Great pics Sam,thanks for sharing them with us.Just one question from my wife,where does your wife keep her stuff?

 

My jag has the compact spare. Two carry-on size bags fit perfectly on the square piece that covers the spare. She has a carry-on and I have one, too. She also has a couple of soft duffel bags that go on the right side of the trunk near the CD player and on top of the suitcases. My laptop fits over to the left in the recess by the fender. There is still room for the tonneau cover in the trunk even after all of that stuff is loaded. We carry a small ice chest in the back seat. We washed clothes onces at one of the hotels we stayed at, and we'll probably do it again in the near future.

 

squirrel pic... on vacation too, he came up for the view

 

Here's a few more. My wife gave me permission to post!

In Arizona we went to Meteor Crater. This picture doesn't do it justice. It's almost a mile across and three miles around.



Then on the way to Vegas we stopped by Hoover Dam. Once again, you can't tell the scale of things in these pictures. It's huge!





Then we spent the night in Vegas. My wife brought dressy clothes. I didn't.



Then after leaving Vegas the next morning, we found this awesome river in southern Utah or Northern Arizona. I'm not quite sure where. It's called the Virgin River. The water was probably 95 degrees. It was like bath water. The air temperature was about 105, however, and the humidity was probably 10%. Soak in the river for a minute and then stand up in the 105 degree air and you'd get quite chilly.





That's all for now. We're off to Canyonlands National Park, then Durango, Colorado this evening.

 

I swear this is not a photoshop! My wife and I stopped at Wilson's Arch south of Moab and as I was taking a picture of the car, a raven flew between me and the car. Here's the result.

 

Today we had a short drive from Moab, Utah to Durango, Coloado. We went by Canyonlands National Park along the way. Here are a couple of pictures from Wilson's Arch, which is along the highway south of Moab. In this first pic you can see people in it to show you the size of the arch.



And in this one another tourist took a picture of me and my wife up under the arch.



Canyonlands was actually a disappointment, but the drive there was awesome! This picture is typical of the 35 mile road out to the park. Almost the whole way the road is hemmed in by tall cliffs on either side.

 

Love the thread. Looks like you are having a blast.

What sort of miles are you up to at the moment, and how many more to go?

 

Right now we're at about 4000 miles, and I figure another 2000 to 2500 before we get home. As soon as my wife gets out of the shower we'll be heading out through the mountains of Colorado and staying in Cripple Creek tonight. Tomorrow we might try to drive up Pikes Peak.

 

Sam
As I sit at work, It's enjoyable to see your photos we all appreciate it.
How's the cat doing?
Doug

 

After Pike's Peak you can look forward to about 10 hours driving across Kansas!

 

I just checked Google Maps. It's about 12 hours from Cripple Creek, CO to Knob Noster, MO. That's how far we were hoping to make it tomorrow night. My wife's sister lives there. We might stop earlier, though, if we drive to the top of Pikes Peak.

Here's a pic from today. I took a picture of the GPS at the highest point we reached. It was a pass somewhere around Gunnison, CO. We went through four 10,000+ foot passes today. I'll post more pics later. I'm off to the casino to play some poker.

 

That would be Monarch Pass. I camped there years ago. It was the worst night of sleep in the history of ever. I kept waking up gasping ... "where the hell's the AIR?"

I highly (no pun intended) recommend Pike's Peak. It's well worth the drive, if the weather is clear that is. The view is tremendous at 14k feet. It inspired the following lyrics ...

For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain

Dan

 

We're in Cripple Creek tonight and the elevation here is 9500 feet. I got short of breath walking up the six steps into the restaurant!

 

OK... Here are the final pics from our trip:

After Canyonlands NP we drove to Durango, Colorado to stay for the night. Durango is a very cool town with a historic past. We stayed in the historic Strater Hotel (pictured below) which was built in 1890. We stayed in the same room that Louis L'Amour frequented while writing his novels. I've never read one, but perhaps I need to now.



Durango has an old railroad that uses steam-powered locomotives to haul tourists up to a town called Silverton. We stood right by the tracks as one of the trains passed by. I didn't realize that the smoke isn't just smoke. It's also sand-sized particles of burnt coal that rains down as the train passes. My wife and I were picking coal ash out of our hair the rest of the day.



Then we were off to Silverton by car. We went over some more mountain passes and I got a few good pics:





There was actually still snow on the ground in some places!



This is my wife and I at the top of one of the many passes.



