Today we were lucky enough to visit Arches National Park in Utah. It is amazing the work God has created in this park from soft red sandstone deposits. The park offers 23 miles of paved driving area that begins with switchback inclines up into the park. Most of the formations you are unable to see from the parking areas, some are a short walk while others take a little more time and a lot of drinking water. Bringing our doggy, Mandy, to this park would have held us back since they are only aloud in parking and paved areas. This is the largest concentration of natural sandstone arches with over 2,000 cataloged natural arches in the park. Nate and Daisy's favorite arch was Sand Dune Arch, the walk into the arch was through soft red/orange sand ... read more

Today Mandy was fortunate enough to get to come along and now she is tired and has not moved from her spot since we came home. The drive alone on Highway 12 Scenic Byway to Bryce Canyon National Park was awesome! On the way we went through Red Canyon were we passed orange/red mountains that contained hoodoos. Then we drove through two arches that came out of the mountains, these were constructed by J.W. Humphry. Once in Bryce Canyon we drove the entire way to the end, 18 miles. The views at this point were nice, but the best views were near the entrance of the park. There were tons of crimson-colored hoodoos, which are odd-shaped pillars. At about the half way point there is a stop, Natural Bridge, with a natural bridge formed from beautiful ... read more

The first night in Las Vegas we went to the calmer side, Circus Circus (does offer free parking), it reminded us of a larger scale Chuck E Cheese's with a tone of kids games that give out tickets, but it also had a small indoor amusement park and of course a casino. The circus act was nothing like it was when I came before, it is a small area with very limited seating that has a three minute show every half hour or so. Next to Circus Circus is all fenced off many buildings were either being tore down or being restored. For almost two blocks there was nothing but Trump tower in the near distance. From Circus Circus we made it into Fashion Show Mall which had everything of a normal mall just larger. On ... read more

We have to say that Montezuma Castle National Monument was a disappointment we drove over an hour for this visit and there is only one Puebloan cliff dwellings to view at this location unlike Bandelier National Monument that has more to see and where you are able to enter the dwellings. Luckily on the way back north we took the scenic road 179 to 89A which drove us past many beautiful red to orange-colored sandstone mountains. It was a good thing we did not have the trailer for this drive since there were many switchback areas. This road reminded us of the backdrop of many Western movies. I think the nicest stop was at the Chapel of the Holy Cross which was built in 1956. I am unsure if the view looking up at the church ... read more

Today we took I-40 from Sun Valley, AZ to Williams, AZ. Williams is a nice central location to Grand Canyon South Rim, Wupatki National Monument, Sedona, Montezuma Castle National Monument and Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument. This was a nice easy drive, we decided to stay at Canyon Motel & RV Park (they offer passport rates of $20/night, but we are close to the Holiday so had to pay Good Sam's rate of $41/night). The park is nice, quiet, has good Wi-Fi, an indoor pool that is freezing, and is in a great location. Best of all the city has what they call a dark ordinance where no bright lights are to be left on after 10 PM this allows everyone to enjoy the abundance of stars. The park also has cabins you can rent and ... read more