ON THE ROAD AGAIN

One fun thing about taking a road trip is stopping in places for which you had not planned. Shoshone Falls along the Snake was one such place. Wow! Amazing view. At 212 feet, these falls are taller than Niagra.

Looks like there were lots of letterboxes around, too. Unfortunately, did not plan to stop here so did not do the research for it so no letterboxes found. Bummer.

OK, let's keep driving toward Redmond, Oregon. You will see this view - or something similar. Mile after mile.

Woo hoo! We made it!

We were in Redmond for a week and enjoyed climbing in the trees and on the rocks!

ARCHES NATIONAL PARK

August 1

Well, Little B didn't think too much of celebrating her birthday this way, but we decided on a

ROAD TRIP!!!!

Ok, I'm not sure what we were thinking other than, haven't been there and haven't done that. Enroute from Colorado to Oregon, we stopped at Arches National Park.

Yes, these could probably be stock pictures of Balancing Rock, Delicate Arch and the Windows, but we still enjoyed them!

On to Salt Lake City. We did a brief driving tour around the city before heading off to Boise, Idaho. There were fires in California to which the haze was attributed.

CATARACT LAKE

July 30

A lovely drive to this location followed with some really fun boxing. We saw snakes, squirrels, birds and monster mosquitoes - they were so large I thought they would carry me off. Ouch!
















Isn't this one of the most beautiful places you have seen?

FLORISSANT FOSSIL BEDS NATIONAL MONUMENT

Have you ever been here? It is an amazing place. They have helpful rangers and fun trails. Some of the hikes are a little longer, but they have some short ones near the visitor center. Younger people can even become Junior Rangers by completing several tasks outlines in their booklet. They have awesome examples of fossilized insects found on the property in the visitors center.

Just outside the visitor center you can see some of the few remaining petrified trees. Can you tell how huge these trees must have been? Wow! Amazing!

In the past they said you could not walk through the field below the visitors center for all the petrified trees. Sadly, few remain today for all of us to wonder over.

If you take one of the trails on the property, you will come to the crest of a hill and have this view.

Along the petrified trail. (No, that pine tree is not growing out of the petrified stump - it just looks like it.

COLORADO

We flew back to the States in July and headed first to Breckenridge, Colorado. Wow! I love this place. You can see the ski runs in the distance in this first picture. The thing I kept remarking on what the blue skies. I had grown kind of used to the overcast (smoggy) skies in Hong Kong.








I hope this picture doesn't give anyone's box location away. Yup, right by that tree somewhere in Colorado.














OK, more blue skies.






One day we headed over to this trail that was along an old railroad track bed. The rails are long gone. The original track was 63 miles long and ran from Como to Leadville, CO. It was operational from 1884 until 1937. The water tower has since been reconstucted.

Oh, there are a few letterboxes near-by, too!




We had to make a mid-week trip, and on the way to the airport we stopped at Jenny's in Empire. Wow! Great food, super people, and a letterbox with a sweet story.