All quintessentially western vacations must include a rodeo and you might as well start with the granddaddy of them all, Cheyenne, Wyoming?s Frontier Days. For ten days at the end of each July, this modern American city is transported back in time to the days of the Wild West taking more than 300,000 visitors along for the ride. Join the fun and kick start your own western adventure through history.
1. Cheyenne, Wyoming:
Time your trip to coincide with Frontier Days and you?ll be entertained by ten days of rollicking western fun. Frontier Day?s PRCA/PBR-sanctioned rodeo is reputed to be the largest outdoor rodeo and western celebration in the world. But the fun doesn?t stop with the bull riding, bronc bustin?, calf roping, barrel riding and horse racing, there are concerts every evening, a midway and fair with rides, games and food vendors, fireworks, and a Wild West Show and Indian Village. Cheyenne doesn?t hold back during Frontier Days and the whole town is out to celebrate its western heritage. What better way to start your road trip than with a little journey back in time. Fun for kids and adults and anyone in between. (Frontier Days is held during the last ten days of July every year. Visit http://www.cheyenne.org to learn more.)
2. Denver, Colorado:
Denver is a modern metropolitan center with a lively downtown business district, a thriving arts scene, numerous museums and galleries, fine dining and shopping, and plenty of cultural and recreational attractions for visitors. The city is understandably proud of the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, one of the best regional museums of its sort in the world. The museum hosts visiting exhibits, offers permanent displays for all ages including hands-on exploration for kids, and has an IMAX theatre and a planetarium. If the kids need a bit of an adrenalin pick-up after the car ride, take them out to either Elitch Gardens and Island Kingdom Water Park or to Lakeside Amusement Park for an afternoon of thrills. And the Denver Center for the Performing Arts features Broadway theatre, opera, ballet and symphony performances throughout the year. Check out what is on the docket before you leave home, and pick up some tickets for a night at the theatre while you are in Denver http://www.denvercenter.org/Home.aspx. Finally, as you head west out of Denver, take a moment to stop in Golden right off the I-70 corridor on the outskirts of the city. Here you can take a tour of the Coors Brewery, visit the Colorado School of Mines, or learn a bit about America?s mountaineering history at the American Alpine Club?s recently opened Bradford Washburn American Mountaineering Museum: the first and only museum in the United States dedicated to the heroism, technology, culture and spirit of mountaineering.
3. Glenwood Springs, Colorado:
Glenwood Springs has been attracting tourists since the internationally known hot springs resort was built at the confluence of the Colorado and Roaring Fork Rivers in 1888. Home to the largest mineral hot springs pool in the world, Glenwood Springs makes a great stopover for a soak and a meal, or for a day or two of adventure. The pool averages 90 degrees Fahrenheit with a therapy pool that reaches 104 degrees, and has slides, diving boards and bubble chairs to keep you entertained. Nearby, the Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park offers cave tours that range from a 70-minute walk through a spectacular underground maze to special adventure tours for those wanting to get down and dirty. Rated one of America?s Top Ten Cave Tours by USA Today, Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park also includes Colorado?s only four-dimensional movie theatre with interactive seats that make you feel part of the show, a laser-tag park, a bungee trampoline, a giant swing shot and more: plenty of activity to keep everyone entertained.
4. Grand Junction, Colorado:
Named for the confluence of the Colorado (formerly known as the Grand) and the Gunnison Rivers, Grand Junction is the largest city in western Colorado and provides access to a number of outdoor recreational opportunities: hiking or road biking amongst the red cliffs and spires of the Colorado National Monument, mountain biking in nearby Fruita (considered by many to have the best mountain biking in Colorado), or exploring the rugged wilderness of the Book Cliffs, a 200-mile long escarpment that parallels I-70 west into Utah. Grand Junction?s moderate climate has transformed the valley into a wine-maker?s paradise. You can take a wine tour of local vineyards at any time of the year, but the late summer harvest tour when the grapes are picked and processed is a definite highlight for any wine enthusiast. Or plan your visit to coincide with Grand Junction?s annual Colorado Mountain Winefest featuring grape stomps, winery tours, wine tastings, and cooking demonstrations. The festival is held in early September.
5. Scenic Side Trip:
River Road from Cisco to Moab (Highway 128): If you aren?t pressed for time and you don?t mind twisty, turny roads, leave I-70 behind on Highway 128 a few miles west of the Colorado border for the scenic route into Moab. The road starts out across barren, high desert flats where you?ll see little beside a few scraggly sagebrush bushes and some blackbrush before it drops down beside the Colorado River as it slices down through the colorful layers of rock that make up the Colorado Plateau. Stop by Fisher Towers, a craggy, surreal landscape of sculpted sand and mudstone from the Moenkopi and Cutler Formations. There is a short trail that winds through the towers (the tallest one rises 900 feet above you) giving visitors a chance to stretch their legs and encounter these strange formations up close. If you are lucky, you may see climbers testing their skills on the intricate routes that weave through the weird rock. Climbing the Fisher Towers is not for everyone: the rock is soft and can be quite loose, but the summits are surreal. West of the Fisher Towers, you can make a detour into Castle Valley where numerous spires of Wingate Sandstone rise above the desert floor. Known by names like the Priest and Rectory, these spires attract rock climbers from around the world to tackle their vertical sides in pursuit of an airy summit. Campsites abound along the Colorado and one, Big Bend Campsite, provides immediate access to some fun boulders for testing one?s climbing skills close to the ground. Raft trips lasting a few hours are run along this stretch of the Colorado. Check in Moab for details.
