Just about 15 minutes outside of Flagstaff, lies Walnut Canyon. Established as a national monument by Woodrow Wilson in 1915, the park preserves ancient cliff dwellings from the Sinagua Indians.
The park is small; encompassing 3,600 acres and averaging 100,000 annual visitors. And because it only offers two short trails (less than one mile each), exploring can be done in an hour or two.
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The Grand Canyon should be on every family's bucket list. And when you find yourself out there, you might as well take advantage of seeing other nearby national parks and…
Just south of Grand Junction lies Colorado National Monument. Never heard of it? You’re not alone. A few years ago, residents declined the opportunity to convert it to a national park. The reason? It would spoil this quiet, pristine area with traffic and tourists.
Also, the name is a misnomer as I thought it would be a single, man-made monument like the Washington Monument in DC. Instead, it is an area of red rocks, canyons and the Colorado River Valley.
And unspoiled it is. We drove the 23-mile Rim Rock Drive from the east entrance (just south of Grand Junction) to Fruita, where we hooked back on to I-70. The late afternoon sun glimmered on the rocks creating spectacular scenery. Since there was no traffic on the two-lane road, it only took 45-60 minutes out of trip. Highlights included the Coke Ovens, Balanced Rock and Independence Monument – all formed by erosion with views of Book Cliffs on the horizon. (more…)
I wanted to go somewhere that didn’t look just like home. For several years I had been researching the Grand Canyon, but flights were expensive. After talking to a friend who did a 2-week tour of the national parks, we came up with this 5-day itinerary. The focus was on the three Utah parks – Arches, Canyonlands and Capitol Reef and we made Moab our base. The nearest airports are Salt Lake City and Denver. Since Denver was significantly less expensive and we’d get to explore some of Colorado, we chose that route. It sounds like a lot, but it worked and was the perfect amount of time. One more day and everyone would be getting cranky. Here’s our Utah and Colorado itinerary. Be sure to click on the hyper-links for detailed posts on each place. (more…)