got warmer very fast and fell asleep.   She was woken up at 6:45 in order to get ready for the white water rapids. The rapids were so much fun. Then when that was over and they went to  2 book stores and neither one of them had the books she wanted. 

  When Molly got back to the hotel, she went on the computer (after swimming) and discovered that there were no Barnes & Noble or Borders for 132 miles. Then she read a little at the pool, then did some online art, and then she typed this. Molly says goodbye.

Tuesday, June 30

Brooke says...

white water rafting was fun. Anybody would like it. It is sort of scary. My favorite part was when I got to jump off the boat and swim near the boat.  I had to wear my life jacket the whole time. There was a scary rapid called the rocky rapid. When a big rapid comes, the boat sort of tips over, and the water splashes on you if you're on the front.  At one point, I got to walk beside of the boat and the mud sucked down my shoe and got stuck in the mud and I almost lost my shoe. But one of the guides found it. (She actually walked out of her shoe and we thought that it was gone because she was wading in the water. But one one of the guides started stomping in the mud, visualize someone stomping on grapes, and he found it!)

The the guide did this thing where we all got on one end of the boat, and our guide, Danny, grabbed the rope that was attached to the front of the boat. He pulled it to the back and we all all leaned to the back and we rocked the boat back and forth and it seemed like we were going to tip the boat over, but we didn't.  It was awesome.

When we were on Rocky Rapid a guy took our picture while we were on the biggest rapid. We really we got wet on that one. We hit a big rapid and I was really scared. I'm glad I went.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

Monday, June 29 (Day 10)

        Arches National Park

       We entered the town of Moab, Utah, last night around 9:00 p.m. and had decided on the

way here that we would stay in this inn, La Quinta Inn, for two nights and take a break from driving. At the pool we met a family who started tell us about the fun they had had white water rafting in the Colorado River while they were here, so we decided to stay here long enough to go rafting.

 I called the rafting company and made plans to go rafting tomorrow at 8:15 a.m.  After sleeping in, we spent this morning swimming and reading by the outdoor pool. Jerry got Subway sandwiches for lunch. Then we decided to go to Arches National Park and drive through, because from the map it looked like you could just drive around the park and see the arches.

We first stopped at the visitor's center and watched two films about the formation of the arches. Molly enjoying speaking to an artist who was being featured there. I spoke to one of the rangers and found out that you had to walk a short distance to some of the arches to get the best view. We started driving around the park and the temperature in the van registered at 99 degrees, and realized that we didn't bring any water bottles at all. We took our girls into the

desert without any water! And since we were thinking that we weren't actually walking, we hadn't worn the best walking shoes either.

We walked to the first arch viewpoint and the complaining began. Brooke had hurt her big toe that morning at the pool and the bandage kept coming off. We quickly looked, took a few

pictures and headed back to the air-conditioned van. We drove past a few other arches and then got to the Delicate Arch, which the video at the visitor's center said was only about 6 feet thick at the top of the arch now and probably wouldn't last much longer, so we had to see it. There were two trails to the view of this arch. We took the shorter one, which was only about 1/4 of a mile. After looking at that view, we thought it was beautiful and wondered if we could take the longer trail to the other view of the Delicate Arch. It was hot and we were thirsty, but we thought that we would try it.

Well, it was uphill the entire way, and because of the elevation, we were sucking air by the time we got to the top. On the way up, I believe that my words were something like, 

"This better be flipping gorgeous!" We were blaming each other for whose idea it was to do this. We were complaining that we were hot, tired and thirsty. It was a great time!

Again, we took some pictures, and headed back to the van. Luckily, in the van we did have some gum, so that helped until we got back to the hotel.

We stopped at a grocery store on the way back to the hotel, and got some fresh fruit and drinks. We sat by the pool and enjoyed our snack. We headed to bed as early as we could, because we had to get up early for white water rafting!

Today we learned a couple of valuable lessons: 

1) Always take a water bottle when going out in the desert, even if you think you're only driving,

2) Always wear walking shoes when going into a national park, and

3) Realize that there will never be a total day of rest when you're traveling with Jerry Donald!

