Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona

Hello All,

Well, we did go to the Petrified Forest on our way to the Grand Canyon on Sunday afternoon.  If you don't know what petrified wood is, it's wood that has been mineralized and turned into rock.  This petrified wood is beautiful colors, pink, black, red, white and sometimes purple.  Here's a little more about the forest from the National Park's website: "With one of the world's largest and most colorful concentrations of petrified wood, multi-hued badlands of the Painted Desert, historic structures, archeological sites, native grassland, and displays of over thousand-year-old fossils, this is a surprising land of scenic wonders and fascinating science." We were there for about three hours and got to see many beautiful pieces of petrified wood. Pictures? We got 'em!

Petrified wood, it looks like a rock!

Petrified wood, many colors

Isn't that pattern neat??

Biking at Dead Horse Point State Park Moab, Utah

Hi All,

So just a few days ago, Saturday to be exact, Mom, Dad, Ben, and I decided to take a mountain biking trip at, Dead Horse Point State Park.  The park gets its name from a cowboy legend passed down for decades.  In the 1820’s or so, a group of cowboys went and put a group of horses on a small point of land, this land was essentially a peninsula in the sky.  The horses were stuck out on the land and over time the good ones were weeded out form the bad.  Well the bad horses were left to die one time on the land there for earning it the name Dead Horse Point.  Back to the mountain biking, after we had embarked on our little quest, Dad’s bike was having issues and Mom couldn’t do it.  So, Mom and Dad traded bikes and we continued.  The total length of our ride was about 5 miles and one of the views we saw was so spectacular; check out the pictures.  So that was our ride, let me know what you think by leaving a comment.   JTT

Isn't that view amazing? 

Mesa Verde National Park, Mesa Verde Colorado

Hey All That May Be Interested, (this means YOU!)

OK, so you might be wondering why we went from Utah to Colorado, well it's kind of simple.  Moab, Utah was closer to Mesa Verde than Grand Junction Colorado. We went to Mesa Verde National Park on Saturday afternoon and spent the night at the campground inside the park.  Here is a bit of history from the national park website!


"Mesa Verde, Spanish for green table, offers a spectacular look into the lives of the Ancestral Pueblo people who made it their home for over 700 years, from A.D. 600 to A.D. 1300. Today, the park protects over 4,000 known archeological sites, including 600 cliff dwellings. These sites are some of the most notable and best preserved in the United States."


These cliff dwellings are amazing, they are built into the cliff faces and are pueblo houses.  We got to go on a Ranger-led tour to go through the ruins of two of the houses.  Here are some of the pictures we took!

A Keiva, used by the Pueblo as a religious
site and a home in the winter. 

Looking at the Balcony house, 700 feet above the canyon floor.

Cliff Palace, the largest dwelling in the park! 

Canyonlands National Park, Moab, Utah

Hello Everyone,

Friday evening we went to Canyonlands National Park in Moab. Canyonlands is many canyons and some arches that are red rock.  Here's a little history from the National Parks Service Website.  Before there was a United States, Native Americans lived in Canyonlands. Coyboys, outlaws and explorers all went through Canyonlands before the United States established it as a National Park. "On September 12, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson established Canyonlands National Park. Initially consisting of 257,640 acres, Congress expanded Canyonlands to its present size of 337,598 acres in 1971." Here is a picture we took!   

Canyonlands National Park

Alpaca Farm and High Country Orchards

Yep, Everyone, that's right, an Alpaca farm, yep, real, live Alpacas, cousins to Llamas.  We went to Suncrest Alpaca Farm on Friday, September 2nd at about 9 in the morning. We drove up to a house that had a barn out back with some Alpacas out back.  These fuzzy, and odd looking animals are kept for either showing or their fleece which is 8 times warmer than wool, no lanolin (making the wool seem greasy) and isn't scratchy. About 40% of the population is hypoallergenic to wool, but only 3% is allergic to the Alpaca fleece.  We got to see the process from which the fleece is turned into yarn. By the way, Josh and I got some awesome Alpaca fleece hats! They are very warm and pretty cool! We got some pictures!

So also in the title is High Country Orchards, they grow mainly grapes and Palisade peaches. These Palisade peaches are known as the world's best peaches, and boy are they ever! Palisade peaches are as big as Josh's hand and weigh in at about a half a pound each! Here are the pictures from the Orchard and Alpaca Farm.

All of us with baby Alpaca, Rocky.

A white bunny that is kept for its fleece

Palisade peaches the size of Josh's hand!

Josh and I in our Alpaca fleece hats!

Arches National Park, Moab Utah

Hello All You Blog Followers,

We went to Arches National Park in Moab, Utah on Thursday, August 1st.  In Arches National Park over 2,000 natural sandstone arches are preserved, like world-famous Delicate Arch and other unusual rock formations. The extraordinary features in the park create unique a landscape of contrasting colors, landforms and textures that is unlike any other in the world. When we got to Moab on Thursday evening, we parked the RV at the OK RV Campground (yep, that's the name!) and headed to Arches National Park.  Visitors come from all over the world to see Arches, they are beautiful. So you know that our Georgia clay is red, well, the arches look red also! We hiked to see the different Arches, took pictures and enjoyed the scenery.  Here are some of the pictures:

The "Three Gossips"

Window Arches (one of the two)

Looking under and out of Window Arch

Xcel Energy Power Plant Tour, Hudson , Colorado

Hello Everyone,

Sorry we didn't get to post about the tour sooner, I didn't really know what to say, so I had to wait till Dad had a free moment to talk about the Xcel Power Plant tour.

Mom's Uncle John who lives just outside of Denver, Colorado got us a tour of the Xcel where his son, Matthew Barth has worked as an Electrician for about 4 years. So, in other words, Matthew is mom's cousin and Uncle John is us kids' Great Uncle, a bit confusing. Anyway, when we got to Xcel we were given hard hats, safety goggles and earplugs.  We headed into the Control room where the status of the natural gas turbans are monitored, there are large drawings of the turbans and Matt explained how they worked. Next, we proceeded to the Natural Gas field where the gas comes into the plant.  After putting in earplugs we walked into a small building where there was the first turban was located. We took out the earplugs and walked into the Power Plant Distribution Room, with many, many circuits.  So ya'll have seen Sub Stations before, right? Well we stood about 50 feet away from one, (closer than many people ever get to go) took a picture and could hear the electrical current humming overhead! Pretty amazing, huh? After getting uncomfortable close to all that electrical current, we hiked up a tower about 75 feet tall to see the cooling towers.  The cooling towers are huge with huge giant fans.

After the tour we went to Matt's house and met his wife, Jamie and their two boys, Cody, 8, and Brandon, 5.  We hung out with them, talking about our trip and seeing their house for about 45 minutes.  Afterwards we went back to Valeda's house to take her out for her early birthday dinner at Wishbone Restaurant and had a yummy meal.

Here are the pictures from the tour!

Outside the Control Room

Only 50 feet from a sub station!

Peeking in to see the huge fans

From left: Uncle John, Brandon (sitting), Cody (standing) and Jamie