A little over 2300 kilometers (1435 miles), around 330 km per day. This was a decent amount of driving for us without being too exhausting.
2 new states. Only 11 left!
6 National Park Service sites: 2 national parks, 1 national monument, 1 national memorial and 2 national historic sites. All of them worth visiting and some completely mindblowing. How can any government agency be this fantastic?
2 nights in a tent, first one on a campground, the second in the middle of nowhere far from any trails. The latter night was more noisy thanks to the howling coyotes and chirping grasshoppers.
13 liters of water in our backpacks, a couple liters too much. Better safe than sorry. A faint cloud cover cooled the day, which the park ranger told us was actually smoke from the wild fires in Canada.
2 nights in motels that looked pretty run down from outside but surprised us positively. In the other motel, I think we were the only guests who didn’t sport tattoos.
Countless deer, bison, prairie dogs and big horn sheep. I didn’t think I’d ever end up saying of animals spotted by the road: “Let’s not bother to stop if it’s only bison.”
4 long hour caving. Apparently a fear of tight places and a 25cm high slit that we had to crawl through are in fact compatible.
Around 100 kilometers of Oregon Trail. 19th century pioneers took four days to walk their wagons through this stretch of the route; for us, it took an hour.
728 photos which will take time going through. Here’s a couple tasters:
When sun set the first night, we were still on the road in Wyoming.Custer State Park’s Needles Highway in South Dakota had a hiking trail lead to these views.Baby chipmunks were running around the parking lots of scenic viewpoints.Custer, South DakotaThe presidents aren’t the only ones who’ve had their faces carved on mountains in South Dakota. This memorial for Lakota chief Crazy Horse has been in the making for already 67 years.On Sunday evening, it poured so hard we turned our car’s hazard flashers on while driving veeerryy slowly along winding mountain roads. Cooking at the campground in Badlands would be out of the question in this kind of weather, so we stopped for dinner at Rapid City and contemplated on staying the night in a motel. Finally the rain stopped close to midnight so we pitched our tent up in pitch black darkness……and woke up to a sunrise at the Badlands. Totally worth it.
Big horn sheep were among the most interesting wildlife in Badlands National Park
Found the perfect camping spot at Badlands National Park’s Deer Haven after a little climb and trek across the prairie.The only grocery store in the town of Wall: “Food Center” – “Cold Bud” – “Cold Bud Lt” – “We have Bison Meat”Besides Badlands, the prairie of South Dakota has also some old Minuteman nuclear missile silos. We got to visit the decommissioned command center.We also stopped to check out the airplanes at South Dakota Air & Space Museum, and… well, I’ve seen more impressive collections. Too bad we didn’t have more time, though, because they offered tours of the nearby Air Force Base, which would have been interesting.
“Oregon Trail” was one of my favorite computer games in the 90s, so I was thrilled to follow the real Oregon Trail in Nebraska.
Now a relaxing weekend at home before getting back to normal routines on Monday.
Our fourth independence day AKA July 4th in this country in a row is tomorrow. Unbelievable to think that it’s more than three years since I left Finland. “Only for two years”, I said then. Yeah right, I say now.
July 4th, 2012 was our first July 4th here. Some Finnish friends invited us over then, which was great, because I don’t know what we would have done without them. (Probably nothing.) Instead, we got to experience a big neighborhood community party, complete with fireworks.
July 4th, 2013 we had some family visiting. Our BBQ plans were ruined by extreme rain that broke several records that summer in the Southeast, so instead we headed to the rollerskating rink – very American, right? – and then spent the rest of the evening inside munching on appropriately decorated cupcakes.
July 4th, 2014 we had planned to return from Yellowstone, so no plans for a party. However, we got tired of sleeping the freezing nights in a tent a little earlier than we thought and instead headed back already the previous day, arriving home at 2am. I have no photos from the next day, but if I recall correctly, we spent it by the pool, making note of the higher-than-usual ratio of US flag bikinis.
On July 3rd, we stopped in Wyoming for dinner at sunset. Taco John’s is a surprisingly good tex-mex fast food chain.
July 4th, 2015… that is, tomorrow! We’re almost done packing for next week, which will again be spent on the road. Tomorrow we’ll be celebrating in possibly the most patriotic spot in this country.
I don’t really have one favorite food, but several: good burgers, oysters, snails, crayfish, raw fish, tartar steaks, and anything with cheese, eggplant or avocado, and the list goes on. What I crave for most varies daily. Today, it would be sautéed reindeer with lingonberry jam.
