Four National Parks and a High School Reunion - PTR - Updated March 30 About This Page:

[DrDolphin]

Pre-Trip Report – 25th High School Reunion and Crossing off More National Parks!
June 29 – July 7, 2013.
Who: Me: 42 (DrDolphin)
DH – Chris: 45

Why? My 25th high school reunion is being held July 4th weekend in Albuquerque, NM.

How did this trip come to be? Other then the HS reunion, Chris and I have decided we want to see all 58 National Parks (together. I saw many when I was a child). So far – we’ve seen 7. Ok – need to work on that. When I started thinking about the reunion, I thought “fly out, reunion, fly home...” meh. Didn’t sound all that enjoyable given the 5-7 hours of travel time to get to ABQ. But, I knew I had more time to think about it. We’d talked about trying to see some of the National Parks near ABQ – like Carlsbad (which ironically, I have not visited...) and Guadalupe Mountains (which I learned I visited when I was 1 year old – even seen photos of the visit).

I started trying to figure out how to do this... fly into El Paso, TX, then drive... eh... it seemed like A LOT of driving...

In October – we headed to Seattle for my best friend from middle school’s wedding (and made a stop at Mt. Rainer National Park)... and on the flight home, we had a 3 hours layover in Denver. I got to thinking... Denver is 8 hours north of ABQ... Rocky Mountain National Park is about 1.5 hours north of Denver... ok – we could fly into Denver, See RMNP and then go to ABQ. I also started wondering what other parks are located between Denver and ABQ. Come to find out there are three additional parks:
1. Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park
2. Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve
3. Mesa Verde National Park

They aren’t directly between Denver and ABQ, but they are all south of Denver, within 4 hours of each other... plus to be honest, I've never heard of the first two!! I thought I knew my National Parks. Looks like I've got some learning to do.

SO – I started laying out a plan, right there in the Denver airport. Since the airport had free wifi, I logged into Hilton.com and began to see if there were any Hilton chain hotels near any of these parks. And there were!! And I had enough Hhonors (Hilton’s reward program) points to let me book hotels along the whole way of the trip so our rooms were free.

Here is the tentative touring plan (subject to change)

June 29 – Fly from JAX to Denver
Drive to Ft. Collins, CO
Check into Hilton Garden Inn

Explore Ft. Collins? Maybe head to Rocky Mountain National Park (depends on time of day, etc)

June 30 – Rocky Mountain National Park
Hotel – Ft. Collins again

July 1 – Drive to Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park
Hotel – Hampton Inn – Montrose, CO

July 2 - Complete park/anything missed previous day
Noon – Drive to Durango, CO

Mesa Verde National Park – Durango, CO
Hotel – Double tree Durango

July 3 - Mesa Verde National Park
In the afternoon/early evening – Drive to Alamosa, CO – 3 hours
Hotel – Hampton Inn – Alamosa

July 4 - Great Sand Dunes National Park

July 5 – Drive to ABQ
Reunion events on July 5 & 6
Staying at the Hilton Garden Inn near the malls (near the reunion official hotel)

July 7 – fly home to JAX.


I've started downloading "plan your visit" guides from the National Park Service's website for each park and checking out hotels and things to do on Tripadvisor.com.



Next up - Airfare - how much is this going to cost?

[KMB733]

Great Start!!!

[Colexis Mom]

Great start Terri!

[lauriep]

Sounds like another great trip, Terri! Mesa Verde and Rocky Mountain are the only two on this list I've been to. Mesa Verde I think I could spend a month at.

[chezp]

Oh wow, it sounds like an amazing trip.

[DrDolphin]

We didn't do much planning between October and now, but I knew I needed to start working on a few details. I had already bought three different books on the National Parks about 6 months ago, so I opened them up and began to take some notes. I also downloaded each parks visitor's guide PDF (some parks have seasonal guides). I also went online and ordered a AAA Tourbook for Colorado, as well as a map of the area.



As I began to read the insight book, I began to make some notes of additional things that I was interested in seeing. Interestingly, although I have 3 different books on the National Parks there is very little overlap in information between the three. Chris also started to look at the book (miracles) and asked questions about Garden of the Gods and Pikes Peak.

So - I now began looking at changing a night to add Colorado Springs so we can visit Garden of the Gods and Pikes Peak. I also read reviews of Great Sand Dunes and Black Canyon of the Gunnison and the basic time to visit each park is about a 1/2 day each. Ok - that throws a loop into things. I had about 1.5 days planned for each of them....

As I began to plan, I also wondered what the flight times might look like. I thought I would log onto Southwest's site and see what the historic flights looked like. Well - imagine my surprise that Southwest's site had flights open for booking in June and July when we are traveling!! So - I went ahead and searched for flights -

I found a non-stop flight from Jacksonville to Denver leaving JAX at 945am...arriving in Denver at 1115am. Not too bad. I am shocked that both we have a non-stop flight. Hmmm. Arriving this early, we could get to Rocky Mountain National Park around 1pm. Ok - then we would have until 7 or 8pm to explore around the par before heading to our hotel in Ft. Collins, Co. I tried to move us to a hotel in Loveland which is much closer to the park, but at this point, I cannot find a night there that is free at this point. I will keep looking over the next six months.

