CO Road-trip 2012: Day 1

This past February B was attending a conference in Sun Valley, ID. At that conference she impressed someone enough with her presentation that she was invited to another conference in Estes Park, CO to take place at the beginning of October. When she returned from Idaho and told me the news, we began thinking about possibly making a road-trip out of it. The only other time we had been in CO was when we were driving her car from Phoenix to Minnesota in undergrad. During that trip, we made an attempt to see Arches National Park (more on that later) and drove through Rocky Mountain National Park (more on that later too). Since the conference was going to be in Estes Park, we would obviously make a stop in Rocky Mountain NP but the rest of the trip was whatever we wanted to make of it.On Friday September 28, we headed off on our 12 day road-trip that would eventually top 3,000 miles with Penny laying comfortably in the back of the car. Because for most of the first day we would be driving across Nevada on I-80, we planned on putting a bunch of miles behind us. We stopped in Winnemucca for some brunch at Sid's and enjoyed our first meal on the road. Once back on the road, we set in for the long haul. Driving across Nevada goes something like this: drive up and over a pass, drive down into the basin, and repeat. The basin and range environment definitely dominates the scenery but we like it. I'm not sure how many passes the interstate travels over, but it is a lot.We finally passed into Utah just over the 400 mile mark and sped along the Bonneville Salt Flats. A little under 100 miles further east we began to pass by the southern end of the Great Salt Lake and were mostly unimpressed. We've seen the lake from the air and we prefer that view. We saw a little bit of fall color on Farnsworth Peak and were hopeful that there would be more in the Wasatch Mountains. We took I-215 south on the western end of Salt Lake City to UT-190 to drive through Big Cottonwood Canyon. As we approached the mountains we could see some fall color.We really liked this canyon and were enjoying the scenery as we went. There was a little bit of fall color sprinkled around the slopes and we stopped a few times to look around. We also stopped at Hidden Falls. It is only a short walk from the highway to the base of the ~40' waterfall and since the water level in the creek was pretty low we were able to walk right up to its base (see photo below). After snapping a few pics we headed back out and passed by a group of teenagers working on their rock climbing skills.Continuing up the canyon, we passed by Brighton and continued on UT-152 before turning south onto UT-224. This section of the drive was especially pretty with lots of aspen adding gold to the surroundings. As we descended the aspens gave way to maples and oaks which were just starting to change to bright orange and red. We drove through Midway and were impressed with neighborhoods on the northwestern end of town.We eventually hooked up with US-189 at Deer Creek Reservoir and headed southwest down Provo Canyon. We stopped at Bridal Veil Falls, but we were a little late and it was too dark to get any decent pictures. A return trip would be in order on our way back home. I was hoping the colors would still be out. When we got into Provo we immediately stopped at a Bajio at the Riverwoods Mall. We had forgotten about the time change and were eating dinner a little after 8pm local time. After satisfying our appetites we (with Penny) walked around the outdoor part of the mall for a little while and enjoyed the live music and little shops set up. We finally drove to our hotel and checked in bringing our daily total to 599 miles. We relaxed for the rest of the night before going to sleep. I was excited for B and I to see tomorrow's scenery, but neither of us had any idea how beautiful it would be in person even though I had scouted out the scenery (B likes to be surprised). To see all of our road-trip pictures go here.