Crêpes in France, a burger in Las Vegas, cheese breakfast buffet in Paris, and spätzle in Luxembourg
On vacation, I like to eat in restaurants with table service. I cook so much at home that it doesn’t really feel like a vacation if I’m cooking, although I do make an exception if we’re at a nice cabin with friends, enjoying the evening. For lunch, I’m fine with fast food or street food, but dinner in a local restaurant is an integral part of the travel experience for me. I’m not a fan of buffets either.
Fish&chips in London
I don’t ever remember being disappointed in the local cuisine. Sometimes it’s been pretty simple, and a week-long sailing trip in Turkey will make me swear off kebap, but my deepest disappointments have been on the way to the destination. Yes, I’m talking about the sometimes inedible food on airplanes. And why on earth is Delta’s intercontinental veggie choice always the same tomato pasta?
The best part about business class flights is the starter.
I love starters, and if I’m in a buffet, I usually just stick to them. I usually consider ordering a starter in a restaurant even if I’m not that hungry, just for the tastes. Fortunately in the US, the starters are usually made for sharing, and even sharing the main dish is accepted, unlike in Europe, where in some places splitting the plate will cost you extra.
Oysters don’t really taste like anything, and still I get a craving for them.
My favorite pizza is The Works by Backcountry Pizza in Boulder: sausage, ground beef, mushrooms, feta, banana peppers and olives. Usually in an American pizzeria I go for the pepperoni pizza, which reminds me of Fridays in an American school in the 90s: always pizza for lunch. In Europe, I usually go for the pizzas with pineapple, ham and gorgonzola.
Pepperoni pizza and ice tea on a Los Angeles beach
I’ve taken cooking courses a couple times while traveling – in Hungary and Vietnam – and it’s always been a fun experience. What I like about the courses is when they teach you different techniques, because the ingredient lists I can always look up in a cook book. In Hungary, I was taught the exact moment when squash főzelék is ready – not overcooked, not undercooked – and in Vietnam, I learned the proper technique for rolling summer rolls and how to cut a decorative rose out of a tomato.
When Luxembourg had Open Doors for its companies, I of course headed to a cheese factory.
A couple years ago I would have sworn by Indian cuisine, but my stay in Central Europe changed me: French cuisine is the best in the world. The reason lies in its diversity: not just one kitchen but 22, one for each region, all with their own specialties, like galettes in Normandy (salty buckwheat crepes), “garnished” sauercraut in Alsace (where the garnishings are ten different sorts of meat), or snails in Burgundy, one of my favorite starters.
French cuisine at its best: snails, macarons, fondue and duck.
As for the drinks, I really like American craft beers: there are thousands to choose from, they’re made with passion and devotion, and they’re very decently priced on this side of the Atlantic. I especially like IPAs and Pale Ales. The only one that’s usually missing here is gueuze, the Belgian sour lambic, my favorite beer type – but not anymore, since our local brewery Upslope made a batch of it.
Mulled wine with spices from Colorado, Italian-style apero, beer selection in Belgium, and beer in Madrid that comes with a plate of paella
At home, we eat fairly internationally, thanks to my love of cook books. I love trying out new recipes, and cook books make great souvenirs. My favorite book is the one Iiro brought to me from Malesia many years ago, The Asian Kitchen, from which I cooked an Indonesian dinner a while ago. Most often in use at the moment is Recettes de brasserie that I brought from Paris, to aid in learning both French cooking and French food vocabulary.
Two foods we love making at home: sushi and BBQ
I never bring food along with me for trips, except maybe for the first leg of the journey. For long train trips from Luxembourg, I usually picked up a baguette or a croissant from the station. In Colorado, we load the car full of water and soda, and if heading to the mountains, we take trail snacks in case we get stuck somewhere.
If I could buy anything I wanted from the grocery store… but alas, my local grocer doesn’t stock Carelian pies or licorice.
I like to bring home food souvenirs: dijon mustard in different flavors from Burgundy, Napoleon-beer from Waterloo, made by a local brewery that existed already during Napoleon’s times, and apparently his troops drank the same beer, and from Ireland, whiskey-flavored caramels. However, the best souvenirs are from when I visit Finland: salmiak and licorice candies, local Fazer chocolate, dip powder mixes (especially the one we call “American” that you certainly can’t get from America) and rye bread.
If home sickness hits me abroad, I can always go to IKEA.
