It’s Wednesday afternoon. I drove about 700 miles yesterday and another 250 miles this morning. By now I’m a bit tired, but also glad I made it back to California. A few more days until my flight home, so it’s nice that I can relax a bit before that.
Travel
Beautiful days in Colorado
When the Mango Tree coffee places closes I drive to the town of Golden just outside of Denver. It’s a nice little mountain town and I have dinner at a Mexican restaurant and walk through the town center for a bit. Then I drive to a campsite about an hour further where I’ve stayed a few years ago. It’s on a dirt road in the national forest.
Rocky Mountains national park
I have a long drive planned on Thursday. It’s more than 12 hours driving to Rocky Mountains national park and I want to see how far I can get. The first few hours are quite boring, since it’s just driving through desert land, but slowly but steadily the mountains are coming back in view and late in the afternoon I’m back in Colorado.
Tulips, Nederland, and a snow storm
After some relaxing time at Dirt Coffee, I walk around the block to another favorite place. In Tea, a tea store in Littleton that sells about 180 different kinds of tea. As I walk in, the guy at the register looks at me and laughs, saying “I remember you!”, I laugh back at him and answer, “Yeah, it’s been almost a year.”
My favorite place in America
Last night my friend Ana, who lives in this area, texted me and told me that she’ll be working at the office in Ouray and I’m welcome to join her. Ouray is a small town on the other side of the mountains, about an hour away from Telluride. After a relaxed beginning of the day in the car, watching the sun rise over the mountains and having breakfast, I drive to Ouray. I’ve driven this road a few times before and know it quite well by now. They call this area the Swiss of America and it’s not hard to see why. Everywhere are beautiful mountains.
Arches and Telluride
After a bit restless night I wake up at 6am by my alarm clock. I see that it’s already getting a bit light outside, that’s earlier than at the west cost last week. I get dressed and drive to Arches national park, which is only about twenty minutes away from where I camped.
I wish I could stay for another day
In the morning I walk to the frontdesk of the hotel and ask if I can stay another night. I realize that driving and hiking every day in a row is a bit tiring and I wouldn’t mind staying at this nice place for another day. Unfortunately the lady at the register tells me that the hotel is fully booked today, so I take that as a sign that it’s time for me to continue traveling.
A nice day in snowy Bryce Canyon
I check the weather forecast in the morning and since it’s raining and storming at the Grand Canyon, I decide to skip that this time and drive east to Bryce Canyon. The Grand Canyon is always impressive, but I’m in the luxury position that I’ve seen it several times already and so I’m okay with not going there on this trip.
Hiking to Angels Landing at Zion
My client meeting in the morning goes well and after that I enjoy breakfast at the hotel. I like hotel breakfasts as they usually have quite some choice for what you want to eat. I start a bit healthy with yoghurt and granola and then finish it off with some waffels (that you can bake yourself), sausage and scrambled eggs. That’ll be enough fuel to go on the hike.
Driving from California to Utah
Matt and I start the day again at the coffee place just like yesterday. Doing a bit of work and I also do some road trip planning. I had the idea to go to Sedona, but I see on the weather forecast that there are thunderstorms and rain expected there for the coming days. So I keep looking and decide to go further North in the direction for Zion National Park.