Day 33/34...Riverton, WY/Rapid City, SD

We decided to head back to The Bunnery again for breakfast, this time for homemade granola...yum.  From there, we were ready for our 7.5 hour drive to Rapid City, SD.  Our route took us back through Grand Teton National Park, which was nice for more bison sightings, but left us with a fairly low speed limit and slow park traffic.  We finally made it out of the park only to hit crazy snow...in May...who knew?  It didn't take long to catch up with some traffic and we were stuck at a speed of less than 40 - at that rate it would take twice as long to get to Rapid City.  As we kept going, the weather just seemed to get worse...icy, snowy, rainy and foggy.  The roads were poorly plowed and the visibility just stunk.  After about 2.5 hours, we decided to call it a day in good old Riverton, WY.  The weather was so bad that the first hotel we tried was sold out for the night...on to the Rodeway Inn...free internet and free breakfast.  We checked in and Andy headed out to find beer and Dominos...so sad, but so true.  We spent the rest of the night watching television channels go in and out of service and hoped we would be able to finally move on the next morning.

Well, we got up today and decided we had to give it a try.  The weather wasn't too much better for the most part, but the roads were clearer and it was more rain than snow.  We had canceled our Rapid City room the night before, so we stopped in Casper, WY at their Starbuck's to take advantage of what we thought would be free wi-fi to re-book our room (very strange system they have, but we made it work.)  Finally, around 4:30, we pulled in to our LQ...oddly attached to an indoor water park, attached to another hotel...okay.  It smells like chlorine, but we got a free room upgrade to a king suite, so who can complain?  We used a gift card we had to enjoy almost-free Ruby Tuesday dinner and then hit up the local Carmike 10 theater for some Iron Man 2 (South Dakota should be ashamed of it's movie prices...almost as much as Long Island...but the movie was really good.) 

Now, we're back in the room trying to straighten out the rest of our trip and getting ready to see Mount Rushmore tomorrow!

Day 32...Jackson, WY - Grand Teton National Park

Today was our second day in Jackson.  We woke up a little later today than usual, since we didn't have free breakfast to catch, and headed downtown to a cute little restaurant/bakery called The Bunnery.  They are known for their O.S.M. bread (oats, sunflower seeds and millet), so we had O.S.M. french toast and pancakes and headed out to the park.

We decided to go to the Visitor Center first to check out the small museum they have there.  There are exhibits about all the different animals, the history of the people that have made the park their home, as well as an interesting section on mountain climbing (crazy people.)

Today was mostly a driving day, since the trails are still pretty much snow-covered, so we set out in search of wildlife sightings.  There are basically two main roads that go through the park and meet up at different points, so we stuck to those for the most part.  The first half of our day basically consisted of beautiful views of the snow-covered mountains, the pine tree forest areas and some icy frozen lakes and ponds.  Luckily, the temperature wasn't too cold, so we did do a little bit of walking around. 

Once we hit the second half of our day, things turned around in the wildlife department.  Our first sighting was of some gorgeous yellow-headed blackbirds, just hanging out in one of the pull-out areas (most likely because other visitors had illegally fed them in the past.)  As we moved further along, we saw what we believe was a female moose (according to the family that arrived before us) a little ways off the road, down in a field.  From there, we saw tons and tons of bison all along the side of the road at a few different points...some even walked right across the road in front of the car.  Finally, we came across at least a hundred elk in a field...Jackson has an Elk Refuge where they migrate in the winter, but now that it's considered spring, they've come back to the park.  Overall, a successful day, even if it did hail for a bit.

We got back to our room around 6:00 and found out from the front desk that many of Jackson's restaurants offer 2-for-1 specials in the off-season, just as in Park City, so we chose the Q Roadhouse, a sort-of upscale BBQ place...the food was amazing and they serve you roasted peanuts instead of bread and you can throw the shells on the floor...what more could you ask for?  The only thing we missed out on during our short time in Jackson was the Shoot Out...every night (except Sunday) at 6:00, they have a Shoot Out in the town square.  Oh, well.

