More Moab; Salt Lake City

Hey Guys! We're in Salt Lake City now staying with the Allgaier's in their beautiful home that overlooks the city (pictures below). We've had a great time here and have been here longer than expected because we're waiting on my fly rod that Laurel so generously sent us. (I got ALL my fly fishing gear but the most important thing - the rod). So, it should be here today (Thursday), then we'll head out tomorrow morning to Jackson, WY and Yellowstone (where I will use that fly rod).

Anyway, here are some pictures from the rest of our visit in Moab and our visit here in SLC...

The drive into Arches National Park

Balanced Rock. You can also see it in a broader picture above.

This rock is HUGE and amazing how it's balanced on there.

We hiked to Delicate Arch (3 mile round trip)

It was pretty incredibly huge, as you can see us standing next to it below.

Nell in an arch the over out onto Delicate Arch. We then hike to an arch called "Double O". It was a 4.2 mile round trip hike.

Along the way, we ran into this guy - Landscape Arch. We learned later that in the 1970s when Arches National Park opened up, they misprinted the maps and mixed up Landscape and Delicate arches, and they remain named wrong to this day.

Hiking...

This is "Double O". You can't really tell here, but under the big O, there is a smaller one underneath.

Nell = hardcore

2 Above: for all you plant lovers

A great canyon sunset

Baby big-horned sheep. We saw a lot of these guys
through Colorado and southern Utah



This is us after a 16 mile bike ride. We rode to "Klondike Bluffs" which you can see in the distance behind us. It was a really tough ride because the first 8 miles were up hill the entire way. At the top, it over looked Arches National Park. The ride down wasn't great because it was so bumpy. My back is still a little sore from getting jarred so much on that ride. As Mark Twain said, "I'm glad we did it. Partly because it was well worth it, but chiefly because we shall never have to do it again."

.

.

.

.

We then ventured into Salt Lake City. We were caught off guard by how much we love this city. It's beautiful, with the surrounding mountains, canyons, and ski areas. We'd love to come back here...

The first day we went to Park City and messed around. Then we went to the Allgaier's home, which over looks the city. It's very incredible...

This is on the drive down the mountain from the Allgaier's house. It was raining and we caught a picture of a great rainbow. (It was actually a double, but the other one didn't want to show on the camera)

We drove through "Big Cottonwood Canyon" and ran into this creek, fed by melted snow...

As we were approaching the end of the road (still closed because of snow), we ran across...
a porcupine! HUGE! Look at that thing compared to Nell.

Big Cottonwoood Canyon...

I think this picture is taken from the Allgaier's back porch. ...yeah.

On Wednesday, Mrs. Allgaier took us downtown to the Mormon temple square...

The temple.

Inside the square.

Brigham Young statue with the temple in the background.

The temple from the 10th story of the Joseph Smith memorial building.

The top of the temple. (Notice the pure gold statue on the top of it.)

While we were driving around, we got blocked off by the police. We walked down and a few minutes late a huge motorcade came by. And who was it, but the President himself.
It was pretty cool. Nell and I both have seen different Presidents speak, and we decided that their motorcade was much more exciting.

The car to the very left is the President's. So we think. Nell's swore she saw him in there. Short man with a smirk... couldn't have been anyone else.

UNTIL NEXT TIME...

quick note...

hey you guys, just to let you know that the last post we had we were experimenting with some formatting and it didn't work out to well... so sorry if it looks a little weird, but we finally threw up our hands and gave up. maybe we'll learn how to do this in time. thanks!

dustin

Back on the road...

Sorry for the delay in blogs. We haven't had good internet service. I guess there is a lot to be updated since the last post!

On the road (the first time):

We left for OKC on May 8th to visit Dustin's granparents and Grandmoi and Stan. We had a great visit with both of them. Lots of good visiting, good shopping, and good eating. You can always count on that at our grandparents. We didn't take hardly any pictures while we were there. We did take one of Dustin and I with Grandmoi and Stan at the Jazz Club, which we enjoyed so much. A night full of Hideaway Pizza and Jazz-it doesn't get much better than that!

After OKC, we headed to Denver. We ended up staying with Terah's college friends. They were so sweet to make us dinner and give up their bed for us! We really enjoyed hanging out with them.

The next day, we got the call that Dustin's aunt had passed away, so we headed back to AR to be with his family. We ended up staying there until Friday and then headed back to Fayetteville to hang out with the families. We had fun spending some last minute time with my fam and then spent Sunday with Dustin's family going on a motorcycle ride down the pig trail, which we really enjoyed! We took off again on Monday. This time our take off was pretty anticlimatic :)

We got to Denver on Monday evening and stayed with Terah's friends again.

Night view of downtown Denver

Tuesday, we headed to Boulder for the day. We rode our bikes around town, which is a great way to see places. We are REALLY glad we brought them. Boulder has lots of cool shops, which I thouroughly enjoyed. However, Dustin did not. He did enjoy being outside in beautiful 75 degree weather! He had a strawberry/nutella crepe, which lifted his spirits :)

Sweet picture of me on my bike in Boulder :)

After we spent an afternoon in Boulder, we headed to Estes Park. The drive was beautiful and we enjoyed riding our bikes around the town in Estes Park. We even encountered a herd of elk. Dustin got about 5 ft from one! It was pretty surprising how tame they were!

The hotel in the movie Dumb & Dumber

These elk were getting on their hind legs and fighting/playing with eachother

In Estes Park, we were looking for a spot to camp and hiked up to this beautiful view. We thought the Sube could make it, but decided against it since we've already had 1 flat tire on the trip...

Our first meal campfire style-spaghetti and green beans.

We left Wednesday morning and headed for Aspen. We tried to drive through Rocky Mountain National Park, but we were two days early and they were still closed for the season. Aspen was a cute little town, but a little expensive for our budget. They had stores like Gucci and Prada if that gives you an idea. We enjoyed riding our bikes around town after a day in the car.

Bighorn Sheep that we saw on the way to Aspen. This is for you, Mom and Dad :) We didn't even need the binocs for this one!

On the way to Aspen...

Close to Maroon Bells (also closed due to off season)

Our first bear sighting...See I'm not scared of bears :)

We stayed in a cute little ski town in Snowmass, CO. All of the camping areas were closed due to the fact that there was still snow on the ground, so we stayed in a hotel.

The drive to Utah was beautiful. It is crazy how much the mountains change as you go through western CO and into Utah. We drove down scenic 128 that runs along the Colorado River.

Our first views of the desert of Utah...

Colorado River...we'll be rafting this tomorrow!

Yesterday, we went to Canyonlands National Park. It was not the ideal weather for hiking-38 degrees and raining/snowing. We got some short hikes in and got to see some incredible views.

Supposedly, a dinasaur track... who knows??

After the Canyonlands trip, we went on a mountain bike ride through the desert. It was pretty cool with views of Arches NP.

Grandmoi, this is for you. We've been wearing our helmets :)

Today, we are going to Arches NP to hike and tomorrow we are going white water rafting on the CO River and mountain biking at Klondike Bluffs. We'll update soon!