It’s been 16 years since I was last in the Colorado Plateau. Enough Waiting — time to return!

This trip was planned as a quick (2 weeks and a bit) loop through the highlights of the Colorado Plateau. My Son has never been there nor has my partner in crime Cathy. My Son and I packed camping gear for three into my Mustang (that’s a feat of packing by any measure) and, on Saturday morning, headed off to Denver to pick up Cathy.

Our route took us from Toronto to Port Huron (Canada/US border) and thence over to lake Michigan and down underneath the lake, past Chicago and our first night was spent in Peru, IL. Just a quick restaurant meal and crash in a Quality Inn (the hotel chain of choice this trip — points!). The next day took us through the mid-west (Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska) and we stopped again in North Platte. Ditto quick meal and crash in a Quality Inn. On the third day we started down to Denver. On the way I wanted to drop in to a very small diner in Sedgwick county that I had stopped at approximately 30 years previously — it was still there! Breakfast completed, we finished the drive to Denver.

Once at Cathy’s place we started to transfer all the gear to Cathy’s car — the plan was to take Cathy’s car on the trip (more room than a Mustang). However, we came to the realization that we would not have enough room — it was close, but no cigar! So, we started on a mad scramble to find a rental vehicle that would meet our needs in the late afternoon so we would still be able to start our trip on Tuesday morning. We looked at small SUVs, medium SUVs and finally settled on a Chrysler Pacifica Van. We got the rental to Cathy’s, packed all of our gear, settled in for the night and took off on the main part of the trip on Tuesday morning — as scheduled. Phew!