Days 52 - 54: Tellllluriiiiide - the spontaneous version

Being the wild and spontaneous roadtrippers that we are, it should come as zero surprise that we decided to change up the original itinerary and head to Telluride instead of Arches National Park in Moab, UT for a few days. Wait, rewind!

That was complete sarcasm as we are three overtly type-A project managers who have one of the most intense Google spreadsheets with the trip mapped out in extreme detail. It’s so intense that we know at least 3 other folks who have used the spreadsheet as the basis for their own vacations. You know who you are. #madlovetotype-atravelers

Getting to Telluride meant passing through the Four Corners area where Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona meet. Katie’s family had denied her of visiting this tourist trap in the past and she’s long carried unresolved childhood issues as a result. Emmie and I were determined to help her overcome this difficult memory and promised we’d stop there on the road. Until we saw it was a legit tourist trap and charged more than we thought was appropriate. She was so determined that she offered to pay for our tickets so we rolled our eyes as expected and said sure. We then discovered they only accepted cash.

We did stop to let her take a picture by the sign but the issues remain. Can someone help her out in the future?

If you notice the cost, it's only $3 per person...but really? To look at two lines drawn on the ground? In the wrong place?!?

What I imagine 4 corners likely looked like - just across the border in CO.

We’ve seen some beautiful places around the country over the past two months and have become a bit skeptical when someone recommends “the most beautiful drive in the country” as an alternative route. If they’re all right, there are 21 most beautiful drives in the western US and Canada. I got carsick on approximately all of them at some point. #whydidn’tIremembercarsicknessbeforethetripbegan? I’d say that nearly all were worth it…McGuckin family, I only include Trinity road in Napa on this list as it led to excellent Mexican food. #crazydrivers

However, Mike Franklin was right on when he suggested we drive up Million Dollar Highway on the way to Telluride – this 60 mile drive is absolutely stunning and worth the entire trip nearly by itself. After 9,000 miles we learned the secret to mountain drives is for me to drive and Katie to ohh and ahh at the scenery. I’m not sure what Emmie’s thing is during these drives, but she’s there too. J

Map of Million Dollar Highway from Durango, CO north towards Ouray, CO through the San Juan National Forest

Million dollar highway originally thought to be aptly named because of the stunning views. However, we later learned from Katie’s dad that this was because the cost of the highway ended up being close to a million dollars. Apparently, silver ore wasn’t in high demand when construction began and the value was not realized immediately. Good factoid if the state of CO ever goes broke and needs to find some money in the ground. Literally.

A few of the 1,000 pics Katie took during the drive. They turned out so amazing and are great compositions with the quickly fading light and angles. Thanks for the camera lessons Mike!

We got caught in a pretty massive thunderstorm and slowed to a crawl at one point, looking perilously at each other. Thoughts running through our minds at this point included:

• So, we’re in the middle of nowhere...with no cell service…what are our chances of getting help if we go off the edge?
• There are old mine shafts around here, maybe one of those will save us?
• Agggghh, it happens again on another “beautiful drive” – I’m not falling for this again!
• Aggh, Tiny Tanks has to pee! (Katie is now lovingly referred to as Tiny Tanks...she's only thankful Emmie didn't share this nickname earlier in the trip. Or sad at the amount of joy it could've brought to us all at her gracious expense)

Arriving in Telluride around 11pm we were pretty wiped and looking forward to finding a quick and easy place to crash for the night. Telluride is small and home to boutique hotels and resorts only…not the 24 hour, flashing lights, open vacancies, cheap deals we assumed would be available. As we drove through the 5 stoplight town seeing “no vacancy” sign after sign, we started to get a bit anxious. The trusty iPhones competed with each other to find the next hotel nearby and we eventually found a reasonable price at a resort in the adjacent Mountain Village up the way from Telluride.

Some tense bargaining and suspected duping occurred when we arrived at the resort to find the quoted price was for a room with two twin beds. I can vouch for the fact that Emmie told the guy on the phone that we had three people and wanted two queen beds. Not once or twice, but three times she confirmed this on the phone. Oooh, she was a force to be reckoned with when we arrived. I almost thought she was going to make us sleep in the car out of principle, but we conceded on account of being exhausted and now midnight and upgraded to the suite. The room was bomb and all was kumbaya once we crashed.

