Awesome Vacation

I know I haven't written much, which is the sign of a good vacation, right? I just updated my itinerary (to the left). The Grand Canyon took a long time to get to. I nearly ran out of gas in the middle of the Navajo Reservation. But it was a great day for hiking it, a high temp. of only 84 degrees (instead of 101). I didn't have such good luck at Arches -- the temperature there was 102 when I visited and so I didn't do any hiking, besides a little 0.3 mile walk at Sand Arch. I went to Dead Horse Point State Park in the evening when temperatures had cooled down some and that was much better. I recommend the evening for that site since the sun is behind the scrub brush and casting some shadows and shade for you to walk in and it's at your back as you photograph the canyon. That place was amazing! The campground I stayed at was almost completely empty and I had a nice time. No bears there. The only hazard is the soft red sand blowing into your tent at every opportunity.

Today I leave Moab, which became my "home away from home." I hear a lot of people get sucked in to the black hole here (they arrive and never leave) but I am going to muster my resolve and head back East. My plan is to drop down to Interstate 40 so that I can drive through a new batch of states and my girls will have new states to color in on their map when they get their postcards. I thought briefly about trying to spend a lot of time driving to periphery states just to send the postcards so they could color in more on their map -- and it would have been cool to hit California -- but Arches and the Grand were my two must see spots and I wanted to relax and enjoy my trip instead of making it a list of bullet points. I also was close to Wyoming but didn't go over the border. The children are really enjoying the postcards and coloring their map and I'm glad I came up with that idea. It forces me to get to see a little of the local culture, too, which is a nice change from the "90 mile an hour road trip down the interstate" mentality.

I've really enjoyed being in Moab and I'm going to be sad to leave.