Day 31...Jackson, WY

Today we left Park City, UT after breakfast at our Holiday Inn Express, and headed to Jackson, WY.  It was about a 4.5 hour drive and we got to cross over into Idaho, someplace I don't think we ever thought we'd enter.  We arrived in Jackson around 2:00 and checked into our Motel 6, seemingly the cheapest place you can get a room here, but newly renovated to look like where Ikea employees might sleep.

We decided to drive over to the Jackson Visitor Center first.  We re-learned what we already knew...our plan to visit Yellowstone wasn't going to pan out.  Spring isn't really the same thing in this part of the country as we generally know it on Long Island...of course, the weather there doesn't seem so great right now either.  They expect many areas of the park to be snow-covered until July and the entrance closer to Jackson (the reason we booked here) isn't opening until May 14...we would have to drive 3 hours to the west entrance (and 3 hours back.)  We figured most of this out a few days ago, so we had already cut out one day of our visit here - originally three nights.  Luckily, we are right next door to the Grand Teton National Park.  So, we drove over to the Visitor Center there and met with a ranger to figure out what we would be able to do tomorrow.

Seems hiking is mostly out of the question since we seem to have left our gaiters at home.  However, it's a great time to see wildlife like elk, moose and bears!  So, our plan tomorrow is to mostly drive through the park and see what we can see.  The weather report is iffy - 60% chance of rain/snow - but we'll stay positive for now.

We went to dinner at a bar/grill restaurant, Sidewinder's - unfortunately, we left the camera in the car, because we got a crazy "S" shaped homemade pretzel filled with mozzarella cheese...yum.  Of course, when you eat something like that as an appetizer, you don't get too far through your dinner...it was worth it, though.

We decided to drive downtown, maybe 2 miles from our hotel, and walk around for a little while.  It was only about 45-50 degrees and pretty much everything was closed, since it's Sunday night and it was already about 7:00, but Jackson seems much bigger than we anticipated and has a ton of nice looking shops and restaurants and art galleries downtown...not all that much different than the feel of Park City...maybe more outdoorsy-feeling, if that makes sense.  They actually have a center square area marked by arches made of elk horns, which are kind of cool...this area reminded us of Santa Fe.  The elk antlers were collected from the Elk Refuge by local Boy Scouts after the elk shed them - they would sell them at auction to raise money and these particular antlers were purchased by the Rotary and made into arches back in 1960.

After we had pretty much seen all downtown had to offer on a Sunday night, we drove over to Teton Village, another few miles out of town - the highlight of that trip was seeing some buffalo on a ranch and catching the sun setting over the Grand Tetons.  Wish us luck on seeing some moose tomorrow!

Day 30...Moab/Park City, UT

Today was our final day in Utah - who would have thought we would have spent 5 days here?  It really is a beautiful state and Park City is no different. We woke up this morning and headed back over to the Moab Diner & Ice Cream Shoppe.  Yesterday we drove past a fun little place called Wicked Brew, a drive-through coffee stand, so we decided to pass on the diner coffee free refills today and hit them up after breakfast for our drive to Park City.  We picked up some Shot In the Darks...regular brewed coffee with TWO shots of espresso...yum.  The flavor of the coffee was so good that I need to call them to find out what they use (or just check their website...)  However, once noon rolled around, we were both feeling more than a little jittery...no regrets, though.

We arrived in Park City around 2:30 and checked into our Holiday Inn Express, about 7 miles out of downtown.  Park City, if you didn't know, is a resort-filled ski town that really winds down in the spring and fall seasons, so it's pretty quiet right now.  The mountains are pretty much bare and all the ski lodges are empty.  It's a lovely little place though.  Our first stop after checking in was to visit the Olympic Park, the site of many of the 2002 Winter Olympic Games.  They have a really cool (free) museum - first floor is dedicated to the history of skiing here in Park City and the second floor is all about the Olympics, with displays and memorabilia from each sport.  There are also fun interactive exhibits where you can try ski jumping and downhill skiing (with pinballs, but still...it was kind of addictive.)

