San Francisco

After more than fifty hours of driving, during this trip, the last two seem to be the hardest, the traffic around San Francisco is very heavy. Today at 11:00 AM, we finally arrived to our new apartment. Our household arrived a few days ahead of us, waiting for us to unpack, and set, in its new place. We spent the rest of the day settling down - unpacking and shopping.

The trip is over, it was an amazing experience for us, we learned a lot about USA's geography and people, and perhaps even more about ourselves.

Thank you for following our journey, posting comments, and encouraging us to keep writing this blog.

Rony, Galit, Naomi and Bruno

California ?

We started the day at beautiful and deserted Salt Lake city. We took Bruno and Naomi for a tour around downtown, having breakfast at a cute cafe. The streets were wide and clean, and snowy mountains were visible from many of them, but there were hardly any people. Very strange for a Thursday morning... Afterwards, we headed off to Reno, Nevada. This leg of our journey was the part we dreaded most. It consists of 520 miles through the dessert of Nevada. We weren't sure we'll be able to pass it in a single day, and we were ready to stop somewhere before Reno.
As we started the trip, we found that the road was easy to drive. In the first couple of hours we passed through the salt lake (it's mostly dry and the road passes through it). Then we entered Nevada and found that it too has many green hills and even some snow covered mountains. Since we both participated in driving, and Naomi cooperated, we were able to get to Reno before the sunset.
Gambling is legal in Nevada so most hotels have casinos in them. We were reluctant to spend the night at a casino hotel, and we assumed we'll be able to find some chain motel right after the California border. So since Reno is only a few miles away from California, we decided to continue. Well, there were no motels. West of Reno the area becomes vacation destination with lodges and inns for people who come to vacation at Lake Tahoe. Most of these require advance booking and we didn't want to start hunting for a place to stay at this point. So we moved further into California to a larger town with some basic motels. When we finally got our room Naomi was very happy to say goodbye to her car seat and hello to her giraffe. We are now about 130 miles from San Francisco, we'll be at our new home tomorrow!

Island in the Sky, 3000 Miles from Starting Point

Island in the sky area is part of the Canyonlands National Park. It stands 1000 feet above vast canyons area carved by the Colorado and Green rivers, called Canyonlands. Every overlook from the island's cliffs offers a different perspective on Canyonlands’ spectacular landscape. This was our main destination today. It was just as impressive as we imagined it would be. Unfortunately, this is the last park we'll visit, as we need to start heading west towards San Francisco. We started by driving north west to Salt Lake city, Utah. During this drive we hit the 3000 miles (4828 km) milestone! Like in Colorado, the scenery along the roads is very diverse, and just as beautiful. The red canyons turn into green hills and valleys and then into snow topped mountains as we moved north west. Driving west during sunset is challenging, but the way the hills and meadows are lit during this time is especially rewarding. The sunset was in its peak as we approached Salt Lake City. The city is situated in a valley surrounded by mountains and the sunset colored everything in beautiful orange and gold (Galit tried to take pictures for you while Rony drove but they didn't come out nicely). At the city, we took a nice, pet friendly, hotel in the center of town, and took a walk around. Not much to do in the city center at night, but it's safe and the Mormon church has a lovely park we could walk in.

Naomi's Post

Today mommy and daddy were tired, and for the first time, stayed at the same hotel for two nights. They said they have a lot of things to do around here, in Moab, Utah. Bruno was not very useful either, he preferred to chill out on the balcony. Well, since they were all so tired, I decided to chip in and help with the driving part. I took them to the Arches national park, it was very impressive, mommy and daddy took lots of pictures. They told me they plan to organize all the photos once they arrive, and even promised to publish photos of themselves. After spending the day driving in the park from one site to the other, we came back to the city to rest and have a late lunch. I reminded them we did not see the most famous arch of them all and urged them to go back, do a short 1.5 mile (2.4 km) trek, up the hill, and see it. Surprisingly, they agreed, and we headed off to the park again, to see the "delicate arch" during sunset. We made it almost all the way to the top, but strong winds stopped us, and we came back down without seeing it, maybe next time…
Mommy and daddy were too tired after the trek, and I had to write this post myself.

Naomi

Colorado

Before embarking on our trip people told us we're crazy driving such a big distance especially with a baby and a dog. We agree it can be challenging at times, especially towards the end of the day when all 4 of us are tired. Today we faced a challenge we did not expect, we were over- whelmed by the dramatic and extremely diverse landscape of Colorado. We started our day at Estes Park, a town on the edge of Rocky Mountain National Park, and made our way south west out of Colorado and into Moab, Utah. As we left the snowy mountains of the park, the temperature got higher, and the views changed to green pastures with horses and cows scattered in large ranches. The dramatic, snow- capped mountains were still visible in the distance. Soon we neared Denver, a big metropolis that looked ugly on this beautiful land. We zoomed by it, entering a magical land of ski resorts. The mountains were heavy with pine trees; snow covered their tops and melted into rolling streams and many small waterfalls. We met some buffalos in a valley where a nature preserve was set aside for them. Suddenly the scenery changed again. The dense, deep green, pine forests were replaced by smaller and sparser shrubs. The mountains now revealed their geological qualities - vertical layers of brown, grey and black stone, large red rocks in impossible angles. The road winded through canyons, formed by the mighty Colorado River. The Colorado River appeared wide and brown in some places and narrower and blue in others. As we continued to travel west the canyons became wider and lined by red cliffs. The highlight of that region was the "Colorado National Monument" – a national park that is composed of those amazing red cliffs. There is a road on the rim of the cliffs. Exhausted but still not ready to stop for the day, we decided to drive to our next stop – Moab in Utah. Now, there was no trace of the snow we saw in the morning. A large desert surrounded us with the exception of the Colorado River, which still flowed near the highway. As we neared Moab, we were pleasantly surprised to see to our south - mountains topped with… Yes, you guessed it, snow! So here we are, past midnight, sitting in our hotel room and literally amazed by all this diverse natural beauty we passed by today…

Rocky Mountains National Park

Luckily today was a cold day, so cold that the road we planned to take through the "Rocky Mountain National Park" was closed due to heavy snow. This forced us stay in the park, and allowed us more time to do some trails. The cold gave us two other benefits – the park was not crowded and we could leave Bruno in the car without concern that he'll over-heat while we hiked some trails (dogs are not allowed on the trails of the park). Our day was wonderful, full with magnificent views of snow covered peaks, lakes, forests and streams. We were even lucky to see noble Elks. Unfortunately Naomi still cannot appreciate their beauty, and did not share our excitement, but we will definitely put Colorado on our "return list".

A Different Kind of Highway

Today we'll do a short post, we are very tired... We just arrived to Boulder Colorado, after an amazing day trip to Pikes Peak. This is one of the highest mountains in Colorado, and probably of the most popular one. It's height is 14,110 feet, or 4,300 meters. There is a narrow two lane road that leads all the way to the peak, called Pike's Peak Highway, giving the word highway a new meaning. We actually did not make it all the way to the top, as we did not feel very well with the altitude, and did not want to risk Naomi. We were told she should be safe until height of 4,000 meters, this is pretty much as far as we went. Still pretty impressive considering her age! The views were amazing! both of us agree that this is one of the most breath taking places we've ever been to. Here's a picture of Naomi at a lower point of the highway. The snowy mountain behind her is Pikes Peak.