By the way, all the photos on this post are from Instagram. Before I started using it, I thought it was the social media where hipsters posted photos of the food they ate. Of course it’s so much more… but the food’s still there!
This post is part of Instagram Travel Thursday, a celebration of travel photos on Instagram and the stories behind them. You can find me on Instagram as @globecalledhome. The rest of the participants are below.
June in Miami is hot and humid, and not even sunset cools the evenings down. We didn’t let that bother us last weekend, as we first had a girls’ night out with Elina on Thursday in Downtown Miami, and then on Saturday headed out together with Iiro at Miami Beach.
Miami Downtown
Miami Downtown equals skyscrapers and bright lights. The easiest way to get around is with the free People Mover, which speeds along a couple floors above the streets. After dark, you’ll see homeless people sleeping on the streets, and I wouldn’t feel too safe walking by myself, but this is where Uber comes in: it’s cheap and convenient in Miami. If you’re not familiar with Uber, get first ride free using this invite link.
1. Happy Hour at Conrad’s skyscraper bar
Do you have a rooftop bar here? I asked the reception at Conrad hotel. No, but we have a bar with a view! the receptionist replied with a wink and pointed us towards the elevators. The quizzical answer came clear soon: Conrad’s got 36 floors, and the LVL25 bar is “only” on 25th floor. This wasn’t a problem for us as we sat down with Elina to admire the fantastic view over Biscayne Bay. The smallish terrace had no free tables left at 6pm, but we asked nicely to share one with a business man who continued reading his book in Spanish while we chatted way in Finnish – relative privacy thanks to foreign languages.
On the left, you can see the outline of Key Biscayne
LVL25 has Happy Hour from 4 to 7, which means wine and beer at $5 and well drinks at $7. The address is 1395 Brickell Avenue, across the street from People Mover’s Financial District stop.
View to Dock Island from the EPIC hotel pool deck
2. Drinks on the 16th floor of EPIC hotel with a view of the city lights
In Miami, it seems to be a fashion to turn indoors into freezers with the help of A/C, which we really weren’t that into. Instead, we headed for the terrace of Area 31 bar at EPIC hotel. On Fridays, they have a Happy Hour that lasts the whole night, but on a Thursday evening it was already over by the time we arrived. (Happy Hour on Mon-Fri from 5 to 8.) The views turned out to be well worth the more expensive drink prices.
Cigar City Brewing’s Jai Alai IPA for me, a Hummingbird for Elina.
The terrace is right next to the stunning pool deck that has great views both East to Dock Island and South towards the Brickell highrises. EPIC hotel is at 270 Biscayne Boulevard Way, and the closest People Mover stop Knight Center is a short but slightly cumbersome walk away: these streets were not made for walking.
CVI.CHE 105, Miami
3. A Peruvian dinner at CVI.CHE 105
Yelp told us that CVI.CHE 105 would close its doors at ten, but an inquiry about the state of the kitchen at five to ten was answered with a statement of of course we’re open! The list’s also got meat and veggies, but most of the almost full restaurant’s patrons seemed to be after the ceviche – as was I. I had no clue about the different ceviche styles, so the waiter asked me a couple questions on my tastes and then recommended one. Elina got a recommendation of an octopus dish that wasn’t on the menu, and it turned out to be fantastic.
Ceviche Anconero Mixto: raw fish and seafood with sweet potato and corn on the side. Heavenly, but the red paste is hellishly spicy. You’ve been warned.
The closest People Mover stop is First Street and the address is 105 NE 3rd Ave. The kitchen seemed to close around 10.30pm. Elina complained it was expensive, but she just spent 6 months in Colombia; I thought it was very decent for the high quality. Be prepared to wait if you don’t have a reservation.
Miami Beach
Miami Beach is its own city on its own island next to Miami, and it seems to be the place to be for the glamour crowds. We spent one night on South Beach and were glad we had a hotel there, because the post-sunset rush hour on Ocean Drive was really something, and I wouldn’t count on parking. The beach area was full of pedestrians on all hours of the day, and in the evening, Lummus Park becames a parking space for police cars, so besides pickpockets, it felt like a safe area.
4. Art Deco District by Night
Miami Beach Art Deco District was built along Ocean Drive in the 20s and 30s, and it’s at its best after sunset when the old neon signs are lit up. If you’re interested in the history of the buildings, check out National Geographic Walking Tour, but if not, people-watching in the area is already a good reason to come here.
