Nicole Wilker

Just me, in your face!

Posts Tagged NCECARoadTrip

NCECA day 8 and more…

Apr 12

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Final day of NCECA and more.

So as indicated in the last post i wasn’t all that excited to be hanging at NCECA.
Friday i awoke with even less desire to hit up the talks and the convention floor…

Hubby was going to work with his business partner again, so i decided to hit up the Art Museum – I wasn’t willing to pay $10 a piece for hubby and i to both “run” through the museum, but 1 person, not so bad.

There were some interesting pieces, but all in all it was a pretty weak museum (I know, i’m a snob – but i lived in Boston and LA – so i know good art)
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Later that afternoon hubby and I enjoyed a beer at one of our favorite finds – rose and crown, and then headed to the top of the Hyatt for some more beverage, a great view and a spinning seat!

Our final stop that night was at the lounge at our hotel for some tapas and more wine. Mmmm! Hummus!!

The next morning I woke hubby up early to see if he wanted to try for home! Unfortunately my calculations were bad, so we only made Santa Fe, NM at 4pm…
I figured we could check out some art and enjoy this locations of locations… but alas Santa Fe closes down at 5pm…  Who knew, and how frickin annoying.

Sunday we did the final leg of our joney home and enjoyed snow and rain and sleet and frozen roadways all the way home…

Hubby got me home safe, i kept my eyes closed for the scary parts!!

Tomorrow – Jury Duty…

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Day 5 – NCECA Road Trip

Apr 8

Posted by nwilker in Ramblings, Travel, Uncategorized | No Comments

This was the day that we finally arrived at the main event!!
We headed north to see Walnut Canyon before heading back south.
It’s a cute little national monument – and since I’m counting – at $5 entrance fee, we are almost half way to our national park pass cost!
There were over 250 steps down to see 25 different ruins! I used it as an additional portion of my workout!

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It was another fun time for hubby and I trying to decide how they lived, how they ate, where they “shopped”.
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After that stop over we headed south to Montezuma’s Castle National Park. Another cool ruin and apparently where all the idiots in the area congregate. Sigh.
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It was another great view despite the idiots flittering around. Amazingly large structure, so far up the hillside built so long ago, with no apparent way to get in!

We got our view (another $10 save with the pass!) and got out of there as fast as we could!

Then it was 2.5 hours to phoenix!!  I had been warned of the police presence by friends that have spent time in the area. We saw a bit of it in flagstaff – police doing radar checks everywhere – everywhere! Photo tickets, and more. So we kept our speed in check as we headed into the sprawling metropolis of Phoenix. And we also found the heat! It started to warm up as soon as we left Flagstaff – 60 degrees, 75, then 90 as we hit Phoenix…

We got to the hotel by 2:30, were able to check in – although their valet area is crap – in and out in the same place and only 1 lane wide… ugh.
Our room is beautiful. Amazing work desk (that is where i am now).

After a shower and some relaxing hubby went with me to pick up my badge for NCECA and get my goodies! It was fabulous. No lines! Love that!

Our goodies included a recyclable shopping bag – yeah!!!!

After my quick jaunt to get my badge we walked around the area and same some weird art:
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Found the science museum and a cute place to grab a beer!

I picked most of my schedule for  the next few days and then we were off to sushi with hubby’s business partner and wife.

I over ate – as usual – and slept pretty well on our big comfy bed!

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Day 4 – NCECA Road Trip

Apr 7

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FYI – Part of Arizona chooses to not observe day light savings time. Grand Canyon and Tuba city appear to, but Flagstaff – not so much.
That was cool last night, since we got an extra hour to use! Yeah!

We found our hotel right off the highway, not as nice as the pictures on line, but nice! (i know, go figure)
Today was scheduled as a pretty low key day – the options originally planned were an extra chance to see the grand canyon again or see some of the national parks around!

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We finally got our Starbucks fix! Ah!!
Then we headed off to Sunset Crater national park which is in the same area as the Wupatki ruins.
Sunset Crater National Park was pretty cool! Who knew there were lava flows right off the highway??
It’s a small park but lots of info there! We had gotten the national park pass for the Grand Canyon (and figured we could use it at Rocky Mountain – since we live there!)
So we were able to get in for free!
We did a short hike to the top of Lenox Crater. (1/2 mile straight up soft sand, ugh!)
It was amazing from there – some of it looked like big giant rocks, other tiny pebbles and from a distance some even looked like pavement – really cool!
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We did another mile (ish) hike around the lava flows – very cool!!  (have i mentioned how cool it was!)

