Another Summer, Another Epic road trip in the books.
Well the vacation is coming to a close with only 2 days left. And quite honestly a lot of those days will be spent getting really comfortable and familiar with the truck seats. We got a lot of miles to cover to get back, and not a lot of time to do it. I guess that's the price you pay for having such a fun and exciting trip like we had put it almost comes to pay the bill when it comes in a month.
- Pre Drive Friday Night to Altoona IA
- Day 1 Drive to Denver Co - Red Rocks Amphitheatre
- Day 2 Part 1 Drive to MOAB, Hike Corona Arch!!
- Day 2 Continued - Jet Boat Tour and Sunset at Dead Horse State Park
- Day 3 - Sunrise at Delicate Arch in Arches National Park, Part 1
- Day 4 - Star Gazing at Arches National Park then an afternoon at Capital Reef National Park
- Day 5 - Day 4 Sunset and Day 5 Sunrise at Bryce Canyon National Park
- Day 5 - Evening Drive to Zion National Park - The Road of Tunnels
- Day 6 - Zion N'tl Park The Narrows and Scouts Overlookd
- Day 7 - Emerald Pools, Pa'rus Trail, Cathedral Overlook, Drive to St George
- Day 8 - Mystic Hot Springs and Lots of Driving!!!
What to do - Lets Find something "Along the way" for the day
How to drive back we are looking for things to do as we were heading back this way, and honestly it's kind of hard to find something to do in Nebraska. There isn't a whole lot there that pops up on things to do when you come visit nebraska. I don't think Nebraska is over there tourism but we did manage to find something without they could add to the kids educational experience part of the trip. And it's most likely the only time that my wife and I would ever get a chance to see it, or have a reason to be a part of the country to see it. We decided to drive a little bit out of our way to go look at chimney Rock. It's something that you hear about quite a bit as a kid and you learn about the Oregon trail and people moving West and we thought it'd be cool to go and check it out.
Potential Drive vs Why Not Drive
As you can see chimney Rock was about exactly 2 hours North before we spent the night. So instead of driving directly to Omaha, we just took up slight detour and drove 2 hours North to go check out chimney Rock. The kids were ecstatic to find out the day too it's been an extra 2 hours in the truck as long as we drove to go look at a rock.
Given how many miles we've driven on this trip, adding an additional 2 hours wasn't that bad, and it actually set us up till we can leave at 6:00 a.m., see chimney rock, and then get to the hotel at check-in time. There's no point in getting to the hotel hours before you can check in and having nothing to do but sit around parking lots or going out to eat.
2 Hours 20 min later,146 Miles We get some History
After getting up nice and early like we have the rest of the vacation we hit the road and got the chimney Rock. I will say they have a nice little visitor center there but they do want you to pay to go to the museum part. We did not do that, we just use the restrooms and then drove out to chimney Rock and the trails. The only thing that's scary is there are rattlesnake warning signs everywhere, and we were not necessarily dressed for rattlesnakes. We all had on shoes, and shorts. Basically zero protection.
When we got to the trails, we could see that there was another family hiking out who had three to four kids who were half the age of our kids, so we figured if they hadn't been bit by rattlesnake yet then we probably would be okay to. We set off on the very rustic trail and hiked out to The monuments. It wasn't very difficult to hang out there although it was quite hot that day and the trail was relatively easy to keep track of.
He's very nice monument for the family that donated the land of chimney Rock to the historical society, and I'm very happy that it is there for everyone to go check out and see since it's such a part of our history.
From the parking lot
Up close and personal
Thankfully donated for all to come and see
You could hike around and up chimney rock, but we did not
chimney Rock cemetery
Right across from the hiking trails to chimney Rock is the cemetery. We also had the kids walk through the cemetery reading the headstones. It brought up a lot of good discussions and questions because there are a lot of children who are buried there, and I don't think it had ever occurred to them that so many children can die. There are certainly a lot of headstones there that are very old, and a couple that are a little bit newer. I'm not sure if it's still an act of cemetery, but it's nice to see that what is there is still being taken care of and looked after.