Outside the museum is a walking tour where you can see some of the game sites, including the luge/bobsled track, the free-style ski practice area and the ski jump track.  They even offer a zip line ride down the ski jump hill, but we passed since it was almost as pricey as a visit to Graceland :)

After the museum, we headed downtown and parked on Main Street, which is full of really cute stores and restaurants...surely a result of being both an ex-Olympic site and home to ritzy skiers part of the year.  We were kind of surprised to see most places were still open, even in the off-season and it was nice to be there when it was quiet.  We decided to stop at a local brewpub, Wasatch, for a pre-dinner beer...our bartender was actually from Rochester.

For dinner, we went to Butcher's Chop House & Bar.  We had read yesterday on tripadvisor.com that during the off-season here, many of the restaurants put 2-for-1 deals in the local newspaper, available Saturday and Wednesday.  So, lucky for us, it's Saturday and our Holiday Inn Express had free papers in the lobby.  We had an amazing dinner completely above and beyond what any two people on a 40-day road trip should ever enjoy.  Sadly, our time in Park City is short-lived, so we'll be moving on tomorrow morning.

Day 29...Moab/Arches National Park, UT

 Today was our second day in Moab.  We woke up and headed across the street to the Moab Diner & Ice Cream Shoppe for breakfast, since Ramada is not on board the free breakfast train.  To their credit, the newly remodeled rooms have fabulous showers.  The beauty of diner breakfast is never-ending coffee refills.  From there, we headed to the grocery store to pick up some stuff for sandwiches for our hike. 

We headed out to Arches, which is only about ten minutes from our hotel.  Arches is basically made up of over 2,000 sandstone arches formed naturally, as well as many other rock formations, some millions of years old.  We had a few options in mind for how we wanted to spend our day, so we met with a trusty park ranger to decide what would be best.  We must have some sort of look about us that makes these people think we are regularly physically active, because, as usual, we were told we should have no problem with the moderate/difficult long trails.  She suggested two different options, so we chose the shorter one...3 miles round trip, but with an elevation change of about 850 feet. 

We drove about 15 miles out into the park to arrive at the Delicate Arch trail head.  The first stop is the home of a farmer that moved with his wife to the remote area and built the house after fighting in the Civil War.  From there, the trail leads to some petroglyphs, believed to have been left by Ute Indians.  Then it's on to the bulk of the trail.  It varies from gravel and sand trails, to wide open expanses of slick rock, with trails marked only by rock cairns.  It took some adjusting to get used to breathing the thin air again, but once we did, we were fine.  The views are incredible the entire time, but the last portion takes you along the ledge of a tall sandstone wall and when you come to the end and turn the corner, you see Delicate Arch, red sandstone against a clear blue sky...Colorado claimed to have a sky 10% bluer than the rest of the country, but I think Utah has them beat.  We tried to get as close as possible, but it sits on a ledge and there are a bunch of arch hogs taking their sweet time with photos, so we did what we could ("arch hog" is actually a term used by the park to encourage people to move along, so people can get photos without you in them...I didn't make it up, unfortunately.)

We were feeling pretty good after the hike, but decided to play it safe from there, so we chose to do the 1.6 mile Landscape Arch Trail, part of Devils Garden.  It included turnoffs to see two additional arches, Pine Tree and Tunnel.  The crazy thing about Landscape Arch is that the trail used to be much longer and visitors used to be able to get much closer...even hang out underneath the arch, as with Delicate Arch.  However, in 1991, while visitors were lounging around, a massive piece of the arch fell...no one was hurt, but the area has been closed off since.  Seeing these formations, it's really hard to believe many of them are still in tact, especially the balancing rocks.