Walking to the Gondola stop with our snazzy resort and stunning view behind us. Emmie is being too cool for Telluride at this moment with her 12th pair of stunna shades.

View of our hotel nestled cozily in the valley.

Our sweet patio at the hotel

The most hiking we did in Telluride - yeah, we soaked in that whole 'vacation' thing

Telluride by the numbers:

• 2,200 times the song “Telluride” by Tim McGraw was played
• 4 free rides on the Gondola connecting Mountain Village to Telluride (the only free public transportation system of this type in the world)
• 31 minutes spent lying in a hammock staring at the mountains while contemplating life instead of going for a run. No major breakthroughs on the meaning of life to report.
• 17 postcards mailed from the Telluride post office (catch up time!)
• 9 cups of coffee consumed between Emmie & me in a single day (did you see the number of postcards we wrote?)
• 1.25 episodes of the Bachelorette watched. We’re all rooting for JP. Or for Ben so we can all fight over JP after the show ends.
• 1 major smackdown laid by Katie on the hotel. More details to come.

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We spent the next day exploring the town of Telluride, vegging at a coffee shop planning out our lives, window shopping at some exquisite boutiques and contemplating going for a hike. As we’d were all on the upswing of getting over whatever we’d caught the week before we decided not to chance it and relish in some R&R. An amazing last dinner of pasta and wine with just the three of us rounded out the evening in our suite and we decided to head to Denver in the morning to see our Madison/Flagstaff transplant friends.

Lunch in Telluride - we decided at 12 that it was 5 o'clock somewhere and supported the fine company of Blue Moon

Important lessons learned on the Gondola

Emmie in downtown Telluride working on her Bounty Hunter skills - a suitable backup if the whole public health thing doesn't work out.

Gondola photo shoot:

Wishing this were a banana phone instead

…and that’s where the smack down started. We’d changed hotel rooms at the resort earlier in the day when we decided to stay an extra day and had been under the impression that this room also had a pullout couch. As you can imagine however, we didn’t actually check the couch when we got to the room and a puzzled Katie said, “Emmie, can you come look at this couch?” as she was ready to go to sleep at 1 am. No secret bed compartment could be found.

dun dun dunnnnnn...

Our sweet, gregarious, bubbly and smiling Katie was gone and replaced with a focused and determined guest voicing her needs. The situation then snowballed as no one answered the phone, the desk clerk didn’t have a key to the room with cots, it was too late to change rooms, etc.. A nice woman brought some extra sheets and pillows and we made up a palate on the floor.

The infamous couch.

In the morning Katie marched up to the front office with the determination seen only to unruly software configurations in the past and got a reduced rate and commitments to improve a few broken processes at the hotel. I didn't think I'd have the opportunity to use the term "broken processes" again for a few years but there it is. Katie is now available at a reasonable rate to broker your unfair consumer situations, be it lemony car sales, leaking pipes after the plumber just came, denials of security deposit returns and refusals to accept store returns.

Quite a few good laughs came out of this situation as we regaled Katie's determination on the drive into Denver. Thanks for the stunning scenery, laid-back vibes and rejuvenation Telluride!

Days 49 - 51: Flagstaff/Grand Canyon - Hey, didn't see you there, guess what I just did?

Hi readers. Emmie here to detail our trip to Flagstaff, Arizona and that big hole in the earth, the Grand Canyon.

It’s about 4 hours driving from Phoenix to flagstaff and I had agreed to take the first driving shift. If you read the post about Phoenix, you would know that the night before we left, we were up until almost 4AM watching Harry Potter dominate Voldemort, and listening to all the nineteen-year old boys in the theater cat call Hermione. So naturally, Katie and Parm passed out, and I was BORED. We were driving through the middle of nowhere with huge cacti. It looked like John Wayne would pop out from behind a rock formation at any moment.

