Day 1:
We Drove to Chicago and stayed with a Friend.

Day 2:
11 hour drive to Mitchell South Dakota. We stopped an Souix Falls, South Dakota, the falls are beautiful. In Mitchell there is the World Famous Corn Palace.

Day 3:
At the Bad Lands we did quite a bit of hiking. We took a trail way up on some of the formations, pretty scary trail actually. Fine going up, but coming down the ladder was interesting..... Mount Rushmore was not even worth going to. The new trail down under the noses of the presidents is cool, but I still think the mountain was destroyed and it is just big grafiti..... We stayed in Deadwood, SD the old gambling town...

Badlands - Photos & Links

Mount Rushmore - Photos and Links

Day 4:
Long drive to Yellowstone.

Yellowstone - Photos and Links

Days 5-8:
Old Faithful Inn for 5 nights.... should have done 4 or 3 and 2 in the Tetons. Well it rained the 5th day, so we did laundry. Tons, I say Tons of Buffalo.... everywhere around the Old Faithful Inn, actually dangerous. Every hiking trail had buffalo walking down them. Every time we wanted to take a hike.... Buffalo. Did not have to worry about bear.

Old Faithful Inn - Photos and Links

Day 9:
Drove to Salt Lake City via the tetons... Did not see them .. it was raining and the clouds were really low. Will have to go back again.... drove through Jackson hole.... but it was pouring, stopped for gas. About an hour later cleared up, sunny. We should have drove slower or left later. The Road from Jackson Hole to Salt Lake City was under construction about every 20 miles. It took us ALL DAY to get nowhere. We actually took the first hotel we saw getting out of the mountains. Raining on and off.

Day 10:
Did not even see the salt lake. But we did see the tabernacle. Salt lake to Bryce Canyon..... awesome drive...
best sight: Cow standing on an overpass. The driveinto bryce is great. We stayed in the park. Accomodations were ok.

Bryce Canyon - Photos and Links

Days 11-12:
We hiked both of the main loop trails below the rim.... awesome 2 days of hiking. We loved every minute of these hikes. Lots of great pictures from here. Dark Blue Sky. Perfect pictures. The food at the Bryce Canyon Inn was better than at Old Faithful Inn. Three nights here was perfect. We got caught in the rain for the last 45 minutes of the last hike but it kinda felt good.

Day 13:
Bryce to Grand Canyon..... Long Drive Rained last 1 hour into the park. The Drive through Escalade was really pretty too. Glen Canyon Dam's water level is about 30 feet low from the drought, water level is really ugly. We stayed at the El Tovar at the Rim, had reservations in the main dining room. We were going to be seated where Teddy Roosevelt sat. Problem menu was way over priced and did not really look too good either.... too fancy for a long days drive. So we ate at the Arizonia Steak house part of Bright Angel Lodge. Packed up all the gear and went to sleep for the long hike the next day.

Day 14:
The Rangers said the weather was going to be cool for the Grand Canyon... It got down to 50 degrees..... glad we put in the long underwear. We were the only people in the area camping.... kinda a spooky actually... very barren.... only scrub brush and a few cactus. The Stars at night in the Canyon are a sight too see, just wanted to keep looking. I forgot how long of hike and how hard of hike it was... Due to the dryness out there, the trails were really beat up.

Day 15:
The Trail across the plateau was even kind of hard to follow.... and some places outright dangerous. I was worried for our lives in quite a few places. We lost the trail a few times and had to stop and back track to find it. Curvy, side trails, crumbling. Definitly a adventure. We ran into some of the trail crew on the way out. One guy told us about some Indian Pictographs further up the trail. We found them. I do not know how they survived way back then in this area, especially where they decided to do their drawings. Upside down under a big overhanging rock.

Grand Canyon - Photos and Links

Day 16:
After the canyon we headed to Monument Valley on the Navajo Reservation. On the way we stopped on the reservation to see some Dinosaur Tracks just past Tuba City. We stayed in a Hampton Inn run by the Navejo's in Kayenta... really different type of service. We spent a lot of time just talking and getting to know them. It was great. The hotel had a resturant for dinner too... And the food was really unique.

Dinosaur Tracks - Photos

Day 17:
Monument Valley was kinda of let down after Bryce. But the Pictures are really good. Not much to see here.

Monument Valley - Photos

Day 18:
To the 4 corners and Durango. Four Corners total tourist trap. Durango FUN. We could of stayed here more than 2 days.

Day 19:
The Train Ride was a highlight. It was a nice day, so we switched to a outside car. Wind in our face. Really really good scenery.

Durango - Photos

Day 20:
On to Mesa Verde. Rain, rain, rain. We had signed up for a guided walk but cancelled due to the rain. We did the unguided walk and had a good time. So we pushed on towards Arches. One minute is was 75 degrees then dropped to 35 degrees in about 15 minutes. We got caught in a hail storm. There was 2 inches of Ice on the road. Nowhere to pull off and about 30 minutes later saw a dust storm. Stayed in Moab, Utah. Very cool town... poor food.

Mesa Verde - Photos

Day 21:
Arches is Awesome. We hiked and hiked and hiked. We got great pictures. We did not go all the way to the back of the park, but let me put it this way. We went on a trail that was spectacular. It followed along the TOP of some of the formations with 200 foot drops off the side an only about 4 feet wide at the top. With Cravasses to jump across. We went back to the Double 'O' arch. First sight ... all this for that... some one said go climb up to it... we did .. it was huge with one arch over the other one... we crawled through the bottom one and climber up to a picture spot...... Stayed here for about 45 minutes in the beauty of it all. Very tiring day.

Arches National Park - Photos

Day 22:
Heading Home through the rockies. Stopped in Grand Junction to check it. Not too impressive town. But we j