West -- a Roadtrip

After Burning Man I spent a couple of weeks driving the Tacoma around the Western US, visiting friends and parks. What a beautiful country!

Obviously, that was before certain parts of congress embarrassed all of us and shut down the government, including our National Parks. ;-) But while the parks were mostly open during my trip, once I left Nevada and got into Utah they were pretty wet and sometimes flooded. I ended up in the weather systems that would eventually make it to Colorado and cause lots of rain and flooding everywhere, resulting in a canceled canyoneering trip that I had been looking forward to for a while, and somewhat limited hiking options whenever there were canyons involved...

Navajo Arch at Arches National Park

My destinations included:

• Hoover Dam -- quite an impressive engineering feat
• Lassen Volcanic National Park -- very scenic
• Redwood National and State Parks -- I enjoyed hiking in the tall trees and camping at the beach
• Point Reyes National Seashore -- includes a Tule Elk preserve, just outside of San Francisco
• Zion National Park -- left a day early when the weather prevented most hiking options
• Bryce Canyon National Park -- fascinating landscapes in midst of a cloud layer
• Kodachrome Basin State Park -- cute
• Capitol Reef National Park -- beautiful colors
• Arches National Park -- great time hiking the primitive trail loop around Devil's Garden
• Mesa Verde National Park -- interesting artifacts from another time
• Colorado National Monument -- drive-through after the wine fest in Grand Junction
• Capulin Volcano National Monument -- on the way to Amarillo, worth stopping for
• Palo Duro Canyon State Park -- fun mini-Utah in northern Texas

Batgirl at the Colorado National Monument, with some weather in the background...

This was the last big trip of my year off. It's time to earn some money again. Stay tuned for a blog post with conclusions and what's gonna be next, to follow some time in the next weeks... :-)

Redwoods in Northern California