Despite our trip ending up on a rather unsavory note since we were under the weather, we had a truly amazing and memorable time. We wanted to do a little list of highlights to remember the trip by:
Favorite hike Canyonlands National Park Elephant Canyon/Druid Arch (Needles District)
Favorite park Canyonlands
Favorite city Sedona, Arizona (runner up: Springdale, Utah)
Best Bird-watching Rio Grande State Park (Albuquerque, New Mexico)
Best Margarita Casa de Benevidez (Albuquerque, New Mexico) Best Beer Moab Brewery Hefeweizen, with a slice of lemon Best Desert Chocolate Binge, Oaxaca (Sedona, Arizona) Favorite Breakfast Every day at the Cali Cochitta Bed & Breakfast (Moab, Utah); runner-up: Holiday Inn Express, Cortez, Colorado Favorite non-Mexican Restaurant Pasta Jays (Moab, Utah)
Favorite Moment(s) Emily:
Finishing the Grand Canyon hike!
Singing "Rocky Mountain High" at the pinnacle of the Point Lookout Trail in Mesa Verde State Park, where we were the only hikers that day and the views were breathtaking - maybe the best of our entire trip
The drive through southwest Colorado where we were over 9000' feet altitude and saw snow patches and gorgeous silver birches along the road.
Birdwatching in Rio Grande State Park in Albuquerque and seeing my first Roadrunner plus many other new birds for my life list....
Barry:
Seeing my good buddy Chris and his family in Las Vegas
Grand Canyon hike
Birdwatching in Rio Grande State Park in Albuquerque
Cheapest Gas: $2.83/gallon Most expensive Gas: $3.25/gallon outside the Grand Canyon National Park
Unexpected (good) surprises: XM radio in our rental car How nice a Chevy Impala drives and how huge the trunk is No mosquitos Dry heat is so much nicer than humid heat How blue the southwest sky is against the red rocks
And a couple of other stats: Number of new birds for our life lists: 40 (we saw many more, but these were the ones we could positively ID using our Western Birds book and the internet) Number of miles hiked: 101