After this we look back in the truck and hit the road.
Back on the Road 7 Hours 437 Miles
As you can see I have to leave in chimney Rock we had an easy peasy 7-hour drive, probably about 437 to 450 mi. I'm sure there was at least one if not two gas stops involved in a day. I do know we got to the hotel and the kids got a chance to swim that night. Not too bad considering I spent 9 hours and over 500 miles in a truck that day, but we have at least one more fun activity planned for the last day. Well a fun activity and then followed by a copious amount of hours in a truck.
Vacation Stats
No updates to the stats since the count of the drive in the last post, and I'm not counting and driving this post.
Pre Drive Friday Night
Day -1 -Drive to Altoona
- 271 Miles
- 4 Hrs
Day 1 - Drive to Red Rocks & Hike - Drive to Look out Mountain and Eldorado Springs
- 694 Miles Red Rocks
- 10 Hours to Red Rocks
- 65 Miles Round Trip
- 2 Hours Round Trip
Day 2 Drive to MOAB - Hike, Jet Boat Tour and Dead Horse State Park
- 342 Miles
- 5.5 Hours
- Corona Arch, Pinto and Bow Tie Arch
- Jet Boat Tour
- Dead Horse State Park
Day 3 Arches National Park
- Sunrise at Delicate Arch
- Sand Dune and Broken Arch Trail, Balanced Rock, Windows Trials, Double Arch
- Mesa Arch
- Sunset at Whale Rock
- Driving 80 Miles, 1H 50M
Day 4 Sunrise at Arches, Drive to Capital Reef and Bryce Canyon
- Drive to Capital Reef 156 Miles 2hrs 45m
- Hickman Land Bridge
- Petroglyphs Panels
- Dixie National Forest
- Drive to Bryce Canyon 107 Miles - 2 Hrs
- Sunset at Bryce Canyon
Day 5 Sunrise at Bryce Canyon and Drive the Tunnels to Zion
- Sunrise at Bryce
- 7 Mile Hike on most of the trails.
- Drive 85 Miles (2 Hrs) to Zion
- Hike Emerald Pools
Day 6 Full Day In Zion National Park
- The Narrows Canyon
- Scouts Over Look via West Rim Trail
- Canyon Overlook Trail
Day 7 Hiking Zion and Driving to St George
- Emerald Pools
- Pa'rus Trail
- Cathedral Overlook
- Drive to St George 46 Miles
Day 8 Drive to Mystic Hot Springs for a soak before driving to Fort Morgan!
- Drive to Mystic Hot Springs 158 Miles - 2.3 Hours
- Relax for 2 hours at the Awesome Mystic Hot Springs
- Drive to Fort Morgan 9 Hrs - 556 Miles
Day 9 Drive to Chimney Rock and then Drive all DAY!!
Vacation Running Stats
At this point in trip my running status are horribly inaccurate. I am missing a significant number of miles that I can't add up from Google maps from location. I have driven for hours that are not included in my trip log, and Google maps has a frustrating 10 limit destination when planning a trip so I can't really add them all up. Some of the trailheads that we went to were 30 to 45 minutes away one way. This means that when we're driving around to go hiking to different places we can spend three to four hours in the truck in a day just going to and from hiking trails. All the time it wasn't bad cuz it was a nice way to rest in the air conditioning and refuel, it added a lot of miles that aren't being tracked. I know how many miles we got at the end of the trip so tomorrow will be a big jump of unreconciled miles for the total amount.
Tracked Totals including excursions
Total Miles - ~3,143 Missing a lot miles from intra day, driving to trailheads and parks.
Total Time Driving - ~49.5 hrs
Total Drive
The best I can tell from Google maps inputs, I have driven at least $3,143 mi, and a well over 49 and 1/2 hours. That 49 and a half hours is clearly is if there is no traffic and you never stop. My poor family has set in that truck for more hours than a work week. Who doesn't want a vacation like us.
Just ignore the miles at this point because I can't add any more stops to map it out accurately. The route is correct put the miles in time or not.