We are finally in a place where we can use the computer...the city that never sleeps! Yup, thats right. We are in Vegas baby!! Neither of us have ever been here before, so driving in tonight was quite an experience and we can't wait to walk around town and explore some more tomorrow. Unfortunatelly though, I have misplaced the camera cord, so I will be unable to post all of our latest pics until we unpack some more of our stuff and find it! (hopefully) ;)

But our trip to Mesa Verde and the Grand Canyon were awesome! Let me start by saying that the drive from Junction to Durango (the biggest town before Mesa Verde) was BEAUTIFUL. We got to drive through Ouray, a cute little tiny mountain town about 2 hours south of G. Junction that is nestled in these super tall, craggety mountains-so rigid that theres no way they could even put a ski resort on them. But its beautiful because they are still covered in snow and melting icicles (sp?), and this mountain range seemed to go on forever and ever, so the drive seemed so short due to the lovely scenery we had the whole time!

We used our new little tent for the first time at a KOA campground that night. Unfortunately the Mesa Verde campground doesn't open til middle of May. But the KOA place was super nice, and we slept well and got up at sunrise to pack up and start the adventure in the park. It was really really neat to see all the cliff dwellings. I mean, these pueblo indians started building their little dwellings there in 500 A.D.!!! They stayed there through about 1300 A.D. then migrated somewhere else (they aren't really sure where). The museum had tons of artifacts that they have uncovered over time, so many of them still in tact. I will post pics when I find my camera cord.....

So the night we got to the campground the guy asksed Ryan if we had come to go to "Phil's World." Haha...sounds kinda funny huh? I thought so. Apparently the guy saw all our bikes on the back of the car. "Phil's World" is a world famous mountain bike trail that was exactly in between our campsite and Mesa Verde. So...we went and rode it after touring Mesa Verde and i must say that it was the most FUN mountain bike trail I have ever riden. Ryan agrees! The best word I can use to describe it is rollercoaster. It was up and down the whole time, not too technical, not too mellow, but a perfect blend of everything a trail needs to make it sooooooo much fun! We both hope one day we can go back and ride there again, and we would ride it over and over again until we coudn't ride anymore. SO FUN

The drive to the Grand Canyon was BORING. Very desolate desert land, mostly Indian Reserves. But finally we got into the park and got to see a beautiful lookout point at sunset. We got nervous though because all of the camping signs were marked as closed...and there was nothing at all within hours of where we were. But we kept driving through the park and luckily found another perfect campground tucked into the Grand Canyon Village! When we woke up we did almost all the lookout spots, hiked a little bit on a trail on the edge of the cliffs with the doggies, and ate lunch at a closeby lodge. We did about all we could there (considering we had the dogs with us, which limits us quite a bit), and headed to Vegas. We rolled in over the Hoover Damn (super cool) and drove through Lake Mead (very pretty) all the way onto Las Veagas Blvd. We found a hotel and crashed, we needed showers bad, and needed a place to put the bikes and dogs while we roam the streets of this odd town tomorrow.

We plan to be in LA by Tuesday afternoon and hopefully then I can post more pics. But for now, I think this is a super cute silouette even though the quality is no good. But its our doggies waking up in the tent after the first night of sleepin in it. They are loving this trip! Goodnight to all and to all a goodnight! :)