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Ancient Architects of Arizona

Wednesday – Saturday, April 24-27, 2019

Earlier this year two of my favorite bands, Architects and While She Sleeps, announced a tour that started in late April and went through May. These two bands don’t tour in the US very much so I knew that I really needed to go to this one! I’m just glad the tour dates closest to home didn’t coincide with a weekend that I had already made plans for! We were unable to go to the Denver date, which was the closest one to us, so we decided to go to the Phoenix date instead and would plan a short easy trip around it. I had never been anywhere between Flagstaff and Phoenix before, so I thought it would be a good idea to play tourist for a change and visit all of the popular National Monuments as an introduction to the area. I also figured that since we were going to be seeing the Architects in concert on Saturday night, that it would be nice to visit the ruins left behind by the ancient architects of Arizona on our way there!

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Dinosaur Memorial Weekend

Memorial Day Weekend | Thursday – Monday, May 24-28, 2018

After four years of going on our annual Maze Memorial Weekend trip we decided it was time to move that trip up into early April for cooler temperatures and less bugs, which meant that we needed to find somewhere else to explore over the Memorial Day weekend this year.  After some thought we settled on visiting Dinosaur National Monument because we hoped it would be a little cooler at this time of the year and I felt it was time to finally start getting to know this area of Utah and Colorado a little more intimately. Plus, there are a lot of places around Dinosaur that I’ve wanted to revisit and I was pretty sure that the park wouldn’t be too busy away from the main Dinosaur Bone Quarry. Little did we know that this weekend was going to be pretty warm all over the Colorado Plateau!

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Grand Gulch: Bullet Canyon to The Government Trail

Grand Gulch Finale
Friday – Tuesday, April 20 – 24, 2018

Last year I had to skip my annual spring backpacking trip with Dave and Jared since I didn’t have any free time left after my wedding and Honeymoon Adventure in March. This year we decided to resume the tradition and go on a four day backpacking trip into the middle section of Grand Gulch between Bullet Canyon and the Government Trail. This is pretty much the final section of Grand Gulch (starting from under the Bears Ears near Highways 95 all the way to the San Juan River) that I have not hiked yet, so I was really looking forward to checking it out. The funny thing is, this section was supposed to be my very first backpacking trip into Grand Gulch about five years ago, but I missed out on that trip because I came down with strep throat a few days before and Dave and Jared went without me. I’m glad they were willing to repeat this section of the canyon with me this year!

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Alone in the Devil’s Garden

Moab Area Rock Art XXX | Saturday, May 6, 2017

Have you ever spent a day in Devil’s Garden within Arches National Park and not seen another person? That’s a pretty difficult thing to do, even during the winter when we usually visit this area, but it’s pretty much impossible to do during the busiest season of the year! So when I heard that Arches would be closing the Devil’s Garden trailhead for a month because of road construction I knew that it would be the perfect time to visit the area to search for a historic Denis Julien inscription that I’ve been wanting to find for a while. It was pretty awesome having this area to ourselves during one of the busiest times of the year on the Colorado Plateau!

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Windy Weekend in The Swell

Saturday & Sunday, April 29-30, 2017

After staying up late the last four nights in a row to attend concerts and then getting up for work early the following mornings, it was finally time for me to sleep in on Saturday! I woke up around 9:00am (I really cannot recall the last time I slept in that late), packed my camping gear into the Jeep and started driving west to the San Rafael Swell where I would spend the rest of the day hiking in canyons and searching for rock art. It was very windy out all day, which is pretty typical of springtime weather on the Colorado Plateau, but a cold front had moved through the area and the temperature was pretty cool out, too. I could have done without the wind, but the temperature was perfect for hiking! Here are a few photos from the day…

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