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48800

When I was a vet tech student in Colorado we said "you run with the sun". Colorado is possibly the sunniest state in the US except when a starving college student with cabin fever finally gets a full day off and a full tank of gas.
So, about 11 years ago, when a friend and I saw a sunny day coming up, with no school and no work, we got up before the sun (4-5am? cant quite remember) and drove across the state through the Rockies for 4+ hours. Our end goal was Gunnison National Park Black Canyon. Our mode of transport was a 1996 Toyota Camry with 200k+ miles on the odometer and leaky oil valves. It felt like we were standing still trying to get up Kenosha Pass at 10k ft. Great weather all the way up though!

So we get there and start driving around because the area is Huge and we only have about 4 hours to explore so not really able to do a day long hike. No visitors center or amenities that we could find so we also have to budget gas to get back to the nearest town. It's absolutely fantastic! Windy and clouds are shooting by so the sun's dancing in and out shooting shafts of light across the rocks and the desert is exploding with wildflowers because it's late the March/early April season. Indian Paint Brush and Cactus are everywhere along with some flowers I wasn't familiar with. Birds were surfing the thermals through and above the canyon, at least one hawk! :D

We're almost done the circuit and turn back towards the mountains and realize it's getting aweful chilly as the sun starts dropping down. We look up into some of the passes we came out of and see a bunch of rain and it's coming towards us. Okayyyyy not so bad right? We're about to leave anyway. We look off in another direction and there's a snow shower going on in that particular pass. Yeah we're OUTTA here NOW! There's no predicting this nonsense.

The rain catches us just as we head up into the mountain road and the wind started to really pick up, at first just one direction. As we got higher up and farther in the rain changed to a fine dry snow and the wind was blowing every which way possible. Thankfully it seemed to keep the snow blown off the road but it also got extremely misty to the point where I realized we must be up high enough to be sitting INSIDE a cloud that was snowing down on the low points below us. Aaaannnddd my gas light turns on! smh We were so worried about the snow blowing around us that I forgot to keep an eye on the gas gauge. So I have 20 miles to find a station that's open and it's dark and getting pretty late. I think it was Poncha Springs that we finally dropped into, close to on fumes, and filled up. Never happier to get back to 70W do the graded drop down into Denver! :O

4344

So back in 2015, it was a BIG year for our family. Brother got married, oldest sister got married, i graduated high school, AND my other sister, parents, and I went on a two week vacation to 8 national parks and one national monument in the western US. We spent on average 12 hours in the car each day. Started with the Rocky Mountain National Park and just as we were leaving, and i was sad that i didn't see a moose, there were two of them off in the distance! We went to Mesa Verde National Park, Dinosaur National Monument (there was a nasty storm that came in as we were finishing up. streak lightning, and insanely high winds with pounding rain.), Arches National Park, Canyon Lands National Park, Bryce Canyon National Park, Grand Canyon National Park, Zion National Park (Which was all of ours LEAST favorite! We weren't allowed to drive through the park, could only take shuttles, sitting in other random humans' sweat puddles on an insane hot day with THOUSANDS of people. So. Many. People. Could hardly get any good pictures because of all the people in the way), and Capitol Reef National Park.

The "best" part about this trip is I HATE long car rides. Like, absolutely hate them. I start feeling funky and uncomfortable after an hour. I think it comes from having ADD so bad lol That and i absolutely cannot handle heat. Thankfully we stayed in hotels instead of a tent as planned. It was in the 90's AT NIGHT! WE bought a brand spankin new 8 person tent for that trip specifically and we still have not yet used it :))

In 2009 was our first big family vacation that i was really old enough to remember (went to disney world as a kid but that was so freaking long ago!). It literally started as a joke about the fact that us kids had never see Mount Rushmore. So we said we should go and dad said to ask mom. So we called her at work and she thought we were joking so she said start planning! She came home and we actually were :))

And now my dad and i will be going down to Kentucky (from Michigan) to help my sister move to New Mexico. I am looking forward to the destination but NOT the drive :'( But i want to see my sister and her pup so i am going regardless. While we are there, we will stop at some national parks so i will for sure be bringing my camera :D

Sorry for the novel but my family is big on traveling and family vacation when money allows so i love writing about it! I could have gone on but thought i better stop :))

Sorry, it's been a doozy of a week and honestly I pretty much forgot that HaJ existed for a bit. I'll end it on the 20th so hopefully some more people will enter :)

32144

I love traveling, but I've never been out of the US. However, for our 1st anniversary my husband and I flew to Portland and drove down the coast to San Francisco. During the flight from Seattle to Portland, we flew directly over Mount St. Helens. We could see straight down inside the crater of the volcano and all of the destruction that surrounded it. I got some amazing photos from the plane window as we weren't flying very high.

On our way down the coast we visited Crater Lake, which is absolutely beautiful, and then went to a place called Gold Beach and took a jet boat ride up the Rouge River. Awesome ride and amazing scenery. We also drove through the redwoods and stopped a couple of times to explore. It was awesome.

We found a little place called Crescent City where they have an aquarium that lets you pet sharks, so of course we stopped for the night and waited for the place to open the next day. Got to handle anemones and star fish as well as touch a couple of different types of sharks.

When we finally hit San Fran, we took a whale watching trip and saw a small pod of humpbacks in the bay. The captain of our boat had to radio the coast guard and tell them so that they could slow down the cargo ships that were coming in, as the whales were in the shipping lanes. We saw a bunch of sea lions and a few dolphins, too.

All in all, it was an awesome trip. :)

45120

This was several years ago. I was working at a pizza place, and my crew liked to drink together when not on the clock.

One night we decided to take a road trip to the beach. So the next morning 3 of us climbed in the car and made the 1400 mile trip to New Hampshire and spent 2 days soaking up the sea.

It would have been fine if we had turned around and came home at that point, but we decided to hit Atlantic City, and push our days off to the max.

We ended up getting rear ended less than 10 minutes from Atlantic City. Totalled the car, we were all bumps and bruises. The girl who owned the car didn't have rental coverage on her insurance, and we'd been on a budget as there was no planning involved.

Two very sweet boys gave us a ride from the car shop to the bus station, and we rode the Greyhound 3 days home. A motley crew that had to call in favors to get coverage for the day we missed at work.

Some of that pizza team are still my best friends 15 years later.

@DevilsParadise I believe this was supposed to end on the 20th

Sorry all! On the 19th wifi cut out all over campus and on the 21st I left for a 10-day homestay in rural Uganda, so no wifi for two weeks (but I'm loving it!) Such is the nature of study abroad, sorry for the inconvenience.

@Looper and @DevilsParadise, congratulations! I'll send both of your straws over in a jiffy.

Thank you @HTRanch! :D