Geo: 32.8722, -116.418On Saturday we left the motel around9:00 AM and,since we only had a relatively short drive to the village of Pine Valley where we would spend the next two nights, we took the scenic route via the Salton Sea area. We had never been to the Salton Sea before and, having read a little about it, were interested in checking it out. The Sea itself is, at its lowest point, only about 5 feet above the lowest point in North America in Death Valley, California. It is currently fed by several small rivers but has no outflow, thus water is lost only through evaporation resulting in very high saline content. It was originally formed by the Colorado river which at one time flowed through the valley. For thousands of years, the Colorado has flowed ... read more

Geo: 33.494, -111.921We flew into Phoenix, AZ, on a Tuesdayand, after picking up our rental car, drove to the La QuintaInn in North Phoenix where we were able to check in a bit early. Then on to the Gateway Trailhead for the McDowell Sonoran Preserve in Northeastern Scottsdale. We really just wanted to stretch our legs and get a taste of what the preserve would be like, so we did a short 3 miles or so on those trails. The trails there, at least those close to the trailhead, were mostly a walk in the desert with lowmountains in the distance. We also were able to pick up a brochure with a map of the trails in the southern section of the preserve. Back at the motel, we checked out the trail map and decided to ... read more

Geo: 40.4557, -109.529On Sunday, we drove north about 125 miles to Dinosaur National Monument which straddles the Utah/Colorado border and stopped at the Quarry Visitor Center on the Utah side. The main attraction at Dinosaur NM is the Quarry Exhibit Hall which is a building built to enclose the side of one of the hills, called the Wall of Bones, where hundreds of dinosaur and other ancient animal bones have been exposed and can be viewed and even touched right there where they were originally deposited 150 million years ago. The rock layer enclosing the fossils is a sandstone and conglomerate bed of alluvial or river bed origin. The dinosaurs and other ancient animals were carried downstream by the ancient river system which eventually entombed their remains. The dinosaur fossil beds (bone beds) were discovered in ... read more

Geo: 39.19, -106.818On Friday, we drove from Grand Lake toFruita, Colorado, by way of Aspen in order to visit the site of the John Denver Sanctuary Memorial Park there. On the way to Aspen, our Tom Tom GPS routed us along Colorado highway 82 over Independence Pass. At the pass, elevation of 12,095 feet, highway 82 reaches the highest elevation of any paved Colorado state highway on a through road. The road is very scenic, but is also very steep, curvy, and only one lane wide in places, thus traveling along it is an experience in and of itself. In Aspen, the memorial park called the John Denver Sanctuary is located in a peaceful nook of Aspen's RioGrande Park along the banks of the Roaring Fork River. Many of thesinger's songs are engraved in large granite ... read more

Geo: 45.7056, -121.52After finishing our hikes at the Clarnounit, we drove on to Hood River in the Columbia River Gorge and our hotel for the next two nights, the Westcliff Lodge. The lodge was originally the Vagabond Lodge when I made the reservations but changed its name a few weeks before our arrival. We had gotten an e-mail announcing the name change, but I missed it and Anne, though she remembered the e-mail, couldn't remember the new name. So finding it was a little challenging but after searching for a bit and actually asking for directions, we arrived and checked in. It turned out to be a very nice place with several buildings built right on the banks of the Columbia River with some really pretty views. Our roomwas on a ground floor of one of ... read more