Tucson to Kansas then back thru Colorado and Utah

GTABurnout

Explorer
On Saturday 6-30-12, my girl and I left Tucson to visit her family in Great Bend Kansas. The plan was to non-stop to Kansas all 16 hours in one swoop. We left around 2pm and headed thru New Mexico where we had a great view of a fantastic sun set....

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I drove thru the night only stopping for gas....
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We arrived at her familys farm around 9am (I forgot about the two hour time difference).

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Hung out for a few days I took a few pics

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Finally it was time to leave Kasas, and head for my part of the trip. A drive thru Colorado and on to Moab.

Denver was unbelievably smokey, just out side of Denver we pulled over for lunch check out the haze, and smoke.

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We spent the night in Grand Junction with plans to take Utah 128 in to Moab. This turned out to be a great decision. Amazing views and a great way to experience Utah for the first time.

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GTABurnout

Explorer
Great pics!

Waitin' for more...

Awesome photography
Thanks

Hey, your cap doesn't match. :ylsmoke:

:) Nice pictures, please keep them coming.

LOL I know man it was hard to deal with but it was a cheap camper that kept all our gear dry so I had to deal with it screwing up my pics....

A few more from the trip thru Utah 128 and Moab...

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TOW-MATER

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On to Valley of the Gods Road. Down right amazing views along this road. Very glad we decided to head out this direction....

So we pull off on to Valley f the gods road and I get oyut to air down figuring this is a dirt road might as well make it smooth. As I begine to airdown a minivan and a dodge charger pass me leaving the dirt. Great I figure now I am wasting my time a damn car just drove down the road. I was pretty happy with the choice to air down though as soon as I hit the wash board.

Begining of the road
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We where just aead of a preety good size storm that chased us thru Moab.
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rain caught up to us here.

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GTABurnout

Explorer
We exited Valley of the Gods road on to 261 and decided to head up the dirt for a look at the view from the saddle.

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And of course Mexican Hat Rock

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From there we picked up the pace. I really wanted to get to Monument Valley before the sunset. Now maybe my plan to get back to Tucson that night clouded my preception but after driving Valley of the Gods and basically having unlimited access to the towers Monument Valley with all the RV's, and tourist crap it ruined the entire place for me. We tried to find a dirt road that would take us some where cool but the GPS and my maps had nothing that actually went anywhere. We did take a dirt road in to some of the houses in the area, but nothing special. So I kept the camera in the car as a protest and we pushed on to Flagstaff to decide if we where going to stay there fro the night or head home. Arriving in Flagstaff around 7:30pm we grabbed some food and headed for Tucson.

Great trip all and all, I would have never thought Colorado and Utah had such beauty. I have read the trip reports but seeing it in person was awesome. Now we are planning a camping trip back to Utah so we can spend some real time exploring. In fact we are also thinking of taking a small detour on our annual trip to Vegas for SEMA and hit up Zion Park on the way out.

Big thanks to EXPO and its members for all the trip reports from this area that led me to make sure I saw it for my self.

-Hunter
 

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