Last night it rained pretty good. We could hear the pitter patter throughout the night. The morning was overcast, but it was not raining. It could either be a muddy experience or it could be a glorious clear day of sightseeing in the Arches and CanyonLands Parks. We shall see. We arrived at the Visitor Center at the Arches National Park around 9am. It was already very busy. We watched the movie and were intrigued by the formations that were highlighted. So we bo...

Today, we were going to get up early and drive 17 miles to the Black Canyons of the Gunnison National Park. Have you ever heard of it? We hadn't until we started planning this trip. Before driving out to the park, we felt we needed a good home style breakfast. We stopped at the Shanty II, a family owned little coffee shop. You just can't go wrong with an All American Breakfast. Walt said his Chicken Fried Steak was pretty darn good. With full tummies, we felt we...

Montrose, Colorado, here we come. We left Pagosa Springs around 7:30am. We wanted to stop to visit the Chimney Rock Monument, but it was closed for the season. Fortunately, we could see it from the road. Very cool. Next stop, Mesa Verde National Park. The visitor center and research center is a staging place. All the action happens on top of the mesa. We had two things against us. Walt and Barb were towing a vehicle, which they do not allow at the top. Second,...

This morning was the coldest yet....30 degrees. We were on the road at 7:30am heading to Pagosa Springs CO for the night. We thought we would try to visit the Rio Grande Del Norte National Monument, a fairly new National Monument dedicated to protecting 242,500 acres where the Rio Grande runs wild. The morning light may be better for picture taking. We came to the turn off and it looked a little iffy. So Bob and I drove in to make sure the Beast and Testie wou...

It was a beautiful crisp morning in Santa Fe. Temperature was 35 degrees at 6:30am. At an elevation of 7,198 ft, it was also very dry. Why would we even think of getting up at 6:30am? Well, it was time to change the motor oil and we wanted to be the first in line at Jiffy Lube...and we were. Walt and Barb got to sleep in a little longer. We planned to meet at the Walmart near the Jiffy Lube to drive to Tao NM. We had initially planned to make Bandelier National...