Trip Report-Part 1

I thought that I would get a few posts up while on the road.  However, after spending 7 or 8 hours riding in the pickup, I was just not up to trying to edit photos at the end of the day  We are home, tired, but pretty happy with the trip.  We would have liked to have spent more time with hubby’s sister, niece, and my internet friend Danni from Silo Hill Farms.  We did get to see all the sights that we planned to see.  My hubby found the location of his childhood home in Arkansas, which was a big point of the trip for him.

The air conditioning went out in the pickup on the first day so we had to pretend that it was back when we got married so we would not have had air conditioning.  It was in the high 90’s and low l00’s through all of the south, so the first week was a bit uncomfortable.  After we turned north there were temps as low as 37 degrees so we were much more comfortable.

Here is a picture of our route drawn out on a map of the US.

The route is outlined in green.  It was roughly a big circle and covered approximately 5,000 miles.  There was a bit of a change at the bottom when we decided to go to Carlsbad Caverns.

We belong to AAA so had them help us lay out the route.  They provided a book with step-by-step directions called a Trip Tik.

The maps indicate rest stops and advise of construction and possible traffic congestion.  Although we used our GPS (whom we call Rachel), the Trip Tik was very helpful to have with us.   AAA also provided tour books, booklets on the national parks, and maps.  If you belong to AAA and are planning a trip, remember to take advantage of all these.  They are a no-charge part of the membership.

On Saturday, May 19, we drove to Salt Lake City and spent the night.  On Sunday, we drove to Zion National Park, went through Zion Canyon and drove through the park to the south entrance.

I don’t want to be like someone’s boring uncle who brings all his  vacation photos and makes you look at them so I am going to share just a few.

The first two are of Zion.

The next two are at the north rim of the Grand Canyon.  One is to show the width there and the second one is to show the depth. 

This second one was taken looking down from the trail along the canyon rim.  If you look at the foreground, that is the top of the near wall of the canyon.  I will readily admit that I felt very unprotected there and my husband had to take many of the pictures.

Here are two views of the south rim of the Grand Canyon.  These were all taken from the shuttle bus that takes you to 9 different viewpoints of the canyon.

Note, in the middle of the bottom photo, the path that animals who live in the canyon have made across the bottom of the canyon.

I will have a couple more reports of the trip, but will be back to posting recipes tomorrow.