Clevelander with the most Art Deco font ever
The most popular drinks in the Miami Beach bars seem to be corona-ritas, giant margaritas, or giant corona-ritas. Corona-ritas are margaritas with an upside-down Corona. Giant margaritas are around 1,6 liters. Mix those two and it looks pretty impressive. Coronarita [Photo: tyle_r]
Many people were having giant margaritas by themselves, but we figured sharing would be the saner choice.
The restaurants on Ocean Drive seemed pretty touristy, so if you’re looking for good food, it’s worthwhile to head a couple blocks West. We had the most delicious sushi at Toni’s Sushi Bar (1208 Washington Ave), which took us in after midnight, but where I’d recommend going earlier than that, if you’re looking for good service: the staff seemed to be mostly concerned with getting home at that hour.
5. Stars at Miami Beach
The actual beach at Miami Beach is not illuminated at night, and this means two things:
The starry sky and blinking lights from ships moored on the ocean and crashing waves in the dark are a sight to savoir, and the city high rises are silhouetted behind you.
I wouldn’t have had the guts to go there alone, and even with friends, it took a moment to get used to the idea.
The beach is officially closed to public from midnight to 5am, which means that police will order you to leave if they catch you there. However, with a smaller group in a more quiet area of the beach (say, between 1st and 4th Streets), there doesn’t seem to be any patrolling. And this is not a recommendation for you to break any rules, okay?
+1. Hotel Blanc Kara on South Beach
If you’re looking for a terrace with a sea view, Blanc Kara’s not for you. However, if you’d like a boutique hotel with studios that have full-size kitchens, situated close to the beach and the shops but far enough from the nightlife to have issues with noise, then I can warmly recommend Blanc Kara. If you dig Ferraris or Lamborghinis, have an hour or two free in your schedule (and around a hundred dollars extra) and go on a test drive on one of the hotel’s two luxury sports convertibles.
Do you have any tips on restaurants or bars in Miami? If so, leave them in the comment box!
This week’s been a busy one for me: together with a couple other Finnish bloggers, we started #matkachat, the first ever Finnish travel-themed Twitter Chat! The premiere session on Monday went so well I’m still all smiles, and I’m already looking forward to next Monday’s chat. But that’s not all…
We quit our cable service a couple months ago due to the outrageous fees, so I’m mostly working from the Community Center pool. The Nalgene’s filled with home made ice tea, my new favorite drink for a hot day.
…I also finally launched a much larger project: translating this blog into English! It’s been a lot of work and you wouldn’t believe the amount of technicalities that were involved, both on WordPress and server level, but now the system’s finally set up, and in the future, I’ll publish most of my posts bilingually. If you spot any weird stuff (like some Finnish on the English site), please let me know! Looking forward to your comments…
In case you’re wondering, “Suomi” means “Finnish” in Finnish.
…and moving on to more personal highlights: last Saturday I finished second in a triathlon! It sounds fancier than it really is – my group only had five athletes – but I’m still proud… and slightly perplexed, since my feelings during the event were more along the lines of “I’m so going to lose”. The bike path’s altitude changes were a bit too much for my gears, but in hindsight, a mountain triathlon must have been hard for everyone…
At least I had the energy to cheer a bit at the finish line.Afterwords we stopped by to check out the bison and especially their calves next to the I-70 interstate in Colorado. Cute, huh?
…and next day it was just the right moment for a little hike to help me recover from the tri. We’d been up Green Mountain once before in winter, and we knew it afforded great views over both Boulder, our city, as well as to the other direction to Indian Peaks Wilderness. (And this all from a city park!!) Last time we’d been tredging through snow, and despite the scorching heat, the route felt easier this time. Check out the difference in the photos below…
This is summer. Ignore the snow on the mountains.Same view in February. I did have the same ballcap on, though.Also from February. Green Mountain (2090m) doesn’t have snow in June.The range in the horizon is Indian Peaks, of which I’m able to identify only Mount Audubon, thank to climbing it a year ago. Longs Peak is a little North (right) of the Indian Peaks and clearly visible as the highest mountain in the area.
…and then to the last good thing: I’m going to catch a red-eye flight tonight! Well no, the sleepless night’s not the good thing, but the destination is: Miami!! It’s been hot enough in Colorado too, but I can’t tell you how excited I am to spend a couple days by the ocean: beaches, snorkeling, boating… The reason for the trip is Elina, my friend whom I met in Luxembourg, and who’s spent the last six months in South America. She’s now on her way home to Finland, and I’m meeting her up in Florida for a couple of days. Iiro’s also coming, and besides Miami, we’ll visit Key West. Any restaurant tips are greatly appreciated!
