Friday after picking up UD at the airport we went to the Thai place to try to see the Elvis impersonator AGAIN (plus UD loves Thai food). Too bad he WASN'T THERE! Apparently he had a stroke last month and hasn't been in for awhile. If this is actually the case I feel really sorry for him, but since he is definitely one of the reasons that place has had as many customers as it has, they should really make it known that he hasn't/won't be in for awhile so people aren't continuously disappointed!
Saturday we got up pretty early & got the car packed to head out on day one of our trip!
For dinner, UD wanted to stop at an In-N-Out after spotting one as we drove through Vegas, but we pretty much gave up hope after that because we didn't spot one for awhile. Eventually though we did find one randomly in Utah at about 3 in the afternoon, haha!
Later, we got to our destination, Zion National Park in Utah. We literally got the last campsite (since we didn't get there until close to 5 because we lost an hour), but it worked out that we had just enough time to set up camp and go for a hike through the park. It was literally the most beautiful and most amazing hike I have ever been on in my entire life. Utah is just so massive and the stone formations are just incredible.
At 9PM we went to this ranger information/ceremony thing which is apparently different every night. That particular night it was a seminar/info session on the mountain lion. The lady was really enthusiastic, and had a lot of interesting stuff to say so though it sounds kinda lame, it was actually really interesting.
Sunday we got up and drove through the rest of the park (which was an incredible ride thanks again to Utah's landscape) to Colorado. Along the way we stopped at the Navajo National Monument in Arizona and did a little hiking there to the lookout to see some cliff dwellings in a nearby mountain. Near the Visitor's Center, there were fossils containing actual dinosaur footprints, which was random, but incredibly awesome because I don't think I have seen anything even related to dinosaurs in person before.
We stopped briefly at Lake Powell, where there is a giant dam similar to the Hoover Dam. It was super windy, but still incredibly beautiful.
Finally, we stopped at the Four Corners (Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, & Colorado) National Monument so we could stand on the T and officially be in 4 places at once! Super cool! Though it was just a little plaque on the ground, it is probably something I'll never do again, so it was definitely worth stopping at.
That night we stopped at Cortez, Colorado and ate (not) Mother's Day Dinner at the Main Street Brewery.
Monday we got up and headed to the Mesa Verde National Park near Cortez to see the cliff dwellings there. Despite getting pelted with rain/snow/sleet/anypresipationyoucanthinkof and it getting progressively colder (I'm talking 40 degrees) as we went up the mountain, it was one of the coolest things I think we have done so far. The cliff dwellings were so cool! It's crazy to think what people did with their bare hands back in the day because they didn't have any other choice versus how technology has made us less skillful and more dependent on aids & tools.
After our morning exploring the dwellings we headed to our next destination, The Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado. After getting our campsite there, we drove back to the closest town to go to the True Grit Steakhouse for dinner, since UD insisted that we have steak at least once (and because the little town of Alamosa didn't have much else to offer...)
Yesterday (Tuesday) we got up and hiked out to the dunes to do some exploring! I literally felt like I was in the movie Aladdin the entire time while the wind just blew sand everywhere, I have never quite seen anything like it! We talked about hiking to the top of the tallest dune, but after discovering how hard it was to hike up one of the smaller ones at the base and realizing it would take a couple hours to hike up and then come back down the dunes, we decided against it. Never before have I had so much sand in my shoes that it felt like they were too tight on my feet!
After that adventure we decided to push on to our next destination, Wichita, Kansas. It took quite awhile on the Kansas back roads and we lost another hour so we didn't get to Wichita until pretty late. The most exciting thing we saw amongst the endless farmland and small towns that make up Kansas, was outside of this one little town there were all these metal & rod iron, handmade statues, wheels, scarecrows, & creature things on posts surrounding one person's property. It was cool to see them all lined up like that and if we had more time I think it would have been cool to walk around the property to examine them all.
That night we went to the Red Rock Canyon Restaurant for dinner. Everything was quite impressive, from the food, to the atmosphere, to the service. Definitely our best meal thus far.
This morning (Wednesday) we decided to go to the Botanical Garden in Wichita before heading out. It was really pretty and had some pretty interesting plant life in it, but there was a lot of construction going on and it wasn't as well maintained as I expected it to be, but oh well! It was still a nice, spontaneous little stop along our travels. There were also some cool statues throughout the garden of people enjoying nature, so I thought that was a nice touch.
After that we pushed through Kansas & Missouri, with a brief stop at the St. Louis Arch so UD could check it out/touch it in person. He had about the same reaction that I did the first time, sheer wonder/amazement/awe at such a massive structure. (Massive seems to be the word of the week here, everything we see is so awesome & impressive that you can't think of any other word to describe it than massive!)
After that, UD wanted to push on a little more so that tomorrow we can take it easy, so we continued on until our current location, Mt. Vernon, Illinois. For dinner we ate at this cute little mexican restaurant, El Rancherito. Our dinners + half a pitcher of margaritas were only $31 and change, so I would say it was definitely the best meal for the best price so far....haha.
Kentucky tomorrow! Update for the last time (ahhh! :( ) once I'm home.
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