July 2016 – Stark Adventures

San Antonio – 7.24/25.16

July 31, 2016February 20, 2018karenstark

Headed south from Austin to San Antonio. It’s less than 100 miles. Along the way, we stopped at this cute little historic town called Gruene, which is on the National Register of Historic Places. It was Sunday, and there must have been a thousand people (I’m not even kidding!) there for lunch at the Gristmill River Restaurant. The restaurant spread out all over the place, inside and outside. There were lots of cute little boutique shops, but the highlight is Gruene Hall. It is a saloon and dancehall, in continuous operation since the 1800’s!

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Hello Texas! – 7.23.16

July 25, 2016February 20, 2018karenstark

Heading south from NM to TX. Right off the bat, as soon as we cross the border, we lose another hour of time! DANG!. Texas is in the Central Time Zone.

The shortest route from Carlsbad NM to any sort of freeway in Texas is via Hwy 285. The truckers all know this, and this is where they all are… and all of their blown tire recaps. We are bumping along at the 75 or 80 mph speed limit on a road that needed to be repaved about 30 years ago. It is 105 degrees out. Really, it is that temperature! In a line of trucks. WHAM! We hit a blown tire recap in the middle of the road. %*@$#!!!! Pull over and try not to get hit by a truck. Whew! No flat tires. But, the front passenger side wheel-well cowling is buggered up. The driver/mechanic secures it as best he can. Start down the road and whap! A big ol’ chunk of cowling flies out. Pull over again, and watch behind us. Fortunately everyone steers around it, we back up and recover it. Put it in the back seat. Driver/mechanic once again does what he can to keep more parts from falling off, since we are a good 80 miles to anywhere. Welcome to Texas. There wasn’t even a sign anywhere to tell us Howdy y’all!, so I found this later.

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Carlsbad Caverns – 7.22.16

July 24, 2016February 20, 2018karenstark

This National Park is out in the middle of nowhere desertville.

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The road in….

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This is known as the “natural entrance” to the caverns. Read more →

Sedona, AZ to Roswell, NM – 7.21.16

July 24, 2016February 20, 2018karenstark

From Sedona, we headed out for a 600+ mile, 10 hour drive to southeast New Mexico! Moving on from crystals and vortexes in Sedona AZ to aluminum hats and aliens in Roswell NM.

This was one of the rest stops along the way. Good warnings for a little Pacific Northwest girl like me! And I saw some goofballs looking under the rocks! WHAAT?!

Cruising along I40, we took a little stop along the way Read more →

Sedona AZ – 7.20.16

July 24, 2016February 20, 2018karenstark

From Tusayan (Grand Canyon), we drove south just about 100 miles to Sedona, AZ and stayed here one night. I had heard it was a beautiful place, so I put it in our itinerary. We got to go on another “squirrelyass” road! (the driver’s words). It was a very pretty drive through Oak Creek Canyon.

It was raining – which answered my question about how it could stay so green around here. The green against the rugged red rocks was beautiful! Read more →

Grand Canyon – 7.19.16

July 22, 2016February 20, 2018karenstark

After Zion, we stayed in Kanab Utah, and drove to the Grand Canyon in the morning. Kanab is a little classic western looking town that has been the setting for many western movies. We found this fun local diner for dinner last night.

It wasn’t long before we said goodbye to Utah, and hello to Arizona. Read more →

Bryce Canyon and Zion – 7.18.16

July 22, 2016February 20, 2018karenstark

We got up in the dark, because our friends back home told us not to miss sunrise at Bryce Canyon. We were there in time, but Mr. Sunshine decided it was a day to stay covered up with blankets of clouds. I believe it would have been breathtaking! But not today, so we hiked in the nice cool morning.

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The canyon is very colorful and amazing! Read more →

Canyonlands and Capitol Reef – 7.17.16

July 20, 2016February 20, 2018karenstark

Done with Arches, and knowing it would be another blistering hot day, we hit the road early. Next up was a drive to southwest Utah through Canyonlands National Park and Capitol Reef National Park. We figured we’d just do the scenic park drives and a couple of short hikes for overlooks in the parks, and take scenic roads from Moab to Bryce.

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At Canyonlands, Mesa Arch was the highlight for us. Read more →

Arches National Park – 7.16.16

July 19, 2016February 20, 2018karenstark

With the weather forecasting over 105 degrees today, (WHAT?!) we got up early to do the Arches National Park. I really wanted to do the hike to the Delicate Arch, which is not a flat easy trail. So we headed out about 7am to Arches – just 5 miles up the road from Moab. It was already in the upper 70’s. I had hoped to do it at sunrise, but…. hmmm… Stark people are not morning people, so that didn’t happen. 🙂

At the beginning of the Delicate Arch trail was Read more →

Jackson Hole WY to Moab UT – 7.15.16

July 16, 2016February 20, 2018karenstark

This was a long day of driving, but it was so scenic and everything we saw was amazingly diverse, so it kept us interested the whole time. We drove all non-interstate highways for about 500 miles, and it took us about 9 hours.

Middle of "not-even-on-the-map" Colorado — Somewhere “not-even-on-the-map” Colorado

We left Jackson Hole, which is a beautiful little town. Read more →