Colorado, the Arches and Yellowstone

We had such a great time seeing our kids.  Every moment is precious as we don't get to see them very often.  One of the most fun times was when we went with Megan and Ryan to the Golden Bee which is a pub situated inside the Broadmoor Hotel.  They have an old-time piano player who plays sing-along tunes.  They hand out songbooks to everyone and you get to make requests.  We had a blast and I think the piano man got a kick out of us, too.  The cool thing about this pub is it used to be located in Great Britain and they dismantled it and shipped it over and it has been at the Broadmoor since the 1950's.

Megan had suggested we go over Independence Pass on our way to Grand Junction......it was stunningly beautiful as the aspens were in their full glory! We were so glad we took her advice!

The next day we went to the Arches National Park in Moab, Utah.  The interesting thing about that park is the arches are the least of the glory of it all.

It was a beautiful park, and if we didn't have a very long ride ahead of us, we would have spent more time there.  We did bop over to Canyonlands, but quickly came down as they were tracking a very intense storm and we thought it prudent to get down to lower ground.  We had a very stressful three-hour ride before getting to our hotel in Layton.

It was pretty scary, but we made it safely!

As we headed over from Utah, we went up through the Grand Tetons on our way up to Yellowstone.  It was breathtakingly beautiful there.

We came upon the most beautiful little chapel on the way through.  It was donated by two families in memory of the victims of September 11th.

We were so excited to head over to Yellowstone as we were staying at the original Old Faithful Inn, which Walt Disney modeled his Wilderness Lodge after.  We absolutely loved staying at the lodge. 
Even the details in the bedroom were so wonderful.....it hardly mattered that we had to go down the hall to shower and use the bathroom!
The park itself is very beautiful, but at the same time it was very strange.  I'm still not sure how I feel about time spent wandering over a still very active volcano.  I'll tell you one thing:  parts of the park felt like I was on another planet.  The geology is different than anything I've ever experienced anywhere.


Everywhere we went, steam rose from geysers, there were boiling pools of water, mud pots, and so much more.......very odd and turbulent terrain.

We really loved the part of the park, at about the halfway point, which was called the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone.  Here we understood how the park got its name.

At the northern entrance to the park, where the famous arch stands, is Mammoth Hot Springs......totally different look here as well with all it's strange terraces made up of limestone.

Of course, the wildlife everywhere added to the fun!
No trip to Yellowstone is complete unless you watch Old Faithful go off, which we did see three or four times......pretty amazing!

So we say goodbye to Yellowstone and begin the long journey back east as we head home!

~Karen

From Mike:

     The Old Faithful Inn has been our favorite Grand Lodge so far.   I enjoyed it as much as the park--and it too had a piano player who played every night to people sitting in rustic chairs along the edge of the lobby three floors up.   If I could have I would have asked time to stand still for just one minute...just this once.

--Mike