The Steffensons

Coming Soon!

Unfortunately, our side trip to Durango, CO was a bit of a bust. David located a Zip Line tour operator in the area and it sounded like a fantastic opportunity to zip around the tree tops of Colorado for the day. The one thing he forgot to check was the cost. At a whopping $429 per person, we decided that it just wasn’t the best time for us to spend that amount of money on something this frivolous. So we spent a quiet evening in town and headed out early the next morning toward Bryce Canyon in Utah.

On our way out of Durango, we stopped by Mesa Verde to take a tour of some of the Pueblo ruins in the area. We specifically toured Cliff Palace, the largest of the ruins, sitting in a natural cliff area and built approximately 900 years ago. There were about 150 rooms total, used for storage, sleeping and basic living for about 120 individuals. To be able to actually get up close was very interesting and to know that their construction has been able to last so long while modern construction would probably disintegrate in a tenth of the time is a testament to their resourcefulness. How or why they disappeared is still unknown however.

Since we paid $25 to access the Arches National Park and we didn’t have time to see everything the first time around, we decided to go through the park one more time on our way to Durango, CO. We had to see the most famous of the arches, Landscape Arch. We also checked out Pine Tree Arch and then headed out to Canyonlands National Park. It was a beautiful day to see some of the more scenic parts of the US.

With some trepidation, we scheduled a full-day river rafting trip through the Westwater Canyon portion of the Colorado River. This portion of the river is the most exciting in the area, containing Class III and Class IV rapids with names like Skull and Sock-it-to-me. We met our river guides and other guests at 7:30am and boarded vans for the 1 ½ hour trip to the put-in point, where the Westwater creek runs into the Colorado River. There were 3 boats with 3 guides and it turned out, that aside from the guides there were only about 3 other Americans on the trip. The rest were French, British and Dutch, which made the ‘safety talk’ before hitting the rapids a little more like charades.

Because of the possibility of getting completely soaked, we did not bring a camera and there were no other pictures taken of the trip but needless to say, we had a fantastic time. The first 3 hours were flat and quiet, just floating down the river to the lunch spot. The wind was pushing hard upstream which made it a little trickier than usual. After lunch, we put on our helmets and headed out. After hitting the first rapid, Little D, we hit Surprise and Surprise 2, both Class III rapids, getting soaked but loving it. Hummer was next and a little scarier but Skull was the rapid that the guides had been talking about as the most exciting. We hit it just right and missed the hole at the bottom and the dead man’s cave right after. Even our guide had a good time getting through it. All in all, the rapids portion of the river only took about an hour of the entire trip, but it was worth it.

We leave the well-tended flower-lined streets of Verlan, UT and head over to Dinosaur, CO to see some dinosaur bones. Unfortunately, the quarry was actually in Jensen, UT and it was closed for construction. I got a t-shirt anyway and we continued down Hwy 191 to Moab, UT. After several hours of scrub brush and tan rocks, we were beginning to get a little stir crazy and began questioning things like whether or not deer and antelope play together or just in the same fields but separately. Getting closer to our destination, we drove past several stretches of roadway that were lined with flowers, as if someone’s grandma decided to pretty up the place.

On a small road outside of Moab, in the middle of nowhere, we were almost run off the road by what we later found out was a suicidal prairie dog standing in the middle of our lane. We swerved to avoid him and looking back, he never moved from his spot in the middle of the highway. Turns out, it’s a common occurrence but no one knows why they do it. Fortunately, our trip was coming near an end and driving through the canyons in the area was amazing.

We followed the Colorado River all the way into Moab. After scheduling a river rafting tour for the next day, we headed out to Arches National Park to see what all the fuss was about. It’s a huge park that draws tourists from all over the world and is really amazing to see. No pictures can do it justice but I took plenty anyway….

…Yellowstone style. We left Bozeman an hour later than expected because of the change in time zone but we made our best attempt to get through Yellowstone as quickly as possible while seeing as many animals as possible. Unfortunately, we were only lucky to see just a couple of buffalo and some elk, taking most of the pictures from the car, barely slowing down. We drove south through the park past Flaming Mountain and while stuck in road construction yet again, I took some photos of the flora and fauna from the road. We then hurried out over the continental divide and out through the south entrance to the Grand Teton National Park. Continuing south on State Hwy 191, and after a quick meeting with a Wyoming State Trooper, we finally pulled into Verlan, UT around 7pm. Another long day of driving and not how I would prefer to see either Yellowstone or the Grand Tetons, but in order to make it to Moab and still have time to do all things we want to do, it was the only choice we had. Tomorrow, on to Moab! 

Leaving Seattle much later than expected (8:45am), we still make it our favorite breakfast spot in Cle Elum, The Cottage Café, and eat ourselves full of eggs, bacon and hollandaise sauce. From there, we continued east on I-90 through the less attractive part of Washington State, watching dust devils and tumble weeds cross the road like some scene out of an apocalyptic Mad Max movie set. Once in the mountains of Idaho, we’re again slowed by the ever present summer pest, road construction. Through Kellogg and Mullan, it was down to one lane each way and over 90 degrees outside. We finally reach the Montana border around 2pm and hope for a speedy trip to Missoula, Butte or possibly Bozeman. Unfortunately, we are again slowed many times by construction, with temperatures reaching 97 degrees and higher. Our plan was to make it far as possible the first day to make it easier to get to Moab by the end of the 2^nd day. As it cooled off, we decided to keep driving and we’ve made it to Bozeman and will be travelling south from here into Yellowstone, hopefully getting a quick glimpse of some wildlife on our way down to southern Colorado. We hope to have more time to take some pictures and post them as we go. Ciao!

And in this case, it happens to be Teresa and me! We finally had good enough weather to fall…um, jump, from a plane today. It was awesome! Check out the video and pictures below. The video quality is a little poor due to the conversion to make it fit on the website, but the dvd copy I have is really good.

Skydiving Video 2010

Dear Family and Friends,

Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) is a problem affecting 20 million Americans – that’s one in every nine adults. Major risk factors include high blood pressure, diabetes and family history. Most people who have kidney disease don’t even know it.

The good news is, if CKD is diagnosed early, its progression can be stopped, and in some cases, kidney failure can be prevented altogether. Awareness is the key.

Please help me raise awareness about CKD. I am participating in a fundraising event sponsored by DaVita called the Tour DaVita. The event draws people together for a healthy activity for a worthy cause. It’s an event you can feel good about being a part of.

You can help raise awareness about Chronic Kidney Disease by sponsoring me. Please make a donation today! Visit my fundraising page at Tour DaVita

Sincerely,

Kate Kasprzyk
DaVita