We left Great Basin Ntnl Park in the afternoon and expected a full 8 hours of driving to make it through Utah to Canyonlands, UT on the Eastern side of the state. Along the route, we took advantage of a few rest/view areas; Castle Valley and Spotted Wolf Canyon were both spectacular but we stayed only a few minute at each as we knew it would be well into the night before we made our destination.
As luck would have it, the closer we got to Canyonlands the clouds great larger and larger. By the time the sun was setting, it had begun raining. By the time we made it to our south-bound turn off towards Canyonlands, it was pouring. We stopped to research the weather and decided that a day im the mud at Canyonlands was not what we were looking for, so we continued East into Grand Junction were we stopped for the night.
In the morning, we were only a short 1.5 hour drive away from Black Canyon Ntnl Park. Arriving early in the morning, our excitement to visit this park was quickly trampled by the reality that the boat tour company takes a single day off each week; Tuesdays… and today is Tuesday!
We still took the time to drive the South Rim road and explore each of the pullouts and their view of the canyon. While the views were awesome, the fact that we could not do what we really came here for took a lot out of it. I’d like to come back here on any other day to truly see this park as it should be seen… from the bottom up.
We stayed only 4 hours before beginning our 6 hour drive towards home that would include 5 hours of driving up, on, and over the Rocky Mountains. We drove over Monarch Pass which is well over the 11,000 ft elevation mark and began our downward spiral into the flat lands of Denver just in time for rush hour traffic.
Just as we were leaving Denver, the brake pedal in the van began to feel mushy. I knew the brakes were on the brink so even through rush hour traffic I stayed off them as much as possible. The last 36 miles home I used the brakes only 3 times; once to get off the Interstate and twice more on my street and driveway. The use of the brakes on the off ramp lit up the BRAKE warning indicator on the van so the final 6 miles were spent puckered and grinding our teeth. We were NOT going to fall 6 miles short of home!
Obviously we made it home, and the brakes were repaired the next day. A simple problem that could happen to anyone, at any time; ruptured brake line. However, consider if that happened just an hour or two earlier as I was coming down the Rockies from 11,000ft! We definitely got lucky there.
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