Click on the thumbnails to get a full sized picture.

This is a small tribute to one of the better times I can remember. Keri and I did so much in a very short period of time (4 days). I always think that the sign of a good vacation is when you get back to the real world and feel rested and relaxed. However, the sign of a great vacation is when you get back to your 'normal life' and think to yourself "Wow, now I can get some rest."

We started out at 8:30PM on a Wednesday night. At that point we went to Sedona which is a very pretty little town in its own right. The sky was lit up by a billion stars that night - something I don't normally get to see in the smog ridden metroplex of DFW.

The following evening we set out for Moab and as you can see from several of the pictures we saw some really cool rock formations and even ventured to a cave that Keri and I dubbed 'Cow Shit Cave' for reasons I am sure you can well imagine.

We stopped at a small town called Mexican Hat for lunch. That was quite nice and I got a picture of Keri wearing the towns centerpiece. I kind of wondered what the town would do if the rock formation that looked like a Mexican hat fell over. Would they have to rename the town????

We saw some pretty good fireworks in Moab that evening by chance (this was 4th of July weekend) and completely blew off the national park that was about 10 minutes from town. Instead we decided to head for Colorado.

After a bit of a drive we decided it was time to call it quits for the day and setup camp. We pulled over onto a dirt road and ended up in a great camp spot. We couldn't see anything at all because it was nighttime so setting up camp quickly became an ordeal.

As I was rummaging through the back of Keri's truck I heard her call my name. I peered around the corner and saw the lantern that she was trying to light completely up in flames! As bad a scene as that is you also have to keep in mind that the area we were in was going through a horrid drought and there were already several forest fires going. I guess you could figure one more wouldn't hurt. I came running with our 5 gallon drum of water and dumped just about the whole thing over the spewing flames to find out that idea was going nowhere real quick. Finally Keri shut off the valve and the flames slowly went away. It has been just over 2 weeks since that little episode and I still get a big laugh out of it. I don't imagine I'll ever not find that humorous.

After waking up the following morning we noticed how pretty it really was where we were camping. We took a couple of snapshots of the scenery and of our little Toad friend. I think Keri is going to send me a picture of the lantern some time - not including the flames. I will put that up when I get a chance. * Note - we did find out how to work the lantern properly after some careful inspection of the directions.... go figure??? *

On to the Colorado pictures...