So - now we are at Rocky Mountain Park on Saturday... and depending on how our park viewing goes, we will move down to Colorado Springs on Sunday and go to Garden of the Gods and Pikes Peak. We debated between driving up Pikes Peak and driving up. There is a cog train, which costs $35.00 for each person, and limits you to 30 minutes at the peak... while driving costs $12.00 per person in each vehicle (Pikes Peak is privately owned and managed) but we would have unlimited time at the peak. Now one con of driving is that the road is 19 miles long, with switchbacks and steep drop offs... the drive down is a little scary and requires a stop 1/2 to cool the brakes off... After looking at the pros and the cons - we will be driving.

A couple of other stops we plan to consider trying to stopping include -

Florrisant Fossil Beds National Monument
Hovenkeep National Monument
Alamosa National Wildlife Refuge

After all of our park visits, instead of staying in Colorado until 5 July, we will head south on 4 July (this is still subject to change) and head to Albuquerque.

I also booked our flights from Albuquerque to Jacksonville - leaving ABQ at 1010 am, change planes in Las Vegas and arriving JAX at 645pm. The flights were free on Southwest using Reward Points.

One other thing that I looked into was our rental car for the week. Chris really likes the medium SUVs like the Rav4. I went onto Hertz.com (I am a member in their Gold Club) to see how much the car would cost - it was right at $1,000!!! UUUHHHH nope. Then I checked Alamo.com (I am a member there too) and they have a medium SUV for about $400.00 for the whole week. That is much more doable...

Ok - so that is where we stand right now, I am sure more things will develop as we get closer.

[lauriep]

Good planning! It's starting to take shape. The hardest part of planning a multi-stop trip is that at a certain point you have to stop gathering info and just start making decisions!

[chezp]

The more I read about this, the more excited I get. Sounds like a wonderful part of the country.

[Colexis Mom]

Great plans! We love touring in the Rav4. Had one in Alaska and it was great and roomy!

[KMB733]

Sounds like the plans are starting to come together!

[ilovedisney247]

Hmm lets see I was in NM not that long ago. If you have time you should drive the hour to Santa Fe and see the old town. I wasn't super impressed with most of the food, but make sure you get fresh tortillas and green chili sauce. I also really enjoyed the rattlesnake "museum"--provided you aren't afraid of snakes.

[DrDolphin]

Heather - since I went to HS in ABQ - went to Santa Fe a ton, ALWAYS get green chile (esp on cheeseburgers) when we are in town (and bring a case or two home in the suitcase for home cooking). Chris visited the rattlesnake museum with my dad last December when we went out for Christmas. Needless to say - he was in heaven!

[Russi01]

Sounds like a great plan. I know from experience that Rocky Mountain National Park is beautiful. You go through alittle town names Estes Park. Awesome!! Have a great time and cant wait to read all about your trip!

[pamcarey]

Sounds like an awesome trip! I love your goal of visiting all of the national parks together.

[DrDolphin]

After I booked all our hotel stays, etc - my husband decided to chime in and say the things he wanted to do. AND I managed to find a few cheaper (or free) hotel options...

On our arrival day - we originally were going to stay in Ft. Collins, well - I managed to find a Hampton Inn located in Loveland, CO - which appears to be closer to entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park, so I cancelled the hotel in Ft. Collins and booked the Hampton Inn in Loveland on points. Bonus - it was 5,000 points LESS for the night.

Then after Chris' input - we added a night in Colorado Springs. He wants to go to the top of Pike's Peak. There are two options - the railway or drive - it looks like we will drive so that we have complete control over how long we stay on top of the peak. In the afternoon we will go over to Garden of the Gods, and maybe try to squeeze in the Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument. If we don't have time, we can save that for February - we will be back in this neck of the woods for some skiing. Our hotel of choice is the Colorado Springs airport Hilton Garden Inn.

After Colorado Springs - we head west to Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. It should take about 4 hours to get there, and everything I've read says this park can be toured in about 1/2 a day - unless you are climbing to the bottom of the gorge - and I can say that we will not be doing that!! One thing I would like to try and do on the way to the park is the Dennis Weaver Memorial Park. Dennis Weaver as in McCloud, Gunsmoke and Gentle Ben. After his death, his family established a memorial park near Gunnison.

We will spend the night in Montrose, CO at the Hampton Inn before heading out toward Durango and Mesa Verde National Park. This was the first National Park established to protect structures created by men and not an ecosystem or natural wonder. We plan on spending 2 days here - with the option for a 3rd if necessary. I want to do at least one of the Ranger guided tours into the ruins. You have to make reservations, but you cannot do this in advance of arriving in the park... so we will play it by ear. Driving time between Montrose and Mesa Verde is 3+ hours. We will be staying at the Doubetree in Durango, CO.

After 2 (or 3) days in Mesa Verde National Park - we will head southeast toward Great Sand Dunes National Park and Alamosa National Wildlife Refuge near the town of Alamosa, CO. The park guide says unless you are camping in the park (and we aren't) - the park itself takes about 1/2 a day to see. It will be HOT since we will be there on July 4th... so I don't expect us to do a heck of a lot of hiking on this trip... too hot!! Our final hotel in Colorado is the Hampton Inn in Alamosa. In the afternoon, after touring all day - we will drive down to Albuquerque to see my parents and attend my 25th high school reunion on Friday and Saturday, July 5 & 6. Since all the reunion events are in the evenings, I hope to squeeze in Petroglyph National Monument which is located right outside Albuquerque. After all that fun, we return to Jacksonville on Sunday the 7th of July.

I will be sure to do a detailed TR for this trip, since I expect we will see a great variety of wildlife, habitats and a fair amount of history (both US and Native American).

Now all we have to do is get through April, May and most of June to kick this trip off!!