Coming down into Silverton my wife snapped this picture of the town from the road.



In Silverton another locomotive was already there. I didn't get as close this time.



Silverton has several blocks of old, historic buildings that have been renovated to cater to the tourists. Imagine horses rather than cars in front of them, and that's what the town probably looked like 100 years ago during the mining boom.



We ate at a saloon and sat at the bar.



Then we left and headed through central Colorado over to Cripple Creek. Here's an old mining camp that was along the road.



The road was very curvy.



We stopped in a town called Ouray and went to a park which has a very narrow canyon. And by narrow, I mean NARROW! It was several hundred feet deep and only a few feet across in some places.



Cripple Creek is an old mining town similar to Silverton, but it is a little more remote. The town was essentially a ghost town until 19 years ago when they legalized gambling. Now the main drag is full of casinos. They kept the original facades, but the insides are full of tables and slot machines. Back behind the main street there is a parking garage, and guess what I saw in the garage? Another XK8! This was the first one I had seen the whole trip! I love that color combination, too. It's kinda hard to see in the bad lighting of the garage, but it was carnival red and tan. Seeing that one really makes me want to sell mine and buy one in the color combination I like.



We stayed in Cripple Creek that night and the next morning got up and headed up Pike's Peak. It actually snowed on the summit shortly before we got there! Here's my wife in the snow at the top of the mountain.



I forgot to take a picture of the GPS at the very top, but here's a pic right after we started to drive back down.



Pike's Peak is on the front range of the Rocky Mountains, so you can see the plains in the background behind my car.



This picture is actually looking at the road going down the mountain, not up. A few miles of the road are not paved. My jag got very dirty.



And here's a shot down the mountain showing the switchbacks to the top.



After we left Pike's Peak we just made a mad dash across the country to get back to North Carolina. No exciting pictures to show, unfortunately. The trip was great, but I wish we had had more time to spend in a few places. I could have spent a few days in Moab and Durango for sure. We're thinking about doing that for our next vacation. We'll just fly out, however, to give us more time to do stuff.

 

Sam,

That was a wonderful trip! Thanks for taking us along.

tp

 

Tres bein Sam! Some of those pictures are desktop background worthy for sure. I personally like the one of the car on the edge of the road where you can see the plains. That's definitely a special shot! So is picture number 3. Looks like it was plenty of fun!

Just out of curiousity, what would a budget for a trip like that look like, on the safe side?

 

I dunno... I haven't done the math yet, but this is as good a time as any...

We probably averaged $100 per night for hotels. We stayed in some really nice places, but we also stayed in some cheap places. We were gone 15 nights, so that's $1500 right there, and that was the biggest expense.

Gas was next. I probably paid $2.90 per gallon on average, and I averaged about 25 mpg. We traveled roughly 6500 miles, so that comes out to $754.

My wife and I eat out most of the time anyway. Neither of us cooks much, so the food expense was roughly the same as if we'd stayed home. It was probably a little more because we ate at some really fancy places along the way. But if you figure $25 per day per person, it cost us about $750 in food.

There there were all of the things like the mule ride at the Grand Canyon, admittance to Meteor Crater, the toll for the drive up Pike's Peak... Those things added up. We probably spent $500 on that stuff.

All in all I'd say we spent $3500 to $4000 on the trip. That doesn't include the cost of wear and tear and depreciation on the car. It was worth it, though. We didn't have a plan, we were just deciding where we were going to go a day at a time. The only thing that was set in stone was the Grand Canyon. I made those reservations way back in January. Other than that we usually decided where we were going to go the next day over dinner. We had thought about going on a cruise or something, but the last time I did that I hated having to stick to the ship's schedule. I liked the freedom of just being able to change my mind at the last second.

 

Sam,

Awesome trip. That's my kind of vacation! I've never wanted to go on a cruise for the very reason you stated as well as being trapped! What you did allows for much more spontaneity. I'm glad you had a great trip and that the various car issues didn't put a major damper on it!

 

Thanks for the great ride. Watching it here beats sitting in your back seat!

 

A big thank you to you and your wife for sharing this trip with us. I have eagerly looked forward to every update.

Glad that you had no major car problems along the way.

You guys are lucky with your fuel prices, based on your miles/ave, a similar trip over here would have cost me $2400 in fuel alone. (@ $9/gal).

Thanks once more for taking the time to post as you went along.

All the best,
Richard