Family & Lazy Daze at Colorado RiverwayThis is the trip that will go down in the annals of Gaidus travel ventures as the all-time favorite, a kind of "Best Of" journey through Utah. This was to be our fifth cross country trip and we had already visited all 48 continental states and seen most of the highlights in the West. As a result, the pace of this trip was less frantic, the daily driving mileage was lower, and the duration of each stop was longer.

During this trip, we selected a few favorites to go back to and discovered some new ones on the way.

Road Trip Highlights and Lowlights

• Cruising the solitary waters of the Green River north of Fire Hole Canyon.
• Trying to outwit the elusive trout while rafting the Green River below the Flaming Gorge Dam.
• Discovering the best desert sandstone imitation of a phallus at Kodachrome Basin State Park.
• Hiking from Sunset to Sunrise Point though the hoodoos of Bryce Canyon
• Swimming in the 80 degree turquoise waters of Lake Powell, our family's unanimous choice for best place ever visited.
• Panicking when Tommy got pulled down by an eddy while rafting the Colorado River near Moab/Big Bend.
• Hiking to Delicate Arch in Arches National Park.

The biggest problem with this trip is that it will be a hard act to follow. Maybe we'll just do it again another year.