About an hour into the drive, Parm and I had a huge squabble about her putting on her seatbelt, despite her feeling ill. I did the famous Calland “ants on the road” tactic to demonstrate that I am not a trustworthy driver. “Ants on the road” is when you swerve the car around as if to avoid imaginary ants on the road, something my parents did when we were younger, not to prove a point, but just for fun. Looking back on it now, it’s amazing they didn’t get picked up for drunk driving. But anyway, my insistence on seatbelts has been brought up no less than 50 times since that day, but I will not apologize for my love of safety.

I actually pulled this off of google images- but there were some signs like this in Arizona.

We arrived at the home of two of our favorite people, Mike and Curtis Franklin in Flgastaff in late afternoon. Mike and Curtis are college friends of one of our co-workers and best friends at Epic Collin, and we're willing to overlook the fact that they went to Michigan. 

Unfortunately, Curtis is gone this month for work, but we would get the chance to hang out with Mike. Upon our arrival, Mike was in the process of whipping up an amazing steak and vegetable dinner. I offered to help by doing the artichokes. Unfortunately, I have never prepared artichokes before, and even with Katie’s expert help, our attempt to grill the artichokes was a complete and total fail. See pic below. The rest of the dinner, however, was delicious.

I'm shrugging at my failed attempt at artichokes, not my glasses. Although my glasses are also ridiculous.

Meg, Mike's a keeper.

Mike also invited his friend Jerry over, and the plan was to head out on Jerry’s boat later that evening. After chowing down on the delicious steak dinner, we donned our swimsuits and drove out to the lake to meet up with Jerry and his wife Leslie….AND ANOTHER adorable doggy with a persons name, Toby.

Our favorite thing about Toby, besides the fact that he is a wiener dog and would bark anytime anyone went in the water, is that he had a doggie life jacket. This caused us to brainstorm different costumes we could produce for Toby around Halloween. A hotdog costume, a submarine, a canoe or any kind of long boat really (Parm wants me to mention the Titianic) or most obviously, a corndog.

Toby!

With daylight waning, Jerry and Leslie helped us each get prepped to go wakeboarding. Both Parm and Katie were successful in standing up, for at least small increments, on the cute pink and purple women’s wakeboard. As dusk fell and I attempted to strap on the wakeboard, I could NOT get my feet in. Seeing I was having major issues, Jerry came over and asked what size shoe I wear. Upon finding out I am a women’s 11, he chortled and brought over the wakeboard designed for men. It was adorned with a very masculine looking skull and cross bones. I often joke that it looks like a tranny lives in our apartment due to the size of my heels, but needing a tranny wakeboard is adding insult to injury. That being said, I think the broad base and badass designs helped the cause, as I was able to stand up for quite a while on the last run.

Katie getting ready to wakeboard

Sweet action shot pre-fall, I think this is Parm.

Leslie churning the butter...j/k she's explaining proper form.

Nightrider Emmie

Then we anchored the boat and joined some of Mike’s friends on the shore for a bonfire. We made some awesome smores and met some new people. My favorite part, however, was how at the end of the night, we were shuttled back out to Jerry’s anchored boat by one of Mike’s co-workers in a wooden canoe he made himself. Additionally, he had us tell our best jokes, and his joke was pretty sweet….but clearly not that sweet because I can’t remember it... I should also mention that we had had some wine at the bonfire. So in place of that joke, I will tell another. Two peanuts walked into a bar, and one was assaulted…REH! What do you get when cross an elephant and a rhino…ELEFINO! Or my personal favorite, stolen from the writers of Big Bang Theory, a proton and a neutron walk into a bar. When the neutron orders his drink the bartender says "for you, NO CHARGE." I'll be here all week.

The next morning, we had grandiose plans to do a day hike but Katie and Parm woke up with the same fever-like symptoms and sinus infection that I had woken up with in Carlsbad. Hence, they declared it a vacation day from anything overly active, especially at high altitudes (and wouldn't you know it, Flagstaff is actually around 7000 feet elevation.) After scarfing down some delicious croissants a la Mike, Mike and I decided to go on a hike to Mt. Humphries a little after noon. We hiked from about 9000 feet to 1200 feet to what's called the saddle, and I would be lying if I said I wasn’t pretty exhausted. 

