Sunday? Day 4?

Is it a sign of a good vacation or bad memory that it's already hard for me to keep track of the days? Either way, it's a good reason to keep a record of my travels.
I got up and at it yesterday. I was staying outside of Shenandoah which meant that it was going to take me a good 45 minutes just to get to the park. I got there and started driving down Skyline Drive. Cuyahoga had been a long valley with a canal running down it, Shenandoah is a Lon mountain with a road running down it. There's many overlooks on the side of the rode and trails leading to overlooks, summits, streams and falls. I was about to go down a trail to the Deep Hollow Falls when I got some words of advice from another hiker. She told me that there was a fire road a mile back that led to the falls and was an easier hike and she told me to stop at the visitor center for directions. I had to go there anyway to get my passport stamp, so I did both. One of the stamps,was for the Appalachian Trail and I asked the ranger if I was really on the trail. She said she was anal that way too and didn't get stamps she hadn't actually been to. She told me ten miles back was a nice trail, that was actually part of the AT. She loved it because at the summit you could look down and see vultures soaring. I had to see that. That trail was Stony Man summit. I then did the fire road to the falls. I decided that was enough hiking for the day and did the rest of the Skyline Drive by car. It's a long drive! When I finished it I took a bit of a wrong turn unto the Blur Ridge Parkway. No worries though, when I stopped at the visitor station for directions, I got another stamp. The park service oversees the parkway.
I then drove to Richmond for the night.
Plans for today.... Richmond botanical center, biking on the Virginia Capital Trail and the beach!

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Day 3 - I will not complain about the rain.

It rained, not a complaint a comment. I spent most of the day driving from Pittsburg or Shenandoah so it wasn't that horrible, really. I did stop at the Flight 93 Memorial on my way. It was quite moving (better without the rain, I'm sure). The park service, and nature, are on the path to making it a beautiful place for reflection. The crash site has grown into a field of wildflowers, with a big boulder on the far side. I need to read, but it wonder if that marks the impact spot. There's a wall with the 40 names on it. Quite well done. As I drove there I asked myself why of all the places I planned for this trip, that was the one that was drawing me most in. I think it's because they said "no". 40 ordinary people, just 40 on a cross country flight, they said they're not going to passively die. The terrorists didn't win. That stuns me.
I made it to the Shenandoah are around 2pm, but my gps went a little crazy finding the park. So I turned it off and went by instinct. Funny how that instinct led me to the "wine and whiskey trail". Travel karma at it's finest. A few sips of wine and whiskey were just what I needed after my rainy drive, plus it was still misty so I didn't want to hike yet. After that I did make it to the park and drove part of Skyline Drive. It was very misty up there, so just a couple of sue ice stops on the west side of the mountain where the sun had burned through.
While checking Facebook during dinner, I saw a message that the Cuyahoga train had stopped running for the day due to flooding. Then there was a message that several of the trails were closed in the park. What a difference a day makes, the day before had been perfect. I will not complain about the rain that happened while I drove.
My plan for today is to go back to the park, find a hike or two, and drive down the rest of Skyline Drive. I planed to stay in Richmond tonight, so there. At be a couple of historical sites along the way.

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Day 2 pics

Day 2, Cuyahoga Valley NP

I feel really lucky. After all the rain we have had at home, I planned on a rainy vacation. Today was perfect weather for a two mile hike among limestone ledges. So cool to see the patterns of erosion through the different layers. I then raced over and caught the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railway train. It offers $3 one way tickets to bike riders so you can ride your bike as far as you want and then hop the train back to your car. I did that in reverse so I could time it better (thanks mom). So I took that to the north side of the park and the car was filled with other cyclist. Then rode down to the south side and then backtracked a wee bit up to my car. I topped off the ride with salted caramel ice cream, yum.
As I said on Facebook, this is my 10th national park, in my adult travels. Each park has been completely different. This park is small, 35 miles long or so and not too wide. It touches Cleveland to the bother and Akron to the south and is a bit of a natural playground in the midst of two cities. The valley its in was the site of the Erie Ohio Canal, and the bike trail was the ox and horse path next to the canal.
My plan for tomorrow is to visit the Flight 93 Memorial first thing in the morning and then make my way to Shenandoah.

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Packing and driving - Day 1

So I'm used to packing to fly somewhere where I'll do some hiking. That's easy, regular clothes, hiking boots, backpack with built-in water bottle, Tilley hat. Then comes road tripping to the Rocky Mountains with Cathy and I learned that you can take a cooler with your own food in it, enter the big cooler into my life. Plus hiking poles that aren't really airport friendly. Then I went to Minnesota last year with the Subaru, suddenly I could bring my bike as well. So.... That means regular clothes, biking clothes (the combo of which works for hiking), shoes, hiking shoes, hiking shoes, backpack, water bottles (2 cuz one keeps ice longer but rattles in my bike cage), Tilley hat, bike helmet, big cooler' hiking poles, bike pump. Yikes! What a production.
I managed to get everything into my car and on the road around 6:30 as planned. Headed east on 80 and wound up in Ohio at Cuyahoga Valley National Park around 4 their time, Not bad. It was about to rain, so I found food and hotel, then went back to the park for a short 10 mile bike ride.
Plan for the day... Take the steam trail to the north side of the park then ride my bike back to my car. There's a couple of hiking trails that lead to water falls so I may check those out as well,


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Hoodoos, they're called hoodoos, who knew?