Sunday, June 28 (Day 9)

Last night we chose a hotel in Cortez, Colorado, so we were only about 20 minutes away from today's destination, Mesa Verde. I had read about the cliff dwellings a couple of years ago, and since then, had always thought that they would be really neat to see.  When you arrive at the entrance to Mesa Verde, you still have 23 miles to drive up the mountain to get to the actual cliff dwellings. From the road, we could see one major cliff, so wondered if it was where we were driving, but it wasn't.

This is the first major cliff that you see. It's really interesting how some of the rock has fallen away and part of the rock remains. But this first high cliff does not contain any of the cliff dwellings.

We continued driving to the top the mountan

up a road that was very curvy, and the views were breath-taking. When we were at the top of the mountain we were at about 8500 feet. 

First we started at the visitor's center, where we saw lots of Pueblo artifacts and a short film on the cave dwellings. For 3 generations, which was only about 100 years, Native Americans lived in the cliffs, possibly to guard their store of food.  We took a self-guided tour through the Spruce Tree House, and a guided tour through the Cliff Palace dwelling.

 

You can see how the roof in the back of the dwelling is covered in layers of soot, which indicates that they burned fires in the back of the dwellings. Imagining how smoky the rooms must have been was amazing. The circular rooms in the front are called Kivas. They were thought to have been cerimonial rooms, but current findings are indicating that they were just the room where the family gathered and slept. Why these people left these dwellings, or where they went is unknown. We had a great guide, and we learned a lot. Climbing into and out of the dwellings was not easy, as these dwellings were not meant to be found by others at the time.

Then we drove on to the Four Corners Monument which is owned by the Navajo Nation. The monument is a little platform where people stand in line to get their picture taken where the four states of Utah, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico meet. One family that we were speaking to (who happened to be from Salisbury, MD) told us that they had heard that the surveying equipment at the time wasn't too good and that the monument is actually in the wrong spot!

But we were glad that we drove there.

 

This area of the US is really desolate. Then we drove through a reservation, and it is really sad how people were given land where not even grass will grow.

We continued on to our hotel for the night. We had chosen Moab, Utah, because it was a town that looked large enough for a hotel near Arches National Park which is our next destination.

As we drove into Utah, the landscape was beautiful. Here the dirt seems to be a reddish clay. It was beautiful to see the red clay cliffs with the Rocky Mountains in the background.  A few times as we were driving, a little prairie dog would run across the road. They're fast little creatures, but don't seem to be very savvy when it comes to cars. 

We got to our inn around 9:00. This Inn has an outdoor pool, so we swam until after 10:00. 

We ended traveling 265 miles today, and so far we have been in 12 states: Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, New Mexico (just across the border), Arizona, and Utah!

Saturday, June 27

We started the day heading for Great Sand Dunes which was only 20 minutes from our hotel. Since we had arrived to our hotel after 9:00 the night before, we were slow getting started and didn't head out until around 11:30. The Sand Dunes are really neat. At the base of the Rocky Mountains in this one area,

these sand dunes have formed over the years. Driving there you see flat land, sand dunes, mountain. It's

quite unusual. 

We started a the visitor's center and found that to climb to the top of the dune, which gives you a better view of the entire dune, it's better to start early in the morning so that you can be off of the dune by after

noon when the temperature of the sand can reach 140 degrees. The park ranger said that although it was on the late side, we could try it if we wanted. So we decided to try it since it was already noon, but only

70 degrees. We headed to the van and put on toed-hoes (not sandals), covered ourselves in sunscreen, grabbed our water bottles and headed out.

We didn't know where we were going, but took a trail out of the back of the visitor's center that looked like it

went to the base of the dune. After walking about 1/2 mile we ended up in the camping area! The mosquitoes were biting, we couldn't figure out where

to go, so we gave up!

We headed back to the visitor center and watched a 2o minute video on the dunes and how they were formed.

Then we headed to Zapata Water Falls which is also part of this national park. We turned onto the road that leads to the falls, and it was a terrible. It was like driving on a washboard. We didn't know how far

we would have to drive on this road, we saw someone's hubcap on the side of the road, so we gave up on this

too! Our memory of this national park is of bugs and bumps! But it was neat to see the dune formation at

the base of the mountain.

