Grand 1

In case you didn't know, I went to the Grand Canyon recently! My friend Heller wanted to visit the National Park so she booked a camping site on the South Rim for a couple of days and next thing you know me and her two roommates are driving to Arizona!  It takes about 23 hours to drive there from Madison. Our game plan was to leave early in the morning (~7 am) Sunday, overnight in Denver, and get to Grand Canyon National Park Monday night. I condensed our first two days of driving into this one post since we really couldn't do much else. 

Leaving Madison we were caffeinated and ready to roll. Iowa was actually kind of pleasant and we wished we had made time to pit stop with our Paper Back Rhino improv friends. Nebraska was endless. I spent the first half of Nebraska wishing I was still in Iowa and the second half wishing I was in Colorado already. Spotting our first hills/mountains/bumps was exciting!

Driving across America is basically this for a while. Plan your rest stops accordingly

I very much enjoyed Heller's mom's car! It had a six-disc CD player and was pretty spacious for four girls. 

Driving with the sunroof down on a warm day is the best

'sup

Maggie has blue-removing sunglasses so I had to take a picture through them

We must be getting closer to Arizona!

So many plateaus.

WEIRD ROCK FORMATIONS!

I can see for miles and miles and 

The black line is what we traveled IN ONE DAY

Denver was a really cool city. Our hotel was quite nice (valet service) even though we weren't breaking the bank. We walked around downtown in the morning to get some Caribou Coffee, play an outdoor piano, and make fun of the Harley Davidson convention. The highlight of day two was definitely seeing the Four Corners. My brother made me promise to go and stand in four states at once and I totally agree. It was so cool. It's surrounded by Navajo tribe stands and has amazing 360˚ views.

One pair of feet per state

at the Four Corners

We spotted some fellow Wisconsinites in the parking lot! Throughout the trip we had 3 or 4 Badger shout outs. I think at least one of us wore something UW each day of the trip ;]

U-Rah-Rah

This night had one of the coolest sun sets of my life, since we drove right through it and there was literally nothing obstructing out view. I was the 4th shift driver so got to drive in Grand Canyon National Park. It's at least 27 miles from turning off the high way to getting anywhere near the park grounds and lots and lots of hills. We saw a coyote crossing the road and some elk in the woods.