Incredible.... unbelievable... awe inspiring.... These weren't even on my radar when I came down here but I am so glad I didn't miss them. They were the highlight of my trip.
I woke up Tuesday morning thinking I would go to El Morro or El Malpais National Monuments. A quick search of the National Parks website led me to a picture of the tent rocks and I was intrigued, I had to go. The other parks would be on my way to the Petrified Forest which was my plan for Wednesday.
There's really only one trail through the rocks, a "canyon trail". There were times that the foot path was only about 5" across, thankfully the rocks were conical and the gap widened quickly. There was only one way through the rocks and when you get to the top, you turn around and come the same way down. I'm still amazed with my fear of heights I made it the whole way, but I wasn't giving up. Every turn along the way gave a more spectacular view. The rocks are completely formed by nature. Volcanos and wind, but don't ask me how. The wind did pick up as I was coming down and the pumice blowing around felt almost like a facial.

Georgia O'Keeffe Museum

Monday my plan was to go up to Santa Fe and see the Georgia O'Keeffe museum. Santa Fe is about an hour away and the drive was beautiful. When I think of the desert I think of sand as far as the eye can see. This was not that way at all. I kept wishing I had paid better attention in earth science so I could know more about what I was seeing. Butte, arroyos, mesas, I need to learn more about which is what. Actually, I probably did pay attention in earth science, but that was 30 years ago. Yikes!
The museum was lovely. I learned things I didn't know about her, like her paintings were never meant to be sexual even though they were thought of that way. In fact she stopped painting flowers for awhile because of that. My favorite thing I learned was that she was born in Wisconsin but didn't like the Midwest because it was nothing but green, boring. I started seeing the colors of the southwest through her eyes after that and can understand why she preferred it down here.
Santa Fe did seem nice, but all I saw to do was shop. I'm so glad I choose Albuquerque.


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Easter Sunday

I decided to stay close to home base on Sunday. I didn't want to go adventuring an hour away only to find half the places were closed for Easter. It felt like a good day to explore the ABQ Biopark. Their botanical center, aquarium and zoo, all connected by a tram. The botanical center was nice. A pretty way to start the day. They have a huge model railroad which the volunteers were sweeping before they started it for the day. I got to push the button to test the Thomas train. The aquarium was tiny. I've definitely been spoiled by the Shedd and Georgia's. Aquarium. I went for brunch before going to the zoo. A breakfast quesadilla was the perfect NM Raster brunch. Then there was the zoo. I'm usually ok with zoos, I even like them. This one just made me sad. I went back to the pretty flowers.

Travel karma

There's one thing I definitely believe in while traveling and that's travel karma. I learned about it in my San Fran trip years ago and I've practiced it ever since. Mostly by offering to takes pics of families so mom/dad/grandma doesn't get stuck taking the pic instead of in the pic. Anyway, what goes around comes around and this lovely lunch/dinner was courtesy of a kindly older gentleman who does this often I'm told. Yum!
I spent the afternoon in Old Town. A few blocks filled with artist galleries, souvenir shops, restaurants, etc. Didn't buy anything... yet.

Pet pics

Saturday 4/4

I spent Friday getting to ABQ, finding my hotel, getting a rental car, and generally getting my bearings. Now it's time to start the adventure. I started out at the Petroglyph National Monument. I love park rangers. The one at the visitors center told me about the three trails, which one would be the best, and even started a movie for me one the history of the place. I decided to go for the longer trail with more Petroglyphs thinking I could come back and see the other trails later if I had time. The third trail actually doesn't have petroglyphs, it winds around the volcanos that form the basalt rock the Indians carved on. Anyhow... It was a quiet hike and you think the canyon is dead except then you start to notice little holes everywhere. Snakes? Lizards? I only saw little lizards but I'm sure others were around. Then I got far enough into the canyon that I started see the petroglyphs. I went from signs of canyon life in the present to signs of the ancient past. How cool.

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Spring break 2015 - Albuquerque NM

Yay! It's finally here. It's been a long cold winter and I'm so ready to get out of the Quad Cities. So why did I choose Albuquerque? Well, it started with my national park quest and a suggestion from a friend, who is further along on his quest, to visit the Guadalupe Mountains and Carlsbad Caverns. I looked into that. Carlsbad is in southern NM and Guadalupe Mtns. is over the border in Texas and El Paso is convenient to both. The problem was a week in El Paso didn't appeal to me. So, then I found out you could fly to Carlsbad from ABQ pretty cheap, meaning I could stay here and bop down there for a couple of days. That evolved into me looking into things to do in ABQ and there was just too much around I figured I'd be coming down here a few times to see everything. So here I am, in Albuquerque for the next 8 days, a list of places to visit, and a craving for good Mexican food.

I should mention that I used points for my hotel and volunteered to be bumped to a slightly later flight. If that had happened my hotel and flight would have cost me $50. No such luck there, but I did manage a free shuttle ride to a hotel that didn't provide shuttle service, not too shabby.

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