We headed back to Alamosa on Route 160 to have lunch. We stopped at a local place called 

the Fresh Tortilla Company where the tortillas were made fresh every morning. They call their burritos the 

"big ass

burritos" because they do pile on the toppings of your choice. This phrase was used on the sign on the door and on the menu, and it really cracked Brooke up.

She wanted to know if she could say that phrase just for the day, so I told she could while we were there. I'm not sure how many times she fit that phrase into

our conversation! Covering her mouth and laughing

each time. 

Then we continued

on Route 160 to Cortez. We expected to drive through,but ended up stopping alone the side of 

the road quite a few times

because the views were awesome.

When we were at the top of the Sane Juan Mountain, which is

over 10,000 feet, we stopped because there was a road sign that we were at the Continental Divide. From there we could walk to the base of the mountain where

a little snow was still on the ground. So we had a snowball

fight and the girls made a snowman out of 3  snowballs.

As we continued down the mountain we saw beautiful views and stopped at a waterfall where chipmunks ate out of the girls hands! There were so many chipmunks

running around. A woman gave the girls some trailmix and told them to stay very still and the chipmunks would eat out of their hands!

The little chipmunks would stuff their faces until their checks would bulge out. One ate all of the food on Blair's hand and then seemed to sit there and beg her for more! The girls loved it.

We arrived at our hotel around 8:00. We went to the pool and Jerry went to the store for ice cream, salad, and strawberries. The diner of champions! 

We ended up traveling 266 miles today.

comments from Blair, Molly, and Brooke

Brooke says...

today was great! This is what happened in my words. We woke up today around 11:00 and we went to the Great Sand dunes. We didn't go up because Molly's tummy didn't feel good . It was 1 hour to get to the top and back again. My favorite part of the day was when this lady gave me some nuts and a chipmunk ate right out of my hand. When the chipmunk's mouth was really full, the chipmunks look so cute. It looked like their mouths were full of air and its cheeks were big. We saw so many waterfalls, and that is what I say.

Molly says... Hey Babes, 

           We have done SO much over the last week. My favorite parts have been Bishop Castle, Hillbilly Hot dogs, Mammoth Cave, Little Grill Collectives, the sand dunes, and The Great Divide, and this one Welsh Pub in St. Louis (from greatest to least in that order). Anyway, I've read my mom's blog and I don't think you've been getting a real feel from the trip. Sure she's done a great job but everythings so amazing. I think everyone should be able to take a trip like this eventually, though you might consider going with a friend instead of family. I have ! JK (just kidding). Anyway, Bishop's Castle was amazing! Dad, Blair and I (mom and Brooke were too scared :P) went to the top, and it was like some sort of fishnet iron and at the top it was shaking and wobbling. There were a lot of windows and it was so windy, that I (who am completely not scared of heights) got so scared, I sat down and just scooted down the steps one at a time because there was no railing on the upper half. All in all it as a lot of fun, and if you ever go out west you definitely have to  go there (we even bought a souvenir magnet). So that's what I thought about that. Anywho, I've been reading a lot and listening to books on c.d. So far I've finished Sabrial, Liriel, and Abhorsen, (all one series), the Skulduggery Pleasant series, The shadow Thieves (have not finished series), and now I'm on the Legend of Drizzet series. Good bye all of you Marylanders, (and even those who are not). Bye.

Blair says... 

Um. Hi. Am I just talking about the trip on here or what? OK, I'll

give you some highlights. Colorado might be my favorite state on 

thistrip so far. The Rockies are amazing, the landscapes are seriously straight

out of Lord Of The Rings. And no hobbits, so that's a plus. The valleys

and mountains are really beautiful, and the waterfall we saw today

was, to use an odd phrase I've heard lately, sick. (apparently this means 

"cool". I'm pretty sure its a word used by adults to try and relate. I'm

the only one imagining a table with a bunch of old guys in their toupees

saying, "So what is *hip* and *cool* with the *youth* today?" aren't I.) But

anyway, landscapes. Very grand. Feeding the chipmunks was

interesting, I was surprised at how bold they were. 

The most exciting 

part of the trip so far was the rickety aeroride in the storm at the Royal

Bridge, running through hail to get to

a gift shop. Then the crazy staircase at Bishop's Castle that wasn't

at all safe, which is good, because if that castle was up to regulations it

wouldn't have been half as fun. We will now return to our regularly scheduled program.