Home

OK, so admittedly we’ve been home since a little after midnight Monday morning.  We left Johnstown, CO, near the Wyoming/Colorado border at 8:30 am and drove almost thousand miles all of Sunday and reached home 12:10 am Monday.

Spent the rest of the day Monday decompressing, and Tuesday at Grandma’s, cuz of course, they need to see grandson.  Yesterday was the actual cleanup.  There was dirt from Monument Valley everywhere!  This morning, Mason got on a plane and left for Seattle.  😦

Always hate to see him leave.  But at least we’ll have this time together.  I’m not sure we’ll drive a thousand frickin’ miles in one day though, again!

D+6 Days: Starting to feel the miles

Super short post:  Left today and made it back to Colorado.  Needless to say, we’re both tired!

Tomorrow starts the long journey home: Johnstown to Pueblo, then to Albuquerque, then on to Flagstaff, and finally home!

The Mount Rushmore Slideshow

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D+5 Days: Mount Rushmore

  Made it!  Over 1,200 miles, and here we are!  There is a lot more to the Memorial site then just the mountain though:  there’s a museum, a restaurant (the same dining room used in the Alfred Hitchcock movie ‘North by Northwest’) and a trail that reaches out from the viewing veranda, clockwise towards the base of the mountain, then back again.  The closer you get, the better angles you get to the sculpture:

I took a ton a pictures, so I will put a slideshow like the Monument Valley slides in the next post.

D+4 Days: On to Mount Rushmore-

Just over 353 miles later, we successfully made it to Mount Rushmore.  So far that’s just over 1,200 miles driven (that means I gotta drive that back!)

Driving thru Wyoming was pretty, but it pretty much was rolling grazing land and horse range.  VERY sparse:

It’s just endless!  Every now and again you see the farm or ranch house, and that would be it.  Small towns here are tiny, heck there capital, Cheyenne has 60,000 people in it!  Compare that to Seattle, which has about 500,000 and Phoenix, about 1 1/2 million!

But make it we did to Mt. Rushmore, South Dakota!  First:  set up camp!

Mason is happy anytime camp is set up… that means he eats!  The camp kitchen is already set up!

Since we got here in the early afternoon, we walked the 2 1/2 miles to town (place called Keystone, population 327!).  Should be called…

…the Tourist Trap!  Mwa-ha-ha-haaaaaaaaa!  Actually not that bad.  Walking thru were some bronze statues and sculptures.

Anyway, for today that’s it.  Tomorrow will be the day of the Presidents!

 

D+3: Johnstown, CO.

Welcome to Johnstown, Colorado.  A cross between Smallville, KS of Superman fame and any middle-American town.  Main-street here is still alive:

Small post today though.  Just resting.  Tomorrow will be travel day again.

D+2: On to Colorado….

So taking I-70 across Colorado is very scenic and beautiful.  The mountains are so varied, like:

And then this unique one:

This one was very colorful:

But it’s a good thing we got moving.  Mason was starting to get a little sporty there, and asking to be called Wyatt:

So we reached Luis’s place in Johnstown, a stones throw from Cheyenne, Wyoming, which we will pass through for Mount Rushmore.  Until then, we are cleaning up a little here.

D+1: The Grand Tour- Part 2.

Like all the awesome rock formations in MV, I’ve only seen natural arches in pictures.  This ‘Hidden Arch’ is something like 150 yards from the campsite!

At the end of the Arch was a crevice:

Well, that’s it for now.  Frankly, we’re beat and it’s been hot all day!  Till next time…. On to Colorado!

 

D+1: The Grand Tour- Part 1.

Wow!  This place is incredible!  It’s expansive, the blue skies are a vivid blue, the red rock is towering, and it is everything and more that make this place classic in all it’s John Ford/John Wayne movie classic history!

We discovered we could descend to the valley floor and make a 17 mile off-road trek:

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All this by 10am today.  We came back to Gouldings Lodge so we can cool off, give the Xterra a rest, and upload these pics.  Later today, we’re going to hike the area around the lodge to find ‘the Hidden Arch’ (not so hidden if on the map!).

So, stay tuned for part 2!

D-Day! Woo Hoo!

The day has arrived!  We departed at 0730, and reached Monument Valley at approximately 1300hrs!  ( Although the Monument Valley Visitor Center Campground was apparently closed for ‘renovations’, we adjusted to Gouldings Lodge).  Camp was made by 3, and then we drove around to see some of the park!  If you’ve never seen this before, it’s worth the trip!

This is where we’ll be living out of for the next 3 days:

So after making camp, we took the rest of the day to take in the scenery:

and:

So we ended the night watching John Wayne in the 1955 classic western showcasing Monument Valley ‘The Searchers’.

If you’ve never seen it, rent it, buy it, get it on netflix, what it takes…. best Western ever made.  Anyway, gonna be more tomorrow!