Another full day at the South Rim of the grand Grand Canyon. We did the Hermit Rest trail, other side of the Rim Trail. We parked again at visitor parking intending to take the blue shuttle which connect with the red shuttle = the Hermit Rest.We noticed there was after all another parking at the connection of the red and blue shuttle. Took us a while to find a spot over there.

We started our walk at the Bright angel Trailhead to Maricopa Point to Powell Point to Hopi Point. Total of 3.2 km. The Rim Trail is in total 20.6km.

This part of the Rim Trail was more “rim” than yesterday and more challenging for some of our group. But again we were awarded with a constant immensely view of the Grand Canyon. Way to difficult to choose my pictures ….🙉

Lunch in Hopi Point with view over the Grand Canyon in the sun as there was still a chilly wind

We took the Blue shuttle to go to the end ie Hermit Rest. And here we could buy a Haagen Dasz bar!

In the afternoon we walk down into the canyon , the Bright Angel Trail. Dany and Christine took the car and had in the meantime their coffee.

It is a complete different experience to walk down, between the canyons. We were told to be sure to reserve double the time to walk up as we were going down. The total walk is a drop of 1,500m!!! We met people who started this walk at 7am and were back around 4pm, very exhausted. They were young! I set my watch at 30 minutes walking down.

Sunset at the Grandview point, because we would not have been on time to watch it at the Lipan Point.

Dinner at a pizza place, pizza margarita or pizza hawaian.

As this was our last evening all together, we had a margarita at the bar to celebrate the succes of our trip (Sofar)

Today the first of two days to explore this immensely grand Grand canyon. It was my intention to start with a helicopter ride plus boat. But oh boy …. did I make a big boeboe🙈🙈 we should have gone to Grand Canyon West Rim and it would take us more than 3 hours from the South Rim, where we stay in Tusayan, the village next to Grand Canyon Village. Never old to learn ….

The Grand Canyon is 16km wide and to drive from one side to the other is apt a drive of 4-5 hours. It was my intention to do one day the South rim and one day the North rim, so this is again out of the question now.

Once you understand the shuttle system of the South Rim, you realize how easy this is. Today we did the orange shuttle, part of the total Rim Trail of 12 miles.

We parked at the visitor center and had our first good look if this massive Grand Canyon at the Mather Point

And we started our walk from Mather Point to Pike Creek Vista to South Kaibab point. Apr 3 miles

At South Kaibab Trailhead we took the orange shuttle to Yaki Point and then with the shuttle back to our car at the visitor center

Our lunch was at Starbucks. Where else …..

And then …and then …. 5 of us still took a 40 min helicopter tour. That was incredible!!!! A smooth and fantastic ride

We watched sunset at Yavapai Point

Dinner at a real steak house with real cowboys from Mexico

After the rest day, we had again a full fantastic WOW day.

First we did a 45min visit to the Glen Canyon Dam. Very interesting. This dam does produce electricity, but his main purpose is building water reserves.

At 11:00am we were ready for our Antilope Canyon tour. This was again the best of the best. You must see it for yourself.

After Antilope Canyon we did the Horseshoe Bend. A good 20 min walk in sand.

After a 3 1/2 hour drive, we arrived just in time for the sunset and had our first view on the Grand Canyon. Boy what a view!!!!

We couldn’t believe how lucky we were to experience and to watch so much beauty!!

I know, I know … sign of today says “monument valley” and basically we did it already yesterday evening and night.

We had sunrise and breakfast in Monument Valley. Around 8am we were back at the View hotel where we saw a full rested smiling Dany. Luckily he still had his room, so we could still take a good warm shower and by 11:00am we were again on the road.

Here still some more pictures from oh so beautiful Monument Valley, tribal park from the Navajos

Page is a city build around 1957 when the Glen Canyon Dam was build and Lake Powel was created. After a short visit at the Carl Hayden visitor center, we drove to Lake Powel recreational park and did in Wahweap national Park the Nature Trail. We truly needed an easy day and had a nap in the afternoon.

We had a Thai dinner

The day started with a beautiful sunrise from our Mesa Verde Lodge, the Far View

The drive going out Mesa Verde National Park was again fabulous; we never have enough watching the scenic roads.

We saw also our first buffaloes.

We did Four Corners Monument. This is the point here four states are bordering each other: Arizona, Utah, New Mexico and Colorado. This was already Navajo Reservation. Besides taking some pictures at this point, there is not much to do.

Dinner was at the Blue Coffee Pot. Two took the Navajo Mutten stew, two the beef ribs (oh boy such ribs ….)

The closer we came to Monument Vslley, the more impressive the scenic views were and they were already magnificent. But now we had again that WOW feeling.

We checked Dany in his hotel, the View Hotel, the only hotel at Monument Valley. This is not a national park, but a Navajo Tribal park.

