Monday, October 12, 2009

Road trip! With photos!

Well. The trip was amazing. And yet I'm glad to be back. It was the right length of time.

Everything went great. Apparently it's been very cold and rainy/snowy in Denver over the past week, so we picked the right time to go. Everywhere we went, the weather was amazing. It was the perfect time to be in a convertible. Traveling with the dog wasn't difficult at all; everywhere we went was stunningly beautiful; we were able to relax and just enjoy being together. It was lovely.

I won't even attempt any sort of play-by-play, since we did so much. I'll just give some highlights. But before I get into that, a general description of the route we took:
  • South to Santa Fe for a weekend
  • West to Arizona to see the Grand Canyon and other sights and visit my aunt and uncle in Prescott (in the northern mountains)
  • North to Moab, Utah
  • East back to Denver
So, there you have it. And you can see photos of everything we saw in the full set here (this time I even added descriptions). And of course I've included a few of my favorite photos in this post.

So, onto the highlights!

Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona was nothing like I was expecting, but it was absolutely beautiful. Specifically, I loved the Painted Desert. So gorgeous.



New Mexico was beautiful, and we liked Santa Fe. But we were struck by the huge contrast between the obvious poverty surrounding cities like Santa Fe and Taos and the cities themselves that cater solely to better-off tourists. Of course, we fell into that second group so we were only exacerbating the problem. But it was very striking. And we found Taos to be incredibly tacky, despite hearing raves about the town from friends.



The Grand Canyon was spectacular. I've seen it before, but I guess I didn't remember it that well because again, it was nothing like I was expecting. It was beautiful and at times you could see the Colorado River at the bottom, but it didn't look quite like my mental image of a canyon. It was a lot more... three-dimensional, I guess. But amazing.


It's so nice to have family in the west. The three days we spent with them were super relaxing, and we went on several nice hikes while we were there. Plus, they had a dog for Montana to play with, and they live near Sedona, which is beautiful but sufficient to see in a day, as far as we were concerned.



We absolutely adored Arches National Park in Utah. At first we didn't see any arches and we thought we'd gone crazy, but then we started noticing them. And once you started seeing them you saw them everywhere. Though I'm still a little disappointed that we didn't see any of the two-inch arches that the brochure said you could find in the park. And also, dogs weren't allowed on any of the trails, which was really too bad. Although it was good we had a convertible, because we could leave Montana in the car with the top down while we hiked.



The west, especially the southwest, is gorgeous. I'm so glad we live here. Maybe on our next road trip we'll check out the more northwestern states like Montana and South Dakota. I can't wait.

21 comments:

  1. I love the pictures! It's so cute how Torsten leans his head over toward you in pictures. That silly pup of yours always looks like she sees something really cool...to the right. ha ha

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  2. I was going to say the same thing as Jessica. So cute that you guys have your "picture pose" down pat! Glad it was fun.

    - Mon

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  3. The photos are amazing, and you're looking great!!!

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  4. It looks like you had an awesome time! The pictures are goregous, especially the last one of the two of you. Frame-worthy for sure!

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  5. Isn't the southwest so beautiful? I'm glad you had a great vacation!

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  6. Looks like a fabulous getaway! And yes, you picked the right week to do it!

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  7. Welcome home! Looks like a great trip!

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  8. Beautiful pictures! I'm glad you guys had such a great time.

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  9. Sounds like a great getaway! I have family in Arizona, and Prescott and Sedona are amazing! Do they still have the McDonalds in Sedona with the teal arches? :)

    Love the pictures!

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  10. I love red rock country. So glad you had a good time!

    xox

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  11. It looks and sounds like you had a great time! I really want to go out west now that I've seen your beautiful pictures!

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  12. Welcome back and awesome photos. Too funny you saw Taos as tacky. There is definitely a tacky area. I thought the same about Santa Fe, actually.

    I also caught the whole dual-citizenship sense with the income disparity. It made me a little embarrassed.

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  13. Such gorgeous pictures! Even better with Montana in them with you.

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  14. I don't know if you've already picked your holiday photo or not, but that second to last one, with you and the purple top? Gorgeous. Seriously. Wow.

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  15. As a TRUE Northwesterner, I would object to you call South Dakota a NW state. ;)

    But I love the idea of you spending time in the NW...come see me in Portland, OR. You'd love Oregon!

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  16. Oooh it looks amazing! You are so lucky to live near all these gorgeous places!

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  17. Yay, it looks so pretty! I'm glad you had such a good time.

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  18. OMG it looks so beautiful! Really glad you had a nice time with the whole crew.

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  19. Looks like you had a great time. We absolutely loved Arches National Park too.

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  20. Your photos are stunning. I'm always in awe of the stark contrast between the colors of the southwest and those of, say, the northeast! Though, I must say, you are so much more trusting of your dog (to stay put in a convertible!) and other people (not to take her!) than we are ... there's no way we'd leave SoMi in a car for more than 10-15 minutes. So urban skeptical of us, no!?

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