The Adventures of Dave, Lindsay, Cora and Edie

We are currently enjoying a few nights in Estes Park, CO and are enjoying the winter wonderland we've stumbled upon. Cold, crisp and....overcast. After 4 weeks of sunshine we were actually pretty thrilled to have some winter weather. Rocky Mountain National Park was beautiful with a layer of snow covering the peaks and then we drove down the scenic byway through Nederland and eventually ended up in Boulder for dinner at the Boulder Tea House( http://www.boulderteahouse.com/ ). Highlights included dinner with our friends Julie and Howard (and Noah, of course) in Denver and spending the day with our dear friend, Sara Boilen.

A night in Moab and a quick trip to Arches National Park before we hit the road towards Denver...

The four hour drive from the Salt Lake area to southern Utah's National Parks is an amazing change in scenery. We visited Bryce, Zion and Capitol Reef on our way to Moab. The Red Rocks of the Colorado Plateau seem to go for ever. We did stumble across a very effective and inexpensive way to keep people from speeding in some of Utah's smallest towns. There were a couple of these officers on patrol. We couldn't resist a quick snapshot.

We enjoyed some downtime at Lindsay's Dad's place in Midway, UT and got to spend time with her siblings, nieces and nephews. Unfortunately, no snow in the mountains so we didn't slip in any Utah ski days. But Dave did play in a little Turkey bowl with Lindsay's brothers and cousins! Needless to say, he's still a little sore.

We pulled into Durango, CO a little late so we couldn't see the gorgeous mountains around us until the next day. We headed north and enjoyed taking in the views along the "Million Dollar Highway" between Silverton and Ouray, both tiny towns tucked into the mountains. We highly recommend the drive and the San Juan Mountains are truly breathtaking. We made a quick excursion to check out Telluride and then pulled into Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park in time to drive a portion of the South Rim. We didn't know what to expect with the Black Canyon NP but it blew us away. Similar to the Grand Canyon, actually, but it's a relatively new national park with a small number of annual visitors in comparison. We would have loved more time but the sun was going down and we had a long drive ahead of us....

We just dipped into the northwest corner of New Mexico, but that was more than enough to keep us busy and very happy. Albuquerque was a short stay (yes, shorter than usual) only because we had Santa Fe waiting for us. We ate, drank and wandered our way through this artsy town and enjoyed every minute of it. With recommendations from a few friends, we found great spots to eat. We might have enjoyed the local quisine a little too much... no beans and tortillas for a while. But we did fit in a great hike with views from over 9,000 feet. The high desert air is unreal. Santa Fe is definitely doing it's own thing. From there we headed up to Chaco Culture National Historic Park. We didn't know what to expect, but were blown away with this little spot in the middle of nowhere. Thousand year old buildings and strange petroglyphs. We're glad we found it.