Ring! Ring! Bananaphone

I had to take breaks every 3 minutes or so toward the top and Mike, who is in phenomenal shape, politely and patiently waited. I was trying to space out my breathing so that it didn’t sound like I was about to have a heart attack. It was worth it though because at the top it looked like this:

Super squinty, but scenery behind is gorge...

See?

On the way down, Mike casually mentions that he runs this trail. RUNS it. I could barely climb it at a slow lumber. We had some good discussions about friends and religion and Arizona. It was about 4 and a half hours round trip. On the way down, we deviated from the trail and off-roaded. After seeing poop the size of a dump truck, I quizzed Mike about what we should do if we saw a mountain lion or bear. Then we saw a ginormous pile of bones, that looked like it was probably a deer carcass or a human, hopefully the former. We took a picture and texted it to Katie and Parm and told them Mike had been eaten. They didn't seem alarmed.Then Mike convinced me to climb the ski lift to take this sweet pic.

In the meantime, Katie and Parm were feeling a little bit better and decided to take a bike ride and complete some obstacle challenges at a local park. 

Katie attempting the monkey bar challenge. Apparently this is about 50 times harder now than it was in grade school.

I'm not sure what the objective was here, but it looks like Parm conquered it.

We rendezvoused back at the house, and then headed to Pizzacleta, a pizza place owned by one of Mike's friends for dinner in downtown Flagstaff. It was delicious.

Mike was down to show us a good time, but we were so tired that we ended up just heading back home. We did not force Mike to watch old episodes of the Bachelorette, however, so we'll call it even, right Mike ;)

The next morning we got up and got ready to head to the GRAND CANYON. After about an hour and a half drive with our bikes in tow, we arrived at the visitors center. Instead of explaining the sequence of events in detail, I'm going to let the pictures plus captions do most of the talking. It should be mentioned that Mike is an excellent photographer, so he took many of these pictures. Thanks Mike!

Deciding that we should take the South Kaibob trail from our location at the South Rim visitors center, and hike to Ooh-Ahh point. Yes, that's a real place. Then we watched the video at the visitors center, because that's what we always do. At first Mike was skeptical, but he later admitted he loved it. Then we bought GEAR at the gift shop.

Eating some sandwiches made by Katie before heading out on our hike. Mike also mandated that we drink at least half of our water bottles.

Hydrating at the provided water stations. Apparently a lot of people who try to hike all the way down to the river and back in one day end up getting heat exhaustion and have to be lifted by helicopter out of the canyon. We won't be hiking that far, but water is still key.

And we come full circle! This is just like the vending machine we saw at Mt. Rushmore.

First view of the canyon...it's HUGE! It's almost like there are canyons within the canyons. The colorado is so far down that from many angles on the rim you can't even see it. Also, the Grand Canyon is viewable from space. Nuts.

These posters were plastered everywhere. Interestingly, most of the people who are rescued from the Grand Canyon are males between 18-40 and look like the guy pictured, because they attempt to hike all the way to the canyon floor and back in one day, and underestimate the impact of the heat and length of time it takes. Dudes being dudes and thinking they're invincible, usual deal. But if they really all look like the guy on the poster, you can sign me up for the rescue team (wink!)

The description of South Kaibab trail says that you will "hug the cliffs." I think they meant the TRAIL hugs the cliffs but we hugged the cliffs anyway. I even slightly straddled the cliffs. Also, there was mule poop everywhere.

Watch out for heat exhaustion. And if you don't know what it looks like, this sign depicts it. Apparently you stand in a lunge stance and put your hand on your head. Seriously though, it was incredibly hot.

The canyon is awesome.

The view from Ooh-Ahh point after an hour or so of hiking...OOOOOHHHHH....AHHHHHHHH

Check out those switchbacks...pretty awesome.

Mike, our fearless leader, at Oooh-Ahh point. There were squirrels trying to get into our day bags, and he was helpful in scaring those away. We also met some volunteers who let us know there were storms on the way and that they had already had to rescue someone out of the canyon that day, so we should head out. It should be mentioned that the volunteers were sixty-something women and were in better hiking shape than we were. Off we went.

