The travel backlog

Since I have been a blogging slacker the past couple weeks I'm going to attempt to play a little catch-up with some travel stories that I missed because of all the, well...all the travel. Lots going on with tri-season ramping up too, and all the planning and plotting and whining that goes along with that, (you'd be whining about 6am cycling workouts on Saturdays too....considering its only February!) so there should be lots to talk about.

So after two amazing weeks in Colorado, I was back in the Midwest for a whoppin' three days before heading out for a long weekend in Utah -- the perfect plan for those that have trouble adjusting to the 'real world' after travel. Not the perfect plan for tending to the giant piles of work that have likely accumulated in your absence.

I was, on the whole, underwhelmed with Utah. But I'll have more on that later. Until then, this is what you do when it is 40-degrees and doesn't snow for over seven days in a row in the mountains.
You go to Arches National Park. When you SHOULD be getting face shots of this remarkable Utah powder....you instead, spend 8 hours in a car wondering why you didn't just take those three wasted days in the middle off and DRIVE to Park City (a mere five hours from where you had been in Colorado) so that you would have a car to DRIVE you back to someplace that has snow right now.

And to further add to my frustration, I had debated about lugging my "good" camera but decided that would be silly since I would be on the mountain every day. So I now found myself in a photographers playground with a low-end, digital point-and-shoot. A camera I specifically bought under the premise that it should be something I wouldn't cry about if I dropped it in a snowbank (which I actually did, while snowshoeing in Steamboat) or accidentally fling it off a cliff somewhere.

So I watched the sunset, and did what I could with the equipment I had. Here are a few more pics:
About mid-way through the drive it got foggy and frosty.

Then, nothing but wide open spaces.
Then about 30 minutes before sunset. Arches. Stellar timing, eh? It's Utah's fault though. If I hadn't had to spend an hour looking for a coffee shop en route we would have had a lot more time. But I'll talk about my opinion of Utah's relationship with caffeine some other time....

The sunset was quite nice. Its really the best part of the day anyway. If anyone would like a guide to seeing Arches National Park in 30 minutes, just let me know. It can be done.