Vacation within a vacation!

---

Not a lot to say except we went to the Elvis Cinema (Uh-huh) to watch 'Silent House'. It was interesting as it was filmed in one take. I was impressed, but more impressed with the cinema, as it was $3 to watch the film and $2 for unlimited popcorn. Thanks Elvis.

For some reason, I havent written up May 24th and 25th, so I guess they were boring. This blog makes such great reading.

26th May

Today was vacation day! We had decided to go do a road trip to Yellowstone Park, via Mount Rushmore and a few other select sights. However, as per our luck, the weather was due to be horrific everywhere we planned to go...heavy rain, snow and wind, so at the last minute, we changed our route.

We left Greenwood Village at 10.30am, heading South East, towards Arches National Park. We stopped off at Georgetown, where Jon's dentist had recommended a panini place for breakfast; (Mountain Buzz Cafe). Needless to say, we had to stop there, no matter how out of the way it was. We were held up (randomly) by an annual mule race that was taking place in the town. There were about 50 people with mules on a lead, trying to get them to race around a 22 mile course. It was amusing to see how stubborn mules actually are.

This mule race takes place at this time of year simultaneously in towns throughout Colorado.

We then drove onto Glenwood Springs, where we stopped to wander round. It was boiling and I was forced to buy what Jon refers to as a 'train drivers hat' to protect my scalp, which was already bright pink. Glenwood is known as a main hub of commerce in Colorado, but also for its sulphur springs, but sadly we didnt have time to enjoy them. We were planning to go for a hike to Hanging Lake, which looked beautiful on the website, but as we had changed route, we had to keep moving.

We continued on through Mesa County, which was really pretty, (particularly N. 7th Street) and through Grand Junction, which was disappointing, considering it had been recommended as a place 'not to be missed' by various friends.

The weather was really weird as we neared the Rockies. The sky was pure white and there was an incredibly strong wind. It felt ominous and we expected to turn a corner and see a huge tornado.

We reached the Colorado National Monument at about 2pm. The monument is made up of towering monoliths and canyons. It is pretty, but the wind was so strong that we could barely stand up. We stopped at various points to take pictures of the canyons, but were stopped by a group of Bighorn sheep, who decided to cross the mountain path ahead of us. There were four young sheep and then their mother, who stopped n the middle of the road and stared at us in a threatening 'dont run over my babies' kind of way.

We drove on down a scneic byway (on the 128), which would take us into Moab. The byway comprised of one straight hilly road, surrounded by meadows, the Colorado River and red mountains.

We arrived in Moab at 8.30pm to find that there were no rooms in any of the motels we had researched. In facgt there were no rooms in town anywhere, as there was a big dirt bike event on over the Memorial Day weekend. Jon was exhausted and needed to rest, so we continued driving around, hoping we could find somewhere, but all the motel owne3rs said the town was full. We tried ringing several towns nearby, but they also said they were full booked, so we prepared ourselves for a night in the car. We drove down a side road to find a place to park up and Jon spotted a vacancy light on at the Rustic Moab Inn. It turned out that they were also fully booked, but had literally just put the vacancy light on, as we tutned into the road, as they had decided to rent out their reserve room, which cost a premium. We didnt care at this point. It was $141 for one night, but we had a room and Jon could sleep in a proper bed!

---