If there was audio to this picture it would go something like this, "uhhhhhh....uhhhhhhh (Wheeze)....uhhhh...SO STEEP" We also played a game where each one of us had to say hello to any passerbys a different way. So if I said "hello" Parm would have to say "whatup", Katie would have to say "HOLLA" and Mike would have to say "how ya doing" and so forth. We weirded a few people out.

Katie doing one of the things she does best- opening wine...one of her favorite wines actually. We drove for aways to find a place to have a snack mid-afternoon (we HOUSED some hummous) and we off-roaded a little bit to pop open some bubbly...illegally (shhhhh). You can catch a glimpse of the Colorado River in this pic if you look closely enough. 

Shortly after our picnic, it started raining as predicted by the volunteers. Here we are running in the rain from the parking lot to the Grand Canyon watchtower. Good action shot Mike.

Parm contemplating the meaning of life from the watchtower. #probablysomethinginvolvinghashtags

As we drove back from the watchtower towards the main visitors center, we were all exhausted from the heat and our hike. At Mike's suggestion, we got some ice cream near Bright Angel Lodge and sat down on the wall bordering the canyon. Within a few seconds the rent-a-cop pictured above began lecturing us on how dangerous it was to sit with our legs over the wall facing the canyon and noted that a piece of the wall is missing (by Parm's caboose) because a few years ago a teen fell to his death. Apparently he was standing on the wall and a stone came loose. I hadn't been condescendingly scolded in a few months since leaving my job, so I guess it was about time. Emily just rolled her eyes, I zoned out and made sweet love to my ice cream, and Katie was nodding politely. Mike got a photo.

They should have just shown us this picture. Dramatic.

After a brief visit to the Kolb studio, we walked about a quarter of a mile from Bright Angel Lodge to the spot where Katie's parents got engaged! We did a reenactment. But the best part of the whole scenario is the endangered California condor flying in the background of the picture.

Then we biked up Hermit trail to get a good spot to view the sunset. Mike took this picture of K-tizzle one handed while biking. Stud.

In my defense, we were instructed to make faces as if we were falling over the edge. If you had to give an academy award for most accurate depiction, who would it go to? Maybe not the most LADYLIKE or PRETTY face, but most accurate...

Parm attempting to throw me over the edge, probably because I kept making fun of her for using hashtag (#) in front of everything she said about a year after it was cool. Pretty sweet rainbow over the canyon though, right?

Planking because I told my sister I would.

Watching the sunset. The girls next to us were Australian and were downing the wine.

So gorgeous. You know...(insert something insightful about life here)

Self-timed jumping picture on the edge of the canyon! Mike has really upped the ante on our pictures for this trip. Skillz that killz.

We rode our bikes back in the dark and then stopped on the way home from the GC for some Wendy's. It was delicious. We managed to stay awake long enough to get home safely and Mike was very gracious about being submitted to girly music choices. Mike made some final suggestions about where we should head next on our great adventure and the next morning we got on the road and headed toward Telluride, Colorado.

A huge shout-out to our host, Mike Franklin!! Mike you are amazing. Top 10 reasons we love Mike, skillz that killz edition:
1. He can cook anything and often does (granola, scones, steak, the list goes on)
2. He can make you feel good about your hiking skills, even though he runs the trails you can barely walk
3. He is an excellent photographer and isn't opposed to taking approximately 30 jumping pictures until you get it right
4. He is dating Meghan Wons. Enough said.
5. He can take pictures of you, while riding a bike with no hands, up a hill, on a bike with no gears.
6. He makes sure you don't die while riding back to the car in the dark, sternly ordering you to pull off the road.
7. He informs you gently and tactfully that this entire time you have been driving around the country with bikes on the bike rack incorrectly but somehow manages to not mock you about it (at least not to your face)
8. He has great suggestions for outdoor destinations
9. He took a whole weekend to show us Flagstaff and the Grand Canyon!
10. He introduced Parm to what may be her favorite song ever by the Lonely Island. Although I would wager McGucks would want this off of the skillz that killz list :)

Thanks so much Mike for your hospitality. Hope your rafting trip was amazing! Oh, and a shout-out to Curtis Franklin for letting us sleep in your bed while you're gone and for the bike rack. HANDS LIKE GLUE! :)

Next stop is Telluride..."snow falling down...I was waking up in that sleepy little town"