The Adventure Continues! And the sweet coincidences of a good road trip

Greetings from Grand Junction, Colorado!

Thus far, this fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants roadtrip is turning out even better than I had planned! Let me back up to my reunion with Maria in Flagstaff...

Although she is down to the punch line with finishing her thesis and defending on Nov. 13th, she graciously invited me out for the weekend. I hadn't seen her in 3 years, and she was one of my best friends in Colorado when I moved out there right after college in 2003. Our lives almost crossed path many times - from trying to get in with the same professor for grad school at Montana State, to me being offered a last minute grad research position (that I obviously didn't accept) that would have landed me in the same office as her at Northern Arizona - but it was now or never if I wanted to visit her in the city I almost called home.

After a 12-13 hr drive from Lyons, I rolled into Flagstaff on Friday afternoon and it was like no time had passed between us. That's the sign of good friends. :) We spent the evening strolling through downtown and around campus, catching up on everything and enjoying the warm, moonlit evening. Flagstaff is beautiful, and the campus reminded me more of the University of Michigan than even Boulder does. I would have loved living there; but it's a good thing I didn't take the offer because the advisor is overloading the poor student she picked and she's having a stressful, terrible time. It was also the Day of the Dead (Día de los Muertos) and downtown was having an Art Festival Open House - so we ate dinner for free, feasting off the goodies and enjoying the display at local art shops.

The next morning, she took me down to Sedona for a hike in the Coconino National Forest. There had been a fire there earlier this year and a few trails were closed due to flash flooding/rock slides, but we did a nice little hike in the Red Rocks district (don't remember the trail name) and I decided that I need to convince my dad to move out there - warm in the winter, but still has deciduous trees that are beautiful in the fall and just beautiful country.

After we stopped and bought Apple Cider and Maria bought a turquoise ring (it's all the craze out there, since it's abundant and important to the local indian tribes), we went back and took a nap. Isn't that great?? We haven't seen eachother in years and we took a nap. ;) But we needed it. That night we went out and at Karma Sushi - good place - and went to bed early again so we could be ready to head to the Grand Canyon on Sunday.

The Grand Canyon = just as breathtaking as you can imagine. We just stayed on the South Rim Trail (as opposed to hiking down to the river) so I could see as much of the park as possibe. I think we probably hiked about 9 miles (flat and easy) and watched a beautiful sun set and a full moon rise simultaniously over the Canyon.

Monday, Maria had to get back to reality and I needed to be on my way. She'll hopefully be moving back to CO in the next few months and we'll hang out again. :)

From Flagstaff I drove 6 hours to Moab, Utah where I knew I would have free camping on the river. I decided to watch some football and have a quick bite to eat at the Moab Brewery. As I'm sitting there, sipping my beer by myself, I glanced over to the door and in walks a very tall guy and a short girl... It took me a second to register that I KNOW THESE PEOPLE... I work with these people... They look at me with the same sort of astonished "I should know you but you're out of place" expression and say, "Lisa!" I say, "Oh my gosh!" It was Travis, a maintenance worker on the west side of the Park, and Tina his girlfriend, who worked the gate on the west side. What a totally random and pleasant coincidence.

We sat down and caught up; their season ended about a week ago and were on a 2 month road trip before she heads off to grad school in Texas. They invited me to camp and hike with them the next couple days, which I was thrilled to hear. The Colorado River had flooded a few weeks previous, so the road to our free camping area was an absolute mess and only those with good 4x4 and who knew the way around the deep ruts in the road could get back there; needless to say, we had that whole area to ourselves for the whole time. We had a bonfire, drank boxed wine, and watched the nearly-full moon come up over the canyon walls and illuminate the river. I love that camping spot!

Tuesday we went to Arches National Park and got a pass to hike in the "Fiery Furnace" - a maze of rock pillars and arches, with fragile "cryptobiotic crust" that we aren't supposed to walk on ("What we're following is NOT A TRAIL" - a favorite saying as we followed some well worn cryptobiotic crust, which you're not supposed to do but it's impossible in some spots) - and we clambored through "Crawl-Through Arch", squeeze between tight slot canyons, scrambled steep rock jumbles and sat on top of large rock bridges. Travis knew the area well, so he showed me neat rock formations and areas that I would have probably never found by myself... or at least gotten severely lost in the process. ;)

Wednesday, Travis used his knowledge as a winter local to find us this "No Name Canyon" that supposedly only locals are familiar with. We went through a gap in this fence and bushwhacked our way through the jumble of trees, shrubs, rock washes and debris that had been jarred around by the same flooding that gave us our solitude at our campsite. It was wet, humid and relatively lush at the bottom of this canyon, and at the end we reach this deep pool underneath a tall rock face that spouts a temporary waterfall when it rains enough; it was dry now but was probably a sight to see when it was flowing. We even brought Travis' dog Chewy and she climbed up the slickrock with us like a pro. We kept going from one canyon into another, alternately travelling on the striated sandstone slick rock, and walking along the sandy washes in the bottom. I'm so lucky I ran into those guys, because I would never have seen this "hidden treasure"!

In the meantime, Tim had invited me to come out to the National Monument in Grand Junction, Colorado for a few nights for some hiking and off-roading. Met up with him and the trails guys at a sushi place last night and today, I went to town for an oil change and some online errands while he is finishing his last day of work here. For most of his crew, it's the last day of the season. When he gets back to CO, he is going to start "Blaster Training" - training to blow rocks and crap up with explosives for trail work. I'm mildly envious. ;)

Now, I will just post a link to my pictures so far (click on "Epic Road Trip" - no captions yet, maybe in a few days), pack this computer up and head back through the busy town of Grand Junction up to this little pocket of rock arches and canyons - Colorado National Monument. It's awesome that this little park is a neat little contained area of geologic wonder, all the while looking down on busy cities.

I'll be here until Saturday probably... then, off to Glacier National Park in Montana, most likely!!

Wish me luck! ;)

The latest puppy picture:

 

ps: Tara if you really wanna meet me somewhere, we'd just split gas money and stay in hostels... Just say where and when! ;)