After this trail, we stopped at a picnic area for lunch and then decided to drive to all the major arch viewpoints, as we headed back towards the park entrance.  Some of our favorites are in the collage: Double Arch, Balanced Rock, Parade of  Elephants and Park Avenue.  We even saw some crazy rock climbers.

We headed back to the hotel around 5:00 and checked out places for dinner.  We decided to just walk around town and see what was near us - we found Zax Pizza and Watering Hole.  They had pretty decent brick-oven pizza and root beer and mediocre steak.  We got a giant homemade cookie a la mode to go and headed back to our room.  Tomorrow we leave for Park City.

Day 28...Capitol Reef National Park, UT/Moab, UT

We set off for Moab this morning for a two night stay.  We decided to stop at Capitol Reef National Park today, since it is almost halfway between Kanab and Moab and it wouldn't make sense to backtrack later on.  Capitol Reef is a unique place, designated a National Park in order to protect the Waterpocket Fold, a 100-mile long wrinkle in the earth's crust known as a monocline, as well as all the canyons, ridges, buttes and plant life.  It's amazing to see the wide variety of plants that can grow in a desert environment.  We started off at the Visitor's Center around 1:00 PM and decided to stick to driving today, as opposed to more hiking after our semi-traumatic experience at Bryce Canyon yesterday :)

There are two paved roads through the park, one is the present-day Route 24, which stretches from one end to the other and out, and the other is the old Route 24, which veers off into two dirt roads that eventually end at hiking trails.  We headed out to old Route 24 first, stopping at the Gifford House, which once belonged to a Morman family that settled in the area.  It was passed through the family until the 1960's, when it's owner sold the home and land to the National Park Services.  The home is now a small museum and gift shop with tons of homemade delicious-looking fruity things - we picked up a mixed berry pie and some jalepeno honey mustard and continued on. 

Speaking of the fruity things, I should mention that one of the draws of this park is the large number of orchards that go throughout the area.  Families that used to occupy the land planted orchards that the park has continued to keep up, including apples, pears, cherries, apricots, peaches, walnuts and more...yum.  Visitors are allowed to enter any of the unlocked orchards, indicating that there is ripe fruit available to harvest.  You can eat all you want for free while in the orchard, and pay to take out anything additional.  Unfortunately, we happened to visit during flowering season, not fruit growing season...so, lots of small trees with little flowers, but no fruit.  Still pretty cool, though.

We continued down the road, amazed at the rock cliffs that seemed to rise up from out of nowhere...the road became so narrow and windy that you could hardly see what was around each turn...luckily, there weren't many other people on the road and this lead to the views being even more incredible.  After we got a little ways out on one of the dirt roads, we turned around to head back out to the other road, this time stopping at the pull-offs for photos.  We even saw some of the areas on the rock walls where early wagon travelers would write their names - dating back to the 1880's.   We stopped back at Gifford House to eat lunch in the picnic area there and then moved on.

On the new Route 24, we were able to walk two different boardwalk areas featuring petroglyphs left by Native Americans that lived there as early as the 9th century.  While on the boardwalks, we saw a few mule deer laying in the grass to the side, as well as a lizard on the railing.  Who knew after learning about mule deer just a week ago, we'd be seeing them almost every day since?  They're like our little travel guides.

We finally exited the park and realized some of the landscape continued beyond...some cliffs just popping up in the middle of open fields and other areas of ongoing ridges.  We even saw two buffalo at one point.  We made it to our Ramada around 5:45 PM and, after checking in, found the Moab Microbrewery, which was within walking distance.  We each ordered a beer while we waited for our table and considered purchasing a growler, so we went for a sampler with dinner.  Unfortunately, the beer was decent, but not worthy of a growler, so we left it at that.  After we walked back to our room, we tried out the mixed berry pie...good stuff.  Tomorrow, we head to Arches to do some more hiking and burn off that pie.

Day 26/27...Kanab, UT (Zion National Park & Bryce Canyon National Park)

Yesterday we arrived in Kanab, Utah, where we are making home until tomorrow morning.  It is in a pretty good location for visiting two of Utah's National Parks.  Our Best Western is about 45 minutes from Zion, so we decided to drive over there yesterday after we arrived around 2:30.  We went straight to the Visitor's Center (as usual), since we had limited time and wanted to get some help on choosing the best hiking trail.  Zion also requires that you leave your car in the lot and use their free shuttle service to get around the park - easy for us and better for the park environment.  Zion is made up of towering sandstone cliffs in a beautiful range of reds and pinks.

We intended on choosing a moderate level trail because, for some reason, we assume that's our level.  Our ranger actually suggested a more strenuous trail, saying it was best for views.  We verified that we'd be able to handle it and set off for the shuttle to the Grotto stop, where Angel's Landing would start.  It's 2.5 miles total and we were told if we stopped about 1 mile up, we would be fine (after that point, you need to hold onto chains to keep steady...no thanks.)  It was still pretty hot and we hadn't eaten since breakfast...what were we thinking?  We got about 20 minutes into the very steep hike and realized we were just not prepared.  So, sadly, we headed back down and decided to grab the shuttle to the Lower Emerald Pools trail, which is just .5 mile round trip and moderate.  I don't think we can say enough about the thin air in this part of the country...it sounds silly when you hear about it, but experiencing it is a different story.  Moderate in Utah is equivalent to strenuous in the Smokey Mountains :)  The trail ended at a small pool of water with a waterfall, fed by both Upper and Middle Emerald Pools...as a bonus, we got to see some more mule deer.  From there, we did one more quick walk up to a viewpoint for some photos and then headed back to our car...we were starving.

After arriving back at the room, we did some quick tripadvisor.com research and found the Rewind Diner just down the block.  It was a cute red and white 50's style diner with a pretty extensive menu, so it was a nice find here in small-town Utah.

We woke up this morning and found out we missed free breakfast!  No good...so, we went down the block to Linda Lea's Cafe for some breakfast sandwiches and coffee (we were talked into getting bagels, New York style, of course...so sad) and headed out for our 1.5 hour drive to Bryce Canyon National Park.  Bryce Canyon is less of a canyon than the name suggests (not created by a river or other waterway), but even the park website has a hard time describing itself...it's made up of hoodoos created by the erosion of a plateau.  So, there.  Definitely the most unique of the parks we've been to.  The drive wasn't too bad and we got to the park around 11:00.  They also offer a free shuttle service, but it doesn't begin until May 7, so we needed to take our car around.  We decided to try the 2.9 mile Queen's Garden/Navajo Loop Trail, which goes down into the canyon and back up.  That's the trick about canyon hiking...you have to do the hard part last.  We started out great and made it to a point called Two Bridges, which is a steep rocky area.  We sat on some downed tree branches and had some apples to celebrate our accomplishments to that point, as we looked up at the barely visible trail and the scary ascent ahead of us.  We started up and realized it was going to be much more difficult than we realized and we couldn't even see the pathway out, so I stayed back, clinging to the rock wall, while Andy went ahead to check it out.  Huh...there was no exit...we went the wrong way...apparently Two Bridges is just for looking, not for hiking.  Super.  We made the scary, scary trek back down, somehow, and continued on.  The last leg of the hike was a zigzag climb to the top of the canyon - this was when the thin air really started to bother me and I had to stop at almost every turn.  Finally, we made it!  Great success, as they say.  Naturally, we had a .5 mile walk back to the car, but we were just happy to be back at the top.  So, we stopped at a picnic area for lunch and then decided to take the 15 mile drive out to the southern end of the park, Rainbow Point, to check out the views and then head back to the hotel to rest before dinner.  Bryce Canyon had kicked our butts.

We spent so much time researching future hotels for our trip that we didn't realize it was almost 8:00 PM by the time we decided to search for dinner...we embarrassingly landed at McDonalds.  Not much to say about that other than the fact that they had no fries ready, so we had to wait for them to make more...that was a first for us.  Happy Cinco de Mayo!