| Summer Road (On/Off) Trip - CA, AZ, UT, NM, CO
- Click HERE for Original Thread
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| boyfester |
I was able to take 14 days off and explored CA, AZ, UT, NM, and CO. It was a great trip especially finding the ONLY drivable road that goes down into the Grand Canyon. Yee-ha! Explored, in no particular order, Sedona (AZ), Ship Rock (NM), Goosenecks (AZ), Newspaper Rock (UT), Steamboat Springs (CO), Grants (NM), Taos (NM), Great Sand Dunes (CO), Colorado Gators (CO), and more.
DAY 1 - CA & AZ
Aww. Traffic on the 91 going west. We're headed east and no traffic in sight. |
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| boyfester |
Welcome to ...
My son below. The ultimate riding buddy! |
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| boyfester |
| Entering Sedona, AZ. |
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| boyfester |
| We stayed at a nearby campground and spent the afternoon at natural slip-n-slide Slide Rock State Park. This place was cool! |
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| boyfester |
| Deep pool for jumping. These three kids were jumping from that point so I went for it as well. It was freaky! As soon as your feet hit the water, you had to pull them towards your chest or you'd hit the bottom and possibly tweak your foot. It was about 10' deep. |
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| boyfester |
| I threw a canopy over the Pilot as we slept inside. Our queen size air mattress fits right in. This looked ugly but kept out the bugs. It was about 85 degF outside at night so the windows had to be open. |
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| boyfester |
| Manzanita campground near Slide Rock. That's our Pilot in the very back. |
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| boyfester |
DAY 2 - AZ, NM, and UT and CO (if you count 4 Corners). This was our longest day.
Chapel of the Holy Cross in Sedona. This bad boy is built right into the rocks. |
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| boyfester |
| A mansion near the chapel with its own observatory. Wow! |
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| boyfester |
| View from the chapel. |
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| boyfester |
| Sculptures within downtown Sedona. |
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| boyfester |
| Moving towards Tuba City, AZ, we stopped at this cool bridge which was only to carry natural gas. |
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| boyfester |
| Elephant Feet outside of Tuba City, AZ. My son is standing at the bottom to give this perspective. |
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| boyfester |
| The other foot. |
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| boyfester |
| We ventured off the road and found this tunnel underneath some railroad tracks. We found some nice hot red sand dunes hidden back here. |
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| boyfester |
| This shade did not help. It was hot! |
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| boyfester |
| My artsy shot #1 |
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| boyfester |
| We found a tricycle almost completely buried. I tried to lift it out but it would not budge. Hopefully there wasn't anything else down there. |
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| boyfester |
| The Peabody Western Coal Company. This thing is so cool looking. You see it for a while and the tower is so tall. The conveyor belt stretches over the highway and snakes over the mountain. If you go back to the photo of the Pilot in the shade, you can see the tower in the background. |
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| boyfester |
| One of our Day 2 destinations ... Ship Rock, NM. This was our first sight of it and we weren't even in NM yet. |
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| boyfester |
| This area was so trippy. The rock is 1800' tall and is the reverse of a volcano. I guess three plates came together and formed this uprising. The vertebrata on the left side stretch for a couple of miles up to the rock. |
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| boyfester |
| Huge! FYI - that small rock on the far right of the picture along the dirt road at the base of the Ship Rock was the same size as our Pilot. We drove back to this spot to show the perspective. |
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| boyfester |
| Along the northeast side of Ship Rock. The sun is starting to go down towards the other (west) side. |
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| boyfester |
| We raced back to Four Corners for two quick shots before heading to Muley Point in Utah where we stayed the night overlooking the Goosenecks. |
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| boyfester |
| Cool (I like this word) rips in the earth near Valley of the Gods in Utah. This area looks cool on Google Earth as well. |
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| boyfester |
| Looking back down on Moki Dugway while heading towards Muley Point. Losing daylight! |
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| boyfester |
| View from our campsite near Muley Point (just southeast of the point on another bluff). This is a shot of the Goosenecks and in the far back is Monument Valley. |
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| boyfester |
| Shot of the plateaus of the Goosenecks in Utah. |
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| boyfester |
| The sun setting over Muley Point. We were moving fast as we hadn't made dinner yet. |
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| boyfester |
