Texas - Part Two - Yup... still hot as heck!

We headed up the highway from Austin to Arlington for Six Flags Over Texas. The first park in the Six Flags "collection". We we're excited but were also dreading the heat and sticky mess the day would leave us in.

This is gonna be AMAZING!! Six Flags Over Texas, Arlington, Texas, USA

Arlington is a funny little spot nestled between Fort Worth and Dallas, where it houses a large overflow of stadiums and industrial parks that continue to grow and expand in Texas. Space isn't exactly at a premium here, where you can just build out instead of building up. Arlington is home to AT&T stadium, home of the NFL team, the Dallas Cowboys (boooo) and Globe Life Park, home of the baseball team, the Texas Rangers. It also is home to the American Chapter of MENSA, a large GM assembly plant and the International Bowling Campus (which I didn't even know was a thing...) This includes the American Bowling Congress (wait... what??), the International Bowling Museum and the International Bowling Hall of Fame... yes seriously. There. You learned something today. Well done.

Texas - Toasty ... Far too toasty

Taking the not-so-main highway through New Mexico, en route to Texas, was fairly rough. Like really bumpy. There was literally a line in the road when we crossed over into Texas and the road was instantly 1000 times better. So there's that...

The landscape through New Mexico and Texas was dotted with snake-like pipelines, refineries spurting their ever glowing flames, giant trucks taking oil to where ever, sad looking cows and dust. Lots of dust. The silhouette of the forever churning oil wells against the perfect blue sky just kept going until the horizon eventually gave way to the curvature of the earth and even then... the flat land kept going. I'm sure of it. It's everything I dreamed this part of the country could be. It was also really freaking hot! Which you'll find is a reoccurring theme from most of our trip, but Texas takes the cake. The 110°+ temperatures mixed with high humidity made things fairly miserable. It was so hot that the median on the interstate spontaneously burst into flames! I'm serious! Here's a picture!

Spontaneous fire in the median on the Interstate in Texas...

Carlsbad Caverns - What a "Batty" place!

**SIDE NOTE TO START: Well hello again!! Now that we're back in Seattle and our trip is done (sadface) I'll have time to sit down and write. My goal is to pop out a blog post every other day. No promises... but I'll add extra pictures because I love you and you're all awesome! Enjoy!!**

After sweating our butts off in the Wal-Mart parking lot in Carlsbad, New Mexico, we woke up early and raced out to Carlsbad Caverns National Park before the Visitors Center opened. This National Park works a bit differently as it's really just the caves. There aren't many trails above ground to hike on and really... I'm not sure you'd want to. The environment is hostile with malicious looking cacti and terrain littered with steep drops, cracks in the earth and loose, dry soil and rocks giving way at any moment make the way perilous. Throw poisonous snakes, scorpions and tarantulas into the mix and I think I'm good on the not walking around part!

Entrance to Carlsbad Caverns National Park, White City, New Mexico, US

Canyonlands and Colorado

After our time in Arches National Park, we were ready for something new. Utah has been good to us and we didn't get to see everything but it's time to move on. Our goal for the day was to make it to Cortez, Colorado. A whole new state! But before crossing the state-line we needed to check out one last National Park, Canyonlands.

Canyonlands is not the most accessible National Park and it will probably be kept that way. Many roads in the park are unpaved and there are next to no services inside the park. If you're into backcountry hiking and camping, this is the National Park for you. The park itself is split into 4 districts that are not connected: Island in the Sky, the Needles, the Maze and the rivers, Green and Colorado. We chose to check out the Needles portion.

Chillin in chilly AC of the van. Canyonlands National Park, Utah

Days of Dramatic Views - Steep roads, far off horizons and Arches National Park

After a good nights sleep we took the time to see Natural Bridges National Monument. A stop first at the Visitors Center was fairly amusing as some European tourists were begging the Park Rangers for a few gallons of gas as they thought there would be a gas station in a non-existent town... who does that?   *cough* us *cough*   The Ranger was very kind and offered them a gallon at no charge but then they proceeded to tell him they wanted to do the 9 mile loop and take their time before heading to a gas station. He didn't like that. They got no gas.