6. Moab, Utah:
Moab is the gateway to both Arches and Canyonlands National Parks, two dramatically different but equally beautiful desert parks worthy of exploring. Arches, as its name implies, is famous for the more than 2,000 natural arches formed in the Entrada Sandstone found here. These arches range from small windows in the rock to Landscape Arch, which at 300 feet across is the largest natural arch in the world. The National Park offers great hikes ranging in length and difficulty from paved, wheelchair-accessible paths to rugged, scrambles. Nearby Canyonlands has a larger scale than Arches: hikes tend to be longer and more remote, distances between scenic viewpoints farther, and the landscape more expansive. Outside the national parks, Moab is desert country?s adventure capital. You can mountain bike, rock climb, canyoneer, go four-wheeling, take a raft trip, or even float over the landscape in a hot-air balloon. Moab is featured in the New York Times bestseller: 1,000 Places To See Before You Die and there?s no shortage of activities to keep you entertained. The downside to Moab is that the town has been discovered and during peak season in the spring and fall, the area is quite crowded, so if you want accommodations and to book an adventure, it?s best to plan ahead and make reservations. Moab has lots of great restaurants, galleries and shops as well.
7. Edge of the Cedars State Park, Blanding, Utah:
South of Moab a few hours you come to the small, rural community of Blanding. It?s easy to pass through Blanding without stopping, there?s not much to catch your eye from the main road except some gas stations and convenience stores, but the town is home to a wonderful museum and cultural site that provides an excellent introduction to southeastern Utah?s rich pre-Colombian history. The Edge of the Cedars Museum features the remains of an ancestral Pueblo Indian village and an extensive collection of Anasazi pottery and artifacts. Interpretive displays explain the history of the ancient civilization that once flourished in the Four Corners region as well as introduces you to the unique ecosystem found here. Southeastern Utah is full of cultural sites like the one at the Edge of the Cedars, most of which are hidden from view to the casual visitor. If you are interested in exploring, pick up Kathleen Rivers? book Standing Rocks and Sleeping Rainbows: Mile-by-Mile through Southeast Utah. The book is a great reference for road trippers pointing out some of the more accessible pre-Colombian cultural sites you pass by in your car.
8. Valley of the Gods:
A smaller version of the more famous Monument Valley, the Valley of the Gods consist of isolated red cliffs, buttes and spires standing up from the valley floor. Unlike Monument Valley, Valley of the Gods lies on Bureau of Land Management lands and is undeveloped with no restrictions on hiking or camping. You can explore the valley by a 17-mile dirt road that winds among the formations. The road can be rough but is passable to normal passenger cars in good weather. To add excitement to your excursion, take Utah Highway 261 south from US 163 to reach the Valley of the Gods. This road runs across flat pinyon-juniper covered mesa before plunging down a 1,200-foot escarpment into the Valley of the Gods. It?s exciting driving with incredible views. Again, totally doable in a normal car but RVs and trailers are not recommended. Like Monument Valley 30 miles to the southwest, the Valley of the Gods is a photographer?s paradise, particularly at sunset when the landscape blushes red in the evening glow. The pinnacles here bear fanciful names such as Setting Hen Butte, Lady in the Bathtub, and Rudolph and Santa Claus. Nearby Bluff, Utah has a number of motels and restaurants catering to tourists, and raft or canoes trips down the San Juan River usually start nearby at Sand Wash. Don?t miss the San Juan Kitchen in Bluff. The restaurant is a surprise: sophisticated dining featuring local food and fine wines in the middle of nowhere. http://www.sanjuanriverkitchen.com/default.html
9. Monument Valley:
When you first see Monument Valley?s spires rise up above the landscape, you will probably feel a sense of d? vu. Most of us have seen these monuments before, if not in person than in some photography book, advertisement or movie. Monument Valley is one of the most iconic landscapes in the American West and for that reason alone, it is worth turning off the highway for a visit. The valley is situated along the Utah-Arizona border on the Navajo Reservation and is part of the Navajo Tribal Park. A scenic drive winds through the towers and buttes and provides visitors with a closer view of its dramatic features. One three-mile hike is available for those who want to walk. The park charges an entrance fee.
10. Navajo National Monument:
Located near Shonto, Arizona, this national monument is relatively unknown and unvisited, but not because its attractions do not deserve attention. Three intact Ancestral Puebloan cliff dwellings are located in the monument and can be visited by foot or seen from nearby overlooks. The monument is open year-round and has camping facilities available.
11. Paige, Arizona and Lake Powell:
Okay there were only supposed to be ten attractions, but you can?t drive by Lake Powell without oogling at the surreal juxtaposition of water and rock. The azure blue of the reservoir contrasts dramatically against the stark grandeur of salmon-colored cliffs that once formed Glen Canyon creating a strange landscape that demands attention. As controversial as Lake Powell and the Glen Canyon Dam remain today, decades after its construction inundated the surrounding canyons, the area is beautiful and dramatic and worth exploring. You can rent a motorboat, houseboat or sea kayaks to cruise across the water and poke your way up into the nooks and crannies along the lakeshore. Rainbow Bridge, the largest known natural bridge in the world with a span of 278 feet and a height of 309 feet, or roughly the same as the U.S. Capitol in Washington, was once remote and seldom seen, but the creation of Lake Powell provides easy access for visitors by boat.
Grand Canyon?s South Rim. You made it!