[Photo: Corey Balazowich]Like always, you can follow my trip live on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, and I’m also learning my way around Snapchat, because the neighbors’ preteen girl told me it’s the coolest thing around, and I think she knows what she’s talking about. If you’re on Snapchat, you can follow my Story by searching @globecalledhome.
Mesa Verden National Park is located in South-West Colorado near the border of New Mexico. It’s the only national park in the United States designated to protect works of humans instead of Mother Nature, and it’s also an UNESCO world heritage site. If you’re roadtripping in the area, there’s no excuse to pass by these magnificent American Indian ruins that the Ancestral Pueblo people inhabited centuries ago. You could easily spend a couple of days exploring the park – we spent a full 24 hours there – but even a short visit is worth it, as long as you take a little time to plan it.
First: Visitor Center & which tour to take?
It’s always a good idea to start off a national park visit by stopping at the Visitor Center – and especially so at Mesa Verde. This is because Mesa Verde Visitor Center sells tickets to the ranger-led cliff house tours, and this should be the highlight of your trip. You can purchase tickets for the tours up to two days in advance, so if you’re arriving to the area already the night before, it makes sense to drop by the Visitor Center to get tickets fo the next day’s tour. Alternatively, you can purchase tour tickets from Colorado Welcome Center in the town of Cortez.
By the time we arrived at around noon, the two most popular tours had already almost sold out for the day. We managed to snatch tickets for the Balcony House Tour at 4.30 pm (first available slot) and left Cliff Palace Tour for the next morning. These basic tours are $4 per person and can be only bought in person. Specialty tours are sold also at recreation.gov, which I recommend to check out well in advance. I would have personally wanted to visit Cliff Palace at sunset for a special photography tour, but it had already sold out a month before!
Tours are led by national park rangers, whose uniforms include a rain cover for their hat. Nice!
Balcony House Tour
Balcony House is the more challenging of the two basic tours: you’ll have to climb several ladders as well as crawl through a narrow corridor that gave me the jitters beforehand. In the end, though, it was my favorite of the two thanks to its active hands-on nature – or rather, hands-off, touching the ruins is not allowed! There are replicas of the ladders and corridor at the Visitor Center, so you can decide for yourself whether the tour’s the right fit for you. The ladders were exactly the same as on the tour, but the corridor was far more accommodating on the tour, which was VERY nice.
The ladders were so wide they could be climbed in pairs.The views are excellent, if you can spare to look aroundIt didn’t even cross my mind that climbing ladders could be hard, but some of the visitors really had trouble coordinating their limbs. I guess they haven’t been jumping from ladders as kids!Hundreds of years old walls are not made for leaning, so Iiro kept his hands up in the air.Ancestral pueblo apartment building: two doors, and the upstairs unit has a nice balcony.The tour requires you to crawl through a tiny house, no way around this. In the end, it was much easier than I had thought, because there’s a wider space in the middle that eliminated my claustrophobia.A little narrow at the shoulders. Guessing the Ancestral Pueblo weren’t too sturdy.
Balcony House has around forty rooms, which makes it average in terms of size for Mesa Verde cliff houses. The ranger on the tour told us tales of Mesa Verde history, pointed out details in Balcony House (murals, kivas), and explained in detail the art of dendrochronology, also known as tree-ring dating, which helped the scientists place the cliff houses on a timeline. With the lack of written history from the Ancestral Pueblo people, anthropologists have resorted to studying their descendants, the Pueblo and the Hopi people, to make educated guesses on centuries-old traditions, and the ranger went on to explain a bit about the rites of passage of the Pueblo.
Dried corn kernels are ground with a round stone called mano on top of a stone slab called metate.
Corn was and still is a staple in the Pueblo diet. It’s a hard day’s work grinding dried corn, and this work is traditionally done by the women. The Hopi Indians’ female rite of passage centered on this practice: girls are locked in small groups in a dark room to grind corn four days in a row. Talking, sleeping and food breaks are allowed, but light is not, and no outsider can lay their eyes on the girls. After four days, the older women wash the girls’ hairs ceremoniously and style them on two buns above their ears, after which the girls can enter the society as women of marrying age. To me, the buns hold an odd resemblance…
Two peas in a pod: princess Leia and a Hopi girlTowards the end of the tour there was a spot where I felt it was better not to look down. Overall, however, can’t say my claustro- and acrophobias did not bother me.
