#philpluslauren

Our road trip by the numbers:

Miles traveled: 3,668

States traveled through: 11

Miles driven by Lauren: 0 (not for lack of trying...Phil REALLY likes driving)

National Parks visited: 3

Fast food meals eaten: 2

Number of times listened to Andrew WK’s “Music is Worth Living For”: 10

Number of hotels: 6

Number of AirBNBs: 2

Number of snowstorms driven through: 2

Number of FaceTimes with Ruby: 9

We both woke up excited at the thought of arriving in Virginia that night and even more than that, SO excited to finally see Ruby soon. After grabbing breakfast and coffee at Please & Thank You in Louisville (so cute! so delicious!) we hit the highway in the rain for the last time with just 8 hours to go until Richmond.

On our drive from Kansas City to Louisville we had a couple of surprises— we ended up passing through 2 states we had no idea we’d be passing through. Apologies to every teacher who ever tried to teach us U.S. Geography but we definitely thought Missouri and Kentucky were side by side. To be fair, they do touch at some point but our route took us through both Illinois and Indiana. Cool! That brings out grand total of states traveled through to nine.

Other than that (and some weird roadkill), our drive was pretty uneventful. Thankfully we had an evening of fun waiting for us in Louisville. We checked into the 21C Museum Hotel, a boutique hotel that doubles as an art gallery. Our awesome hotel room had black lights in the bathroom, an espresso maker, and mint julep cups— quite a step up from the Holiday Inn Express the night before.

We changed and headed out to Harvest, a farm-to-table restaurant in downtown Louisville. We were both SO excited to dive into some southern cuisine. It’s been a long time since we’ve heard the word “pimento” and it definitely made us feel like we were finally getting close to being home in Virginia.

After dinner, we went back to the hotel and grabbed some drinks at their bar, Proof. We both ordered an award-winning mint julep and then a gin and tonic made with their special house-made tonic. Then we wandered around the gallery for about an hour, taking in some truly inspiring works of art. Our favorites were by Kehinde Wiley who just earned fame for painting President Obama’s official portrait and who also has his unique works on display at the VMFA in Richmond.

We started our day with a mind-blowing breakfast at Snooze, where the waitress brought us a complimentary pineapple upside-down pancake before we even ordered. Stuffed after an amazing meal, we grabbed some coffee at Boxcar Coffee and got back on the road for the first of our three “marathon driving days”. Our goal was to get from Boulder to Kansas City today, roughly a 9 hour drive. As soon as we got out of Boulder, we entered the flatlands and a lot of our day was spent staring out at wheat fields and wind turbines. (Started a new podcast though and we’re both pretty into Atlanta Monster!)

Waking up in Grand Junction, we immediately checked the traffic going through Vail Pass and everything looked clear so we continued east. The drive between Grand Junction and Boulder was magnificent. We did hit some snow showers near Vail but the roads were just fine.

Today we weren’t only up before the sun, we were en route to the park before it too. Bryce Canyon was virtually empty when we arrived which made our early morning hike so much more incredible. We started at Sunrise Point at the top of the canyon and hiked down into it on the Navajo Loop and Queen’s Garden Trail. Bryce’s defining feature is skinny spires called hoodoos that protrude up from the canyon. On the hike we got to walk among them, through tunnels, and finally up a bunch of tight switchbacks to the most beautiful view of the hike. We both agreed it was one of the best (maybe *the* best) hikes we’d ever done.

After a little more exploring of Bryce, the crowds started to descend so we set off for our next destination: lunch. We had a delicious lunch at a little coffee shop in the middle of nowhere called Kiva Koffeehouse. It’s on Route 12, an amazing scenic route that we decided to take for obvious reasons. Route 12 also takes you through another national park, Capitol Reef. We took some time to check out some petroglyphs in Capitol Reef then continued on Route 12, stopping a LOT for photos.

Up before the sun, we drove to Zion knowing spring break was going to bring a big influx of visitors. You can’t drive through most of Zion, you have to take a shuttle instead, and if the parking lot is full you have to park in town and walk to the visitor’s center. We hoped our early arrival meant there was still room in the lot but when we got to the gate it said the lots were full. We wondered if maybe that sign was old but figured it was smart to just park in town and walk in. Lo and behold, the parking lot was NOT full but our walk to the visitor’s center was short so we didn’t care. We took the shuttle to the Grotto stop where the hike to Angels’ Landing is. A rock slide the night before had closed the last ½ mile of the trail but we decided to hike the West Rim Trail to the start of the closed Angels’ Landing trail and take in the views from there. Now that I’ve seen videos of what the Angels’ Landing trail looks like, I’m pretty sure I would’ve chickened out anyway. The trail is only about 2 feet wide and has cliffs on either side. Basically you’re walking a plank 1,400 feet in the air with only a chain to hold onto. We agreed we REALLY wanted to make it home to see Ruby so it was probably best that that part of the trail was closed.

The 5 mile West Rim Trail was still incredibly challenging, however. It’s just a series of dozens of switchbacks, concluding with a tight series of them to ascend the final part of the trail called “Walter’s Wiggles”. Sounds cute right? It’s not. But the view at the top made it 100% worth it.

After snowing all night, it finally let up just in time for us to see the amazing mountains surrounding Salt Lake City. We hit up a few cute shops in the city before grabbing lunch at a super cute spot called Cubbie’s in Provo— then it was on to Zion National Park.