National Parks IV

Besides reliving my trip, I get a good review of our friend the Roman numeral. To digress much sooner than usual, the Romans were good at everything except math. They had architecture, literature, sculpture, politics...you name it, they led the way. But there were no great Roman mathematicians. That is because some Roman foolius came up with Roman numerals. They couldn't multiply, divide, have fractions, decimals...They were lost. OK, I'm done. Back to the present day.

So three national parks in one day. Southern Utah is just amazing. They've got five awesome parks all relatively close together. But actually today I start in Colorado. I spent my first night ever in Colorado, just barely inside the border. Mesa Verde National Park is actually cooler than I made it. Its main claim is having ancient Native American dwellings. But one part you could visit was closed down due to some rock slides and another part required you to sign up ahead of time and have a ranger escort. That escorted trip takes about four hours. Doing three parks in one day, I didn't have that kind of time. But I still saw some cool things. There was a scary drive, gaining a lot of altitude in a short amount of time. But once on top, things flattened out. I found a trail that was good. Eventually it got to vast panoramic views (not sure what that means) that were way up high. A little bit scary high. I cut my run short after I had enough. I can't run the risk that I would lose control and hurl myself off the cliff. But I didn't chicken out right away. I hung in there long enough to get some good pictures.

Next it was Arches National Park. Again, I found a trail that had a number of people at the trail head, but no one actually on the trail itself. There is a bit of sameness to Southern Utah, yet all of the parks have had a different feel to them. This, though, like the last one, had a treacherous drive up a mountain road, which if I looked to the right, would have scared me real bad. I can't imagine driving big old trailers and campers on these roads, but there are certainly plenty of those. Anyway, very interesting rock formations. I didn't see a lot of arches, but that is my own fault for making a six day trip out of what should probably been a three week trip.

Last today is Canyonlands. I parked in a nice vista area, but then found a great trail. It actually made for a ten mile loop, which I would have done if I had the time or the energy. Plus, it looked like there could be more storms in the next hour or so. As it was, I did my typical three miles, but that took about an hour. I would stop for pictures or sometime the terrain was bad enough you had to wind your way around rocks or slowly go down a steep incline. Again, no one else around. If something happens to me it will be weeks before they find my body. But on the plus side, I will have passed on in a really scenic location.

So nine miles totally of running today. Tomorrow is the same thing - three national parks and nine miles of running. My legs are holding out fine so far. On the plus side, I'm going slow because of taking pictures and the rough terrain, but on the other had its probably hard on my little legs as there is a lot of climbing and possible ankle sprains around every corner.