The other 6 took the very special Hogan tour with sunset and sunrise, deep into Monument Valley. And I can tell you it was a very very very special experience!!!!!

There is a 18mile drive through the Tribsl park, which is already a rough non-paved road, but for the back roads you need for sure a 4wheel drive. But what views e we were exposed to!!!!

The Navajo taco dinner was very tasty!

Sleeping in the Hogan was something else …. a tarp on the sand floor and the guide gave us each a joya mat and a sleeping bag. And the restroom was a good walk, luckily it was almost full moon. No way we could sleep comfortable . I didn’t even sleep at all. The best was just walking somewhat outside, under an incredible sky, with a very protective dog. Here I saw the Milkway and Andromeda. I would not recommend this hogan experience to people my age anymore🙈

Sunrise was unfortunately not like expected; continental breakfast was good, but cold and windy

At 8:30am we were all ready to go on the road for another 3 1/2 hours to Mesa Verde National Park.

It was again a fantastic scenic drive. We also did the Wolf Creek Pass in the San Juan Mountains. We noticed it’s quite a ski area. Luckily still no snow … this part of US-160 has also 2 runaway truck ramps. Surprising there were tires tracks.

Also Indian Summer was magnificent to watch.

The coffee stop was in Durango, CO. José and Christine visited Durango in 2013 and took the steam train from Durango from Silverton.

After visitor center, we had to drive a 15-mile trail, with hairpins turn. Oh so beautiful!

We were just on time for our private tour at Mesa Verde National Park. Our guide Mark told us so many interesting stories that I’m afraid I forget half of it.

First story he told us is that it is a matriarch community. Meaning if the wife didn’t like the husband anymore, she puts his sandals outside the house (at the time only a room) and that he is not allowed anymore in her home.

Mesa Verde has know over the centuries climate change and many natural fires. In 2000 and 2002 there were huge fires, when 1 tree was struck by lighting and destroyed lots of acres. Over the years since Mesa Verde became a National Park in 1906 more than 70% of the park is burned. Many of the Piñón trees are gone and it takes 365 years before there is a forest again.

The Indians (Utes and Pueblo) did not had horses. They had turkeys and dogs as pets. We did see 2 wild horses, who were already together for 20 years.

The first dwellings we saw on Far View Sites were on top of the Mesa (plateau), dating between 750 and 1100 a.d. and they were build on top of each other. With the only tool they had ie a rock-hack they have been digging more than 200 dwellings and each dwelling was like 40 rooms and each room for 1 family. And you should see their doors! Even smaller than our windows. At that time people were smaller and skinnier.

Each dwelling had also 2-3 kiva’s; rounded rooms, where they assembled for religious ceremonies or during winter time to keep warm.

This is a pit house of a later date and they were digged less deep. It’s like the children didn’t want to work as hard as their parents …. Mark also explained us that the top of the kiva’s were tree trunks laying down like the bottom of a basket. Archeologists could easily determine the age of these dwellings based on the age of the tree rings and comparing it with the rings of the trees on top of the Mesa. A Piñón tree can become 500 to 1,000 year old and these trees do not rot, ideal for house building.

From 1100 to 1200 a.d. the people moved to the cliffs, most probably because there were springs in it. They just looked for alcoves in the cliffs, and then build the walls to form the rooms and towers (4 floors high) and kivas. Unbelievable they build all this and then everyday going up and down. You could still see some steps in the stones for climbing. They did go down for water or to clean their body as it was covered with soothing from the fire there was in each room. For us, tourist, was it already an experience to go down to the Cliff Palace and climbing up.

Dany and Arlette did the scenic drive on their own and also a view on Balcony House

Dinner was at the restaurant of the Far View Lodge where we stayed in Mesa Verde National Park.

Today we had to get our rithme back, being fully ready by 8:30am. Here we couldn’t prepare our picnic (meaning loading up from the breakfast buffet).

First a 3 1/2 hours drive over I-25. The ranger at the visitor park of the Great Sand Dunes National Park suggested to go up the High Dunes, as we were after all in the Great Sand Dunes! Sand from the desert is picked up, the sand is swelled by wind, but then by humidity dropped just in front of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and so dunes are formed. It is an awesome idea to find dunes between the mountains.

So we started to walk the High Dunes. But boy it is hard to walk in sand. Even Dany started the walk, with his sandals in hand. But the sand was on this day of October 14th still hot to walk on it for a while.

As we were not into sledding from the dunes, we did a 1 mile walk into the woods next to the dunes, the Monteville Nature trail. It was a nice climbing walk with a nice view over the dunes.

This is our 10th National Park on this trip, and we are all so impressed that each park has its own character and so different and each park is so awesome.

