Travel Tales 2014: Part 2 Travel Tales 2014: Part 3
2014 was a big travel year for us. We had our Fall Migration trip, a mission trip to Alaska, stop-off in Dubuque, and our Spring Migration trip. I’ll do each of these trips in a separate “part.” Here begins Part 1:
In 2014, we left just after Tax Day. The saguaros were beginning to bloom and it was starting to warm up. We took off in our 2008 Navion M with our kitty Eddie, heading northwest from Tucson.
Our first stop was just outside of Casa Grande National Monument. They keep the Casa covered with this structure to prevent excess weathering from the tortuous desert sun. There’s a museum with artifacts from the native people, too.
On 4/25, we arrived in Las Vegas, where we were to stay for 6 nights. The 26th, we explored Las Vegas. We’re not big gamblers, so “exploring” means to visit the pretty flowers, art, and artifacts.
Hoover Dam, the Nevada State Museum, more Stratosphere (we went back!), Red Rock Canyon NRA and the Springs Preserve were highlights of our next few days.
On May 1, 2014, we left Las Vegas and drove to a camp just outside of Zion NP. We spent just a couple of days there. We must return!
On May 3, we drove to Moab.
May 4, we took off in the car to visit Arches NP.
The following day, we stopped in at the Visitor’s Center to see what we might have been missing. Lots! We picked up a couple of brochures of self-guided driving tours around the area. In these, we found a map of awesome petroglyph sites as well as some arch hikes that nobody else knew about. We were so happy to have our nimble little car!
Just out driving, we saw this sign for Jug Handle Arch. Cool!
As we continued driving around, we came across the iconic Moab Man petroglyph site. It’s pretty well hidden, but we did find it.
On 5/6, we were were at Canyonlands. The skies were iffy all day, but we saw a butte, advertising ruins at the top. So on we went. As we climbed, it got windier and windier. At several points, I stopped, sat down, and hung onto a tree; I was sure I’d be blown off of the butte.
Then we found a ranch that had pictographs. These are more like paintings. The rancher took us around and showed us the place. I got just a few pics of the pictographs, because there were not many, but I got a few other pics as well.
And here are some more photos which are not in order. We all have that shoebox, don’t we?
The picture of us in traffic is the great view we had all through the Rockies on I-70 through Colorado. There had been some awful accident and traffic was very slow.
But we did make it home to Indiana, back to our new condo and a series of exciting adventures. One of our exciting adventures was finding out that some of our church friends in Indiana were going on a mission trip to Alaska. I looked at Jack and he looked at me….