Cliff Palace Tour
Cliff Palace was the administrative center of Mesa Verde: 150 rooms, 23 ceremonial kivas, but only around a hundred residents. Not that administrative centers tend to have that many residents… In any case, it’s the largest cliff dwelling in Mesa Verde, and the route is easier than the one to Balcony House with only a couple short ladders and no standing on high cliffs.
Ranger, leading a moment of silence
Our Cliff Palace Tour really brought out the differences between rangers. The ranger at Balcony House was informative, shooting out facts one after another with so many details you had to keep focused constantly on the talk. The Cliff Palace ranger, on the other hand, let the sights speak for themselves, kept moments of silence to “enjoy the views” and philosophically pondered the Ancestral Pueblo way of life. I’m guessing this was due to the fact that the Balcony House ranger was working her 10th summer at Mesa Verde, wheres the Cliff Palace ranger had just started.
Cliff Palace is impressive already from the lookout point, but if you’ve got the time, I sincerely recommend taking a closer look.
Spruce Tree House
If you don’t have time to attend the tours, go see Spruce Tree House. In fact, even if you do have time to attend the tours, go see Spruce Tree House anyway: Mesa Verde isn’t Mesa Verde with a Spruce Tree House visit. It’s the only cliff dwelling in the area, where you don’t have to take a tour to get up close, and you even have a chance to climb down a restored kiva.
Spruce Tree House from above. The route down isn’t long.
We also thought about hiking Petroglyph Point Trail (4km) that leaves from close to Spruce Tree House, but the rainy weather made us think again. Instead, we popped by Chapin Mesa Archelogical Museum, which I don’t recommend if you’re short on time: you’re here to look at the buildings, not at stuff in vitrines.
Mesa Top Loop
This one-way road can take anywhere from half an hour to two, depending on how much you stop to take a look around. As wannabe-archaeologists, we stopped everywhere we could to marvel at the more-than-millennia-old dwellings, the oldest in the area, which would have looked like holes in the ground without the interpretive signs. This is a good tour to do on a rainy day, since most of the sights are indoors or at least under cover. If you go here, pick up a guide leaflet from the Visitor Center for $0.50.
If you’re too busy to stop everywhere, at least stop at the lookout at Sun Point View, where you have a great view of several cliff dwellings at once.
A couple thousand years old pit house. How did they not die of carbon monoxide poisoning?
Far View Village Pueblos
Just when we thought we had already seen everything, here comes Far View. This is the place for Mesa Verde’s largest mesa top ruins, whole village pueblos right next to each other, and many of them were only abandoned at the same time as the cliff dwellings. At this point, we were already a little tired of all the ruins and in a hurry to make it to the next stop on our trip, but we stopped briefly enough to figure out that if we ever come here again, the short walking trail here is a must-do. Highly recommended you leave some time for this.
Even a thousand years ago they knew how to decorate their walls
Best Views: Park Point Overlook
Although Mesa Verde is known for its historical significance, you can’t ignore the nature and the strikingly beautiful mesas. The best place to take these in is Park Point Overlook, the highest point in the park, with 360-degree views to every direction. Because of this, the park’s fire ranger station is situated here, and during dry season there’s a 24/7 guard here to watch out for wildfires. Several large wildfires have scorched the area in the past couple of decades, and long-ago burned trees line the roads.
View to the South toward the mesa topsView to the East, where rain was approaching
Eat: Far View Terrace in the park is a good cafeteria-style lunch restaurant with a selection of burgers, hot dogs, and… navajo tacos! Try these out if you haven’t. Spruce Tree Terrace probably has the same selection, but the views aren’t as good.
Sleep: We slept at the Morefield Campground inside the park, where we had reserved a spot – a good choice, because thanks to Memorial Day weekend, the “almost never full” campground was indeed full. Even with the reservation, you’ll need to pick out the spot by yourself in a first-come-first-serve style, so go early if you have a strong preference for it. The campground has decent free showers, and the General Store stocks firewood, food, and other essentials.
The night before we stayed an hour’s drive away at Purgatory Ski Resort’s Village Condos, a real steal outside the high winter season: an excellent studio with a fireplace and a kitchenette cost only $70 a night. Highly recommended if you’re passing by.
