So, it was the vacation from he!!

(Columbia River Gorge...Looking from Oregon
over to Washington)

We left on Friday the 13th for a two week road
trip with 10 of our friends. Maybe, right then and there,
I should have had second thoughts. But we were anxious
to escape the rain and go to Utah and New Mexico for
some sunshine!!


Five of the 6 couples ( read that 1 RV and 5 SUVs)
met up in Bryce Canyon the second night. We stayed in a
cute 4 plex cabin for two nights. The weather was rainy
and cool. Not what we were looking for .



This picture doesn't show it but there was snow in
parts of the canyon. We did have enough sun to see
that this is an incredible place in our USA.



Back on the road again, we go to Arches National Park. My
husband had forgotten to bring our senior pass which we had
gotten just for this trip. Fortunately, I had not gotten one, so we
just bought another. Arches is where all 6 couples would meet up
and camp for three nights. (It is the middle of May, after all!!)
We are ready to camp and view the sights and enjoy our friends
around a campfire.
We put up 5 tents while the wind blew, and blew, and blew dirt
(red) into the tent. It was supposed to stop about 9PM. This trip
involves 5 nights of camping and I don't like to camp.


This is our "sunnyday in the summer" tent. It was
staked to boulders. We didn't build a campfire
because of the wind.We went to bed early. It was too windy
to do anything else. We had grit in our mouths,
grit on our faces, and we are hoping our tent doesn't blow away.
And then it starts to rain. Well, more like, POUR. We did not get
much sleep that night.
Turns out the winds were 50 mph. One couple had left their
wet, dirty, tent at 4:30 am and gotten a room in Moab. It sounded like a good idea to us. (did I mention that I don't like to camp?) The rain had stopped and
we took everything out of the tent and shook blankets, and swept floors and
then it stated to rain again.........so the tent itself was taken down in the rain and
shoved into the car as a wet, reddish, gritty glob.

My friend who has been here many times, and has camped here,
and told me "you can't appreciate the beauty without camping", Is
saying, "Isn't it beautiful, though?" And it was. We had a few sun breaks
so did some sight seeing. It is an amazing place. The color and
the formations are remarkable!





This is called Windows...one of the walks we did.
Fortunately we all got rooms for the next two nights
and our RVers found a good place next to us. The
place we stayed had an outdoor room with a BBQ
which we just sort of took over the first night we were
there.


This is Balanced Rock. We did see some wonderful sights.






Shopping in Moab is fun. This shop had a sign
I had to photograph. I have never seen one like this.
Our next stop was to be Mesa Verde, where the cliff dwellings
are located. Problem was we were getting bad reports about the
weather. So, one couple decided to go to Tahoe and see friends.
We decided, with another couple, to go on to Santa Fe and sunshine.
The RVers and 2 couples decided to go to Mesa Verde.





We decided to go to Mesa Verde on the way home from
Santa Fe because I really wanted to see the cliff dwellings
and by then the weather should be better. So we all go
our separate ways on Friday morning,...... and things get worse.
Stay tuned for part 2........I will let you know that everyone made it
home OK.............