We stopped at a couple more overlooks and enjoyed the views!!!
Lava Flow Trail
We exited that park and entered the Wupatki national park – the ruins were pretty neat. We spent a lot of time discussing what we thought each part of the structure might have been, how wealthy the occupants, their daily tasks, and where they went when they disappeared! It was fun!
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We headed back to the hotel for a nap after our adventure in the parks.
Gotta love non structured vacations!

After our nap we headed to old downtown Flagstaff to walk around and find something fun for dinner!

Not too much interesting down there – could have been me not wanting to spend much money…

We had dinner and then stopped into a winebar i had read about! Super cute location – upstairs, tons of seating, chocolates and yummy wines!
After our grownup rest we headed up to the local Observatory (started by a Lowell – one of the big names back in mass – how funny!)
We got to see Saturn  – super super cool and the moon!

It was a fun night and I’m looking forward to Phoenix today!  (With a couple hikes along the way!)

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Day 3 – NCECA Road Trip

Apr 5

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Since we had already seen the mittens and monument valley we decided to head directly to the south rim of the grand canyon.

Trip so far!

We drove route 64 into the entrance, stopped along to way to get glimpses into the canyon! So amazing, so huge, so… wow!
It was really cool to be able to share this with hubby! He’s never been to the Grand Canyon and I’d never been to the south rim, so it was really great to share it together.

There didn’t seem to be too many people there the way we drove in, but we found them around one of the main view points! I can’t even imagine what it would be like in the summer. Ugh! We found a parking in a center lot and decided to walk to the rim trail and see what we could see before heading on to Flagstaff!

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The view was amazing! We even saw a couple elk!!

After our hike we headed to Flagstaff to find the hotel, rest a little and get some yummy dinner!

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Day 2 of NCECA Road Trip

Apr 4

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Overnight we were greeted with snow. The car was covered and we didn’t have our brush in the car. Sigh.
We left Durango with the intent on checking out Mesa Verde. We had hubby’s car, so the windy tricky roads would be much more fun!
As we headed west we discovered the snow. Way more than i thought would be out there! Ugh! I checked the weather in it was a 40% chance of snow within the park.
Since it was 2 hours to drive in, we (I) decided to skip the trip! But I was totally intent on hitting up 4 corners! Who doesn’t’ want to stand on 4 different states at the same time??

Standing on 4 states at once

It was really windy and super cold – so we snapped some photos and jumped back in the car!

As we were headed up to Bluff I looked at the map and determined we could also hit Monument Valley on the way. That way Sunday we could just head straight to the grand canyon!!

I was also super excited to see the mittens! The Mittens!!!

I’ve been trying to see these lovelies for over 10 years! So if i didn’t have to wait another day why should I!

Me and the mittens!

It was really amazing! We did the 17 mile loop on our own, since it was chilly and the tour companies all had open bed trucks. Ugh!

There were so many awesome and amazing natural wonders!
The thumb!

It was weird to see the random houses within the national monument and I wondered how I could get the ability to live there!

I was super excited to see the mittens and everything else – so exciting, so huge, so amazing! So…  wow!

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Day 1 of NCECA road trip!

Apr 4

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We had to change our plan last minute. There was a blizzard brewing on I-70 and the storm warning was already in play by 9am on Friday.
So we chose the mostly southern route – still went over the continental divide at over 10K feet, but it was much more agreeable than I70 would have been.

New Route to NCECA
It was a much longer drive that I had planned on and hubby was a trooper! We ended up spending most of our drive on a 2 lane highway which is obviously annoying, but we did ok. Luckily not a lot of people were headed anywhere on our route.

On the way through Colorado Springs hubby was kind enough to stop at Dunkin Donuts so i could get my fix! Mmmmm!
Have I mentioned how much I love dunkins chocolate glazed donuts. Oh do i!
Mmmm dunkin donuts!
Our first attempt to get my little peice of heaven brough us to a dunkins that was closed at noon… Say What?
So we went to the other one that dad and I had gone to while the family did the canyon tour!
Same lady (owner?) was there and friendly as ever! She even gave me an extra munchkin! Woohoo!

The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful. The drive south on 25 and west on 160 is mostly prairy, brown, and boring. One of the reasons we wanted to go through Grand Junction. But this way I ended up with less gray hair and less stress!

I found a good deal at Double Tree when we were abou an hour out! This place was beautiful!

Looking forward to checking out Mesa Verde, and Four Corners. I’ll miss seeing Arches, but we’ll get back there eventually. Maybe the trip home will change too, time will tell!

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