Natural Bridges National Monument, Utah. Can you spot the Natural Bridge?

Capitol Reef - The most delicious National Park

The road from Escalante, Scenic Byway 12, goes through Boulder and continues on to Capitol Reef National Park. There was rain. A lot of rain. Like... a ton of rain. We even had to stop a few times as the windshield wipers couldn't handle and I just couldn't see anything going around hairpin turns down a mountain. Good times.

A cow on the Open Range between Boulder and Torrey, Utah as the rain comes down. A lot of rain.

You might think Capitol Reef is an odd name for a landlocked National Park, and you'd be right!! But the Capitol part of the name refers to the white Navajo Sandstone domes that (with some imagination) look like the domes often placed on "capitol" buildings and the Reef part of the name is a local word to describe any rocky barrier to land travel, like cliffs or canyons, just as coral reefs are barriers to ships on the sea. Capitol Reef was established as a National Monument in 1937 but didn't open to the public till 1950 with roads coming in the 60s. In 1971 it was designated a National Park. It protects the area's colorful canyons, buttes, cliffs and monoliths. It's crowning jewel is the Waterpocket Fold, a weird warp in the earths crust that has been dated as old as 65 million years. This fold is the largest of it's kind in North America and shows dozens of layers of earth stacked on top of each other in the most beautiful and colorful fashion. The Waterpocket Fold runs North to South for over 100 miles and has few roads that have managed to cross it.

LOOK WHAT I FOUND!!! ALL DRESSED CHIPS!!! In Utah!!!
Seriously. So excited.
Chuck Wagon General Store, Torrey, Utah

Escalante - The Grand Staircase

Escalante, Utah is one of those quirky little towns you hope to find on a road trip. The cheesy themed motels and hole in the wall restaurants surrounded by bizarre landscapes and insane roads make it the perfect place to relax and explore for a few days.

Delicious! HO-MADE Pies.... yup. Oh Utah.

Zion - Part Two: The Narrows

It was recommended to us by several friends to take trekking poles or a walking stick with us on our hike up The Narrows. We’re both REALLY glad we listened.

Hikes in just about every National Park are listed as the following: Easy, which are usually paved or well maintained and short with little to no elevation gain; Moderate, which are not for people with severe health problems and are generally more difficult with rougher paths and trails; and Strenuous, which can be very long, with little to no actual mapped out trail, large elevation gain or difficult and dangerous terrain.

The Narrows is listed as Strenuous.

Geoff, ready to take on The Narrows in Zion National Park, Utah

Zion - Part One: National Parks and Ghost Towns

We left Seattle on the second part of our trip after spending a few days at home. We drove straight through, for about 24 hours, passing through Eastern Washington, Oregon, Idaho and most of Utah before reaching Zion National Park. We went through rain squalls, bug attacks, high winds, soft sunrises and scorching hot sun to get there. We passed many places we'll be adding to our list of future exploration needed. Our list seems to keep getting larger and larger, even as we tick so many boxes off of it. Ah, the life of the perpetual traveler... 

Eastern Washington looking lovely. En route to Utah

Love the four to eight watch on ships for the sunrise. It was beautiful on the interstate as well. Somewhere in Northern Utah.

Death Valley - So Weird. So Hot. So Very Very Hot.

We woke up to a nice breeze on the shores of Lake Isabella. The sun was bright and the boats were just starting to dart around the lake, disturbing the crystal clear reflection of the dry, grassy hills surrounding us. Geoff ate pizza. It was great.

Geoff enjoying pizza for breakfast at Lake Isabella, CA

I watched him chomp down on the Costco pizza we got the night before ever so adoringly as I remembered it was our anniversary. It made me smile. What a weird place for us to be celebrating our years together. And yet it was perfectly fitting. Completely out of the ordinary and definitely outside the box. An adventure. I love our adventures. I love that we enjoy doing the same sorts of things and better yet - enjoy doing them together. We're pretty lucky. We might not live flashy, or come close to making six figures a year but we have each other and that's pretty damn amazing if you ask me.

After a breakfast of pizza we got organized and headed to our destination for the day: Death Valley National Park.