On our 1 hour drive to our hotel we stopped in the small town of Alamosa. Unbelievable it had a Starbucks, so Dany was so happy. It was a nice stop on the terrace with the sun and the good company😜

Now we are in Monte Vista, a typical American remote mountain town. Luckily our hotel has an indoor pool and we found a family Mexican restaurant, where the margaritas are bigger than we ever have seen and where the taco salad was a nice surprise.

This day was a total relaxing day, even my iPhone took a day off meaning my screen was frozen. Therefore I only could update my journal a day later.

For our “day off” Rita and I, we had scheduled an air balloon flight with sunset …. unfortunately Lyft (competition of Uber) couldn’t pick us up on time and therefore I had to wake up my darling husband. I felt so sorry for him. On top of it I gave him the wrong address. With a phone call and 15min late, we could take off. For me my first air balloon experience, for Rita her third. We were in the air for 1 hour and 15min; 5,703ft of the ground (1,740m); so we were in this basket 11,800ft above sea level; a distance of 4.8miles ; max speed was 12.2mph. I did not feel that max speed. We had the impression we were for 60 min hanging over the airport of Colorado Springs and once in a while we saw under us a plane landing or taking off. Pitty there was no wind.

The other 5 of our group could sleep in, take their time for breakfast and explore little bit Colorado Springs by footl. They walked in Memorial Park ( Vietnam war, Korean War, Battle of the Bulge,…) and explored the Old Historic Colorado town.

I did laundry in the afternoon, sleeping in the sun while the machines were doing the wash and dry.. Later on joined by Rita for our lunch and by the other ones, truly truly relaxing in the sun!

After some discussions and some phone calls we had dinner at Walter’s Bistro. I had Bison Bolognese, Rita had Walleye ( a sweet fantastic fish dish). Most importantly this restaurant had a table cloth!!!!! And vino😜

Everybody took a good breakfast, after our “healthy” dinner. It was still -3 Celsius (30F), therefore hats and gloves and Vaseline on our chapped lips,… Just a 30 min drive to Black Canyon National Park. And indeed the rocks are black and very steep and a narrow canyon.

Behind visitor center we could see Gunnison View Point. Oh boy, oh boy was the Gunnison river so deep down, like 2,000ft deep ….

In Black Canyon we drove the 7 mile South Rim scenic drive. It is truly driving on a rim. Lucky our driver drove very slow; he didn’t like so much that rim ….

Our first stop was Pulpit Rock overview.

Second stop at Painted Wall, the highest drop in Colorado.

Third stop along the South Rim drive was Cedar Point. There we saw many cedar trees in beautiful artistic forms.

End of the drive was High Point where we did the walk to Warner Point. This was an easy walk on the rim, with on the right Black Canyon and on the left the Vernal Mesa. We think that this was a dessert and many years ago the settlers drilled a tunnel to deviate the Gunnison river to this valley and now it’s farmers land.

This walk was also a lesson about the trees: Juniper, Piñón, etc … in 1996 a lighting striked the area and many trees were burned leaving now black forms behind.

And we had a lovely picnic there on High Point. José had adapted music (like El Condor Pasa) to enjoy the view, the apple and cookie and the company.

As we had a long drive, we left early. Dany decided to take the scenic roads, what a panoramic views we had along the road. Hwy 50

We also did the Monarch Pass and went to 11,312ft high.

Our coffee stop was in Gunnison at a real roasted coffee place.

We also saw from far away fires in the Colorado woods with helicopter

We finished the day with a good steak at the Longhorn.

Five of us had to get up early as four of us booked a 4×4 Jeep tour in the Arches National Park (driver Dany wasn’t so happy …).

We saw sunrise in the park. It was a fun deluxe bumpy fantastic trip and saw arches which are not on the scenic drive. Of the 2,200 arches in the park, we saw on our Jeep trip 12 arches and windows. (Tower arch – Lover arch – Anniversary – Parallel – Eye of whale – Windows North and South – Broken – Turret – Donut – Baby Arches)

The other three (Dany, Arlette and Daniel) did the scenic road (long line to enter the park) and walked to the North and South Window Arches and saw Delicate Arch and did Skyline Arch trail.

At 12pm we connected and we did again the Window arch trail.

Lunch was in Moab at a bakery (panini – quesadilla – slaatjes)

The afternoon trip to Monrose, Colorado was to Dany’s taste, wonderful. Although I slept, Dany and Jose told me it was a great trip. We also saw some snow between the trees, leftovers from the last 2-day ago snowstorm. The road was long winding, very scenic going

up to 2,780m elevation (8,300ft). We passed

LaSal – Bedrock – Naturita – Norwood – Placerville – Ridgway – Eldredge

Dinner was just some apples, oranges and cookies in the lounge of our hotel with long talks about pro’s and con’s of the USA. I will still go for a swim😜