Welcome to Chris McCabe's Post-Pandemic Colorado-Utah National Parks Solo Road Trip!

-
Welcome to the official travel blog for my solo 2021 road trip to the nine national parks of Colorado and Utah (and other sights before, and after, and in between). Alas, Suzanne, Clare, and Conor will not be joining me on this latest road trip. Maybe next time!

I plan to leave bright and early on Saturday, June 12, 2021, and return late on Friday, July 2, 2021, or Saturday, July 3, 2021. A total of 21-22 days of road tripping, with beginning stops in Hannibal, Missouri, home of Mark Twain, and the Homestead National Historical Park in Beatrice, Nebraska, which commemorates the Homestead Act of 1862 and its far-reaching effects upon the landscape and people of America. 

In Colorado, my first stop will be Rocky Mountain National Park, the 4th most visited National Park, with more than 3.3 million visitors. The scenery and hiking and views in Rocky Mountain are stupendous. The park has proved so popular that advance reservations are now needed in order to enter the park.
After that I'll be driving the engineering feat known as I-70 across the Continental Divide and through the Eisenhower Tunnel, and across bridges and viaducts, through Glenwood Canyon which features the No Name Tunnel, Hanging Lake Tunnel, Reverse Curve Tunnel, 40 bridges and viaducts, and miles of retaining walls. All on the way to Moab, Utah. Before reaching Utah, I plan to take a short detour in Grand Junction, Colorado, to drive the historic Rim Rock Drive in Colorado National Monument.
After Utah, I hope to visit Monument Valley Tribal Park (if open) and the famous Four Corners National Monument (where the states of Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado meet) (if open). Then, I'm back in Colorado with visits planned for Mesa Verde National Park, Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, and Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve. While in Colorado, I also hope to take a ride on the famous Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad.

After that, on the way home, I'll be visiting Raton, New Mexico, and Tulsa, Oklahoma. My visit to Tulsa coincides with the 100th anniversary of Tulsa's horrific 1921 Race Massacre. It's my hope that the new Greenwood Rising museum, which commemorates the 1921 massacre, will be open when I visit. I also hope to check out the Woody Guthrie Center. Alas, the Bob Dylan Center in Tulsa will not be open to the public until May 10, 2022 (necessitating a repeat road trip).

Finally, I'll try to make stops in St. Louis at Gateway Arch National Park and in West Virginia at New River Gorge National Park and Preserve, the newest national park!
After that, it's a beeline to home, to get to work planning another road trip for 2022.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Mark Twain Boyhood Home & Museum, Hannibal, Missouri

-
Image
After arriving in Hannibal, the boyhood home of Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain, I parked the car and ventured into the Mark Twain Museum Gallery which I had conveniently parked in front of (though I had no idea where the museum was when I parked). I paid the $12 admission fee, and was treated to exhibits on Mark Twain's main works of literature, and other miscellany about his life, his works, and his influences.  After touring the gallery, I headed over to the other parts of the Museum , including his boyhood home, Becky Thatcher's house, the Huckleberry Finn House, an interpretive center, the J.M. Clemens Justice of the Peace Office, and Grant's Drug Store.  All in all, a true bargain at $12 if ever there was one! Before leaving, I asked a stranger to take a photo of me in front of Tom Sawyer's fence. She happily obliged.
Read more

Flight 93 National Memorial

-
Image
After the flawed exit to see Wilbur Wright's birthplace, I was determined to redeem the day with a visit to an attraction which was worthy of a road trip detour. In 2013, on the last stop on the way home from the Grand Canyon, Clare and Conor and I visited the Flight 93 National Memorial. That was only two years after its creation, and at the time there was only a wall of names and a parking lot. There was no visitor center and no other amenities. So I decided to fit in a visit on the way home as I knew that there were now more features to the Memorial.  The Memorial is located in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, about a 15-minute detour from the Somerset turnpike exit. Fast forward some eight years later, the Memorial is now full fledged, with a Visitor Center, a Memorial Plaza, including the original white marble wall with the names of the passengers and crew, a Memorial Grove of trees, and a giant tower with 40 wind chimes called the Tower of Voices.  The Memorial is very solemn ...
Read more

Breakfast at Kumback Lunch

-
Image
The hotel offered only a cold breakfast, so on the recommendation of the lady at the hotel, I headed to downtown Perry, Oklahoma, for a full breakfast at Kumback Lunch, a cafe with the same name and location since 1926, and billed as the oldest cafe in Oklahoma. The 1930's gangster Pretty Boy Floyd apparently ate at Kumback, and his photo hangs on the wall. As did Charlie Hanger, the state trooper who arrested Timothy McVeigh in 1995, after the Oklahoma City bombing.  When I finished breakfast, I took a stroll around the town of Perry and came across another Carnegie library and a mural of the state of Oklahoma which was situated on a wall next to the Perry Wrestling Monument Park , which honors a history of extraordinary high school wrestling champions at the local Perry high school. It's an homage to small town America for sure. Carnegie library in Perry, Oklahoma Mural at Perry Wrestling Monument Park
Read more