Blogs from Utah, United States, North America

Woke up early to another gorgeous day. Mornings have been in the low 60's for the past few days, then warming up to the mid 80's. There is almost 0% humidity in these parts, and were usually above 5000' above sea level, so everyone is drinking water like a camel. We're signed up for a private tour of both parks today, Aches and Canyon Land, and we arrived at Nav-Tec tours at 8:00. After meeting our guide for the day, Yancey, we took off in a Toyota Land Rover that felt like a tank. As we discovered later, it was good that it was built like a tank. Instead of heading into Arches NP through the main entrance, Yancