Colorado/Grand Canyon/Arches National Park vacation – July 2012

Colorado/Grand Canyon/Arches National Park July 2012

We must have been feeling brave and adventurous when we planned this trip!!  This 10 day road trip was a journey over 2500 miles in our 2003 Ford Expedition!  Our kids were ages 13, 12, and 9.   We planned a combination of hotel stays and tent camping, so we had a ton of items to bring with us.  We had a luggage container for on top of the vehicle, but we were still cram packed with tents, air mattresses, blankets, pillows, cooking supplies, games and entertainment.

[three_fourth]

We traveled from Des Moines IA to Denver CO the first day, arriving at our hotel late in the day.   While in the Denver area we visited the Wild Animal Sanctuary, which is a rescue center for lions, bears, wolves and other animals.  It is several miles of walking on elevated walkways and decks, but we all enjoyed observing the animals in a natural habitat (www.wildanimalsanctuary.org).  We also stopped at the Dinosaur Ridge Discovery Center, which is one of the top dinosaur track sites in the US (www.dinoridge.org).  It was a great, family friendly activity!

Our next stop was Durango CO.  We camped at Lightner Creek Campground for two nights (www.camplightnercreek.com). The campground was beautiful, the staff was friendly, and the kids enjoyed the pool!  While in Durango, we also did a river rapids excursion.  Unfortunately, the area was abnormally dry that year so the river was not so rapidy, but we had fun anyway.  It was definitely wonderful scenery!

From there we headed to the Grand Canyon.  We stopped at the Four Corners monument along the way, so we could add a couple more states to our list!  At the Grand Canyon, we stayed at the Mather Campground (www.recreation.gov/).  It was definitely one of the most beautiful places I’ve been and full of wildlife.  We woke up to a group of elk munching on grass outside of our tents – definitely not something you’ll see in Iowa!  One of the low points of this vacation was all the rain during our time there!  After a muddy trip to the laundromat and dealing with a leaky tent, we gave up and stayed at the Red Feather Inn.  On a positive note, the rain provided some impressive rainbows!

We dried off and made our way to Moab UT.  I didn’t have many expectations for this stop, but it ended up being a highlight of the trip!  It was such a great experience climbing through the arches of Arches National Park (www.nps.gov/index.htm).  This area was used as a backdrop of the opening scene of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.  It was a very unique experience, I highly recommend it!

Our last destination was Cheyenne WY.  Our daughter’s name is Cheyenne and she requested that we swing by the city on our way home.  We did not have an agenda and just wandered around taking in the town and stopping at various shops and restaurants.  It was a brief stop, but a nice way to end our vacation!

This was one of my favorite vacations.  We fell in love with travel and found our adventurous side!  I could go on and on and on 🙂  If you have a question or comment, please feel free to message me below!

[/three_fourth]

[one_fourth_last]

[Best_Wordpress_Gallery id=”20″ gal_title=”Colorado/Grand Canyon/Arches National Park July 2012″]

[/one_fourth_last]