| My boy and I eating a good meal in the moonlight. Hamburger Helper and frozen peas tasted awesome that night. |
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| boyfester |
I will post more pictures tomorrow as it is time for bed. On Day 3 we ventured through Valley of the Gods, off roaded it up Comb Ridge, headed to Moab, and then Denver (our final destination).
Hope you've enjoyed the pix so far. |
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| Sportymonk |
Awesome !! :claphead: I used to live in Tucson AZ and I have forgotten how beautiful it is. A lot of folks think of that area as barren dessert like but your photos show how much grows out there. Wanted to go to Sedona but father in law wanted to see sunrise at the Grand Canyon so we had to miss it. Wife and I never got back.
The idea of the net over the Pilot was a great idea, have never seen something like done. Starting to get the itch to pack up and go somewhere.
Can't wait for more pics. :29: |
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| sprocket |
| Awesome pictures. We have been considering a trip out there for a long time. Thanks for taking the time to post the pictures. Looks like some quality time with your son. :4: |
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| boyfester |
| Yes this was a good bonding time. We have an EX but not a DVD player. We end up talking quite a bit. Can anyone imagine that? Talking. With your own kids. For hours and hours. It's crazy when I see kids watching tv just on their way to school. |
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| jpd0363 |
Wow! Great job with the picture taking. I almost feel like I had visited myself.
Thanks! |
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| boyfester |
DAY 3 - UT and CO
This was the next day. The view was spectacular!
This is a shot of the actual Muley Point with the sun hitting it.
This is our campsite. As you can see, this is BLM land. No fee, no picnic table, no bathrooms, and no other people. Over on the left is the cliff. Straight down about 1000'. I freaked out in the middle of the night with my mind racing about "what if the brakes let go for some reason?" or "what if the tranny goes from Park to Neutral?". So I went out and put rocks behind the tires while my son slept. I felt better and never woke again til morning. We had a great breeze coming up the cliff at night into the back of the Pilot.
My boy on the edge. Actually he was about 20' from it but I shot the pic so it looked like he was. I wanted to freak out my wife later.
We went on an early hike before it got hot (~105 degF by 1PM out here) and got the sun behind us on this rock. This is one of my favorite pictures from our trip.
My boy's shadow trying to grab an eagle feather that was stuck in the rock.
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| boyfester |
On to the Valley of the Gods. This was a great dirt road. 17 miles of rollercoaster road! This is a picture of Balanced Rock on the right.
Seven Sailors to the left.
My wife's always complaining that I purposely take a picture with either the Pilot or my motorcycle in the picture. So here's the same as above but without the car. I like the photo on top better.
Picture for the wife.
Picture for me.
The front wheels spinning while doing about 40 mph in Valley of the Gods. This was actually a pretty hard picture to take. Dirt was flying everywhere and I kept being at the wrong angle. Thank God for digital cameras allowing me to see that I was taking pictures of the quarter-panel instead of the wheel. I like that the "H" logo is frozen but the rest of the wheel is spinning.
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| boyfester |
We travelled from the 17 mile Valley of the Gods road to Comb Ridge. We drove up this red, dirt road about 11 miles long on the west side of the ridge and encountered patches of soft sand (almost got stuck) and just great scenery! I loved this drive.
Our Pilot is starting to turn red!
We came upon this sand wash with green foliage everywhere. I turned right to drive in the sand wash and realized in about 1 second tthat this was not a good idea. The wash was really narrow about 1.5 times the width of the car and super soft. I drove for about 10 seconds while keeping the speed as fast as possible (~10mph, it was that soft) with the hubs locked. I drove up an embankment and spun the beast around, garnered some desert pinstripes along the body, and got out without getting stuck! Of course, right afterwards my boy is saying "Do it again! That was fun!"
Ahh. Pavement. This is the highway cutting through Comb Ridge. You are not allowed to stop through here to take pictures or allowed to walk through; it's that narrow. I snapped this shot while driving through.
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| boyfester |
We stopped at Butler Wash Ruins and hiked up this short trail to the ruins. It was already getting pretty hot and my boy was wearing a nice black shirt. I almost had to pull teeth to get him to smile in this pic. He was complaining about the heat and having to hike all of 1 mile. The joys of parenthood. He perked up when we decided to eat some prickly pear cactus (see below).
Me at the ruins overlook. Our clean look is the sun shower at work. We bungee corded it to the roof rack and showered next to the car while standing on a plastic bin cover (don't want muddy feet!).
We read in the trail guide that prickly pear cactus is edible so we tried it. I cut off a slice and pulled the thorns out with leatherman pliers and the boy and I dug in. We felt like that guy on Man vs Wild!
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| boyfester |
On the way to Newspaper Rock in Utah. We drove by this rock called Church Rock off of Hwy 191.
This was incredible! Newspaper Rock is off of Hwy 211.
 
We continued on to Moab along the 191. We turned right onto Hwy 128 which was parallel to the Colorado River. On the other side of this rock face is Arches National Park. We came through here last year on our road trip to Arches and actually camped here at Goose Island campground and my kids saw bats at night for the first time.
 
I tried to stitch the two photos above together to show how this rock face wrapped around but as the photos were taken from inside my car while driving they didn't match up well. Nonetheless, you can see how the face wraps and it is HUGE!
I think this is Big Bend (along the Colorado River).
This is Fisher Towers. It was a pretty rocky road to get here but was worth it. It was about 110 degF here.
I stitched this photo together from three different photos so you can see the grand landscape. Had to get the Pilot in the photo as well.
Our last picture in Utah. The old Dewey Bridge over the Colorado River.
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| boyfester |
Our last pictures before we arrived in Denver for one week.
  
I will post the 4 days worth of return pictures later when we went through CO, NM, AZ, and finally home in CA. |
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| boyfester |
DAY 5, 6, & 7 - Steamboat Springs, CO
My wife and I hooked up in Denver (she and our daughter flew while my son and I drove - don't ask). We drove 4 hours to Steamboat Springs while the her parents watched the kids. That's right. A vacation within a vacation.
Anyway, here are pictures from one of our hikes.
   
I had to do some rock climbing to snap this one. That's Steamboat in the background.
We stopped in Silver Plume, CO on the way back to Denver to get some fresh baked cinnamon raisin/apricot bread. Yum!
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| boyfester |
RETURN HOME - DAY 1 - CO
We drove south through Colorado Springs and then went to the Great Sand Dunes Park. I stitched this photo of the dunes.
Near our campsite there was a primitive road. Here is a photo before we encountered another super soft sand section.
We hit the sand section and the Pilot's low travel hit the sand and almost stopped the car. We traveled at a speed just faster than walking speed and miraculously didn't stop. I was freaking out! We stopped at this hard packed area as this was the only area even remotely large enough to allow us to turn around. That's right, this road was not a loop. I didn't know if more soft sand was ahead but I didn't want to find out.
This is a picture of us turning around. Pretty snug.
 
This is a picture to show you that just past these little shrubs are the sand dunes. There was no room anywhere. After a 17 point turn we turned the Pilot around.
We had to got through the soft sand section again but as before we barely made it. |
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| boyfester |
DAY 2 - CO & NM
We woke up early and hiked to the top of the sand dunes. It was really beautiful as I didn't know that more dunes were behind the front ones. It is misleading because you don't see the rest unless you climb to the very top. It took us about an hour exactly to climb to the top. This photo is just the beginning; not the top of the dunes.
My son is looking at two other people on the dune. If you look closely you can see them.
This white sand actually was hard and crusty. It paid off to walk on it since your feet didn't sink in too deeply on this.
What the dunes are all about! This was fun! This is Sam launching off one of the razorbacks.
 
Sam continuing on with his creative headdress.
 
Same photo as above but zoomed out.
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| boyfester |
Sam at the top.
Both of us. I was glad I carried my tripod in my camelback. 
This is a magnet that I brought along. We read at the visitor center the day before that there was magnetite in the sand and so we took a close-up of the crystals stuck all over the magnet. Again, one of my favorite pictures from the trip. Bummer thing though was realizing at the bottom that I left the magnet up there.
Another view from the top.
Sand angels on the way down.
Sam playing in the water at the bottom of the dunes.  |
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| boyfester |
Our next stop was near Mosca, CO where we visited the Colorado Gator Farm (as seen on the Travel Channel). This is Sam and I holding Gus.
These were only the medium sized gators.
A diamondback checking me out in the zoo portion of the farm. They had lots of former pets that were rejected by parents or by kids who were afraid to raise them.
 
This sign pretty much covers the details for the farm.
It was funny because one of the teenagers in this picture started complaining about the heat and one of the farmhands said "Hey! Read the sign!" Of course, if you look at these brilliant kids, they're all wearing sweaters and jeans in 90 degree heat. They're the future of America, Baby. Scary!
Never have seen a real gator before, my son thought this was a dummy alligator. Even when it moved, very slowly, he thought it might be a robot. I assured him that if he jumped over the puny chainlink fence he would find out really quick if it was a robot or not.
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| boyfester |
Continuing our journey we headed to Taos, NM and crossed over the Rio Grande Gorge bridge. This was awesome! It was almost as high as the Canon City bridge and it was free of charge.
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| boyfester |
DAY 3 - NM & AZ
We camped north of Grants, NM near Mt. Taylor. The next morning we headed to the ice caves and Baldera Crater south of Grants. 
Here is the ice cave. The temperature in the area was about 80 degF but down here it was a constant 31 degF year round. The green color is moss frozen in the ice.
  
I turned around and snapped a picture of the mouth of the caverns with a jet's jet stream streaking across.
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| boyfester |
This is a tree that was uprooted when the Baldera Crater (volcano) erupted. Apparently, with all the lava around, trees' root systems are very short in length and the trees usually fall over and die. These roots looked like something from an old Danzig album I used to own in college.
Baldera Crater. We actually had to hike to this spot. Sorry, no Pilot picture in this one. My wife will be happy.
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| boyfester |
We continued on to Meteor Crater near Winslow, AZ.
Here's Sam looking down at the bottom of the crater. To the left is a major storm brewing in Flagstaff. We passed through this with tons of rain and lightning. It was sweet!
Our last campsite was in the Grand Canyon. In Peach Springs, AZ (off Route 66), you pay $20 and can drive on an old indian road that goes to the bottom of the Grand Canyon. It is a spectacular 20 mile dirt road, often times rocky, but very scenic.
  
This was our campsite at the bottom. This is the place that many rafting companies "put in" and, in fact, they left their rafts tied off. It was so hot down here. It was 7pm and the temperature was 117 degF. We kept going in the water to cool off.
 
It was so incredibly hot that we ended up leaving the spot at midnight cause neither of us could sleep. We drove out with the temp at a terribly hot 115 degF. We drove until the temperature dropped to around 80 degrees which ended up being California and pulled over in between some truckers and crashed. |
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| boyfester |
DAY 4 - CA
This is our last picture from our epic trip. As we slept on the side of the freeway, we didn't have a chance to enjoy our sun shower or change our clothes from Day 3. Mmmm.
Hope you enjoyed the photos! |
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| Kreez |
What a great adventure, thanks for sharing.
Reminds me of my Vegas trip. |
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| grounded |
Hey, nice trip. Kool. I like Arizona too (will retire there in a few). I'm from Massachusettsand saw the HD sticker on your back window. I own a Low Rider-FXDL and a Pilot too. I'm wondering if 4-wheel drive might have helped you in the soft sand. In the snow it works OK, but only up to 18 mph. Owning a Pilot and an HD is a rare mix, because most HD owners ride Chevy, Ford, Dodge.
Good luck, the family will have great memories. "grounded". |
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| boyfester |
quote:
Originally posted by grounded
Hey, nice trip. Kool. I like Arizona too (will retire there in a few). I'm from Massachusettsand saw the HD sticker on your back window. I own a Low Rider-FXDL and a Pilot too. I'm wondering if 4-wheel drive might have helped you in the soft sand. In the snow it works OK, but only up to 18 mph. Owning a Pilot and an HD is a rare mix, because most HD owners ride Chevy, Ford, Dodge.
Good luck, the family will have great memories. "grounded".
I think you have me mistaken with someone else. I do not have an HD sticker in my back window nor am I lucky enough to own one. Thanks for the comments on the trip though. |
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| GreenMachine |
quote:
Originally posted by boyfester
DAY 4 - CA
Hope you enjoyed the photos!
Those pictures were great!! I have never been to that part of the country. Now I know a little of what I have to look forward to whenever I get the chance for a visit.
What are your plans for your next big trip, maybe you could do the same trip only in winter?? :D |
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| Sportymonk |
I see where he made the assumption. Look at the second picture of you entering Arizona, The vehicle in front of you has a HD sticker.
quote:
Originally posted by boyfester
I think you have me mistaken with someone else. I do not have an HD sticker in my back window nor am I lucky enough to own one. Thanks for the comments on the trip though.
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| boyfester |
quote:
Originally posted by GreenMachine
Those pictures were great!! I have never been to that part of the country. Now I know a little of what I have to look forward to whenever I get the chance for a visit.
What are your plans for your next big trip, maybe you could do the same trip only in winter?? :D
Actually in two weeks during Labor Day. Heading to Escalante, Utah for a 7 day jaunt but this time with my crazy-haired 5 year old daughter too. Still can't get my wife to come along. She's not a big road trip person. |
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| boyfester |
quote:
Originally posted by Sportymonk
I see where he made the assumption. Look at the second picture of you entering Arizona, The vehicle in front of you has a HD sticker.
Furthermore, the guy in front of me is driving a Jeep Cherokee not a Pilot. I guess his theory still holds true that not many Honda car owners have HDs. |
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