Zion NP and more

Since our last blog we have traveled west again from Mesa Verde in Colorado. Our traveling friends went east to Durango then north to Estes Park for a reunion.

Our first stop was at the Glen Canyon dam on the Colorado River which creates Lake Powell in southern Utah. A one-hour tour of the dam, starting at the visitors center, took us into the heart of the dam, to the electric generators, and a view of the lake

The next day we traveled back into Utah to Zion National Park. We parked our trailer in the campground for two nights. Since public vehicles are not allowed in the canyon we took one of the frequent trolleys. At lookout places we could get off, look around, take pictures, hike a little and then get back on the next trolley.

 Zion NP is an incredibly beautiful park with mountains of rocks on either side of the canyon. At the end of the park the rocks form a natural amphitheater with only the riverbed continuing through the narrow rocks.


  The following day we drove about 100 miles without our RV to Bryce National Park. We were told it would only need to be a one-day visit. Bryce is different; there are hills but no canyons.  The outstanding feature of Bryce is the "hoodoos", the pillars of rock through the valley

 

Leaving Bryce NP we drove through Red Canyon, a small area of rock formations. A few pictures were necessary but that was all. We drove back to Zion for the night and then left for southern California. We debated stopping at Las Vegas but we just saw the "Strip" from the expressway!

This week we have been in Costa Mesa, CA, parked at Karen's house, off the back alley! From here we have visited Rosie's siblings and families. For two days we were up in Lake Arrowhead, about 6,000 feet up in the San Bernardino mountains. Rosie's brother took us out in his boat both days to see the shoreline homes and cabins around the lake.

 On the weekend we will head east again, seeing family and friends along the way, before we arrive at home about the 6th or 7th of October. It has been a wonderful trip so far, and by God's grace, we hope to finish our trip with pleasure.

Thanks for traveling with us.

Abner (and Rosie, too)

Utah and West

It has been a while since the Baumans have done much traveling, at least not vacation traveling! So on September 4, the Saturday before Labor Day, we set out on a trip west; this time to visit some of the National Parks in the south of Utah. On Tuesday we met up with a couple from Oregon that we have been with on several Wycliffe Associates projects overseas. They have an RV too so we planned to camp and travel together for a while.

Embedded in this blog are some pictures from Arches National Park (NP), Canyonlands NP, Capitol Reef NP, and Natural Bridges National Monument. The parks have been amazing, varied, and beautiful; lots of mountains, all kinds of rock, and strange shapes. The scenery is spectacular. We have done a lot of hiking to various bridges, arches, canyons, etc.
One morning the other fellow and I left for a trail at 7 am; before checking out of camp we wanted to see two of the natural bridges we hadn’t seen. The trail took us down into the canyon and along the riverbed for about 3 miles, then up 700 feet of slopes, steps and ladders. It was tiring but a lot of fun and we have scores of pictures to prove it!

Two days ago we came over to Mesa Verde NP in Colorado. The landscape is much different, but the cliff dwelling ruins are very interesting. Somewhere around 1200 AD Indians lived in these hard-to-get-to cliff dwellings and worked the ground on top of the mesas. We enjoyed a very educational day visiting a museum and two of the ancient ruins.



Our next stop will be back in Utah at Zion and Bryce Canyon NPs. Our friends will continue traveling and visiting relatives in Colorado while we head west, eventually to see Karen and Rosie’s sister and brother in southern California before heading east again.

Enjoy the pictures. You can make comments at the end of the blog or on Facebook. Our email address is still: abner_bauman@wowway.com We get our messages along the way wherever we can pick up WiFi connection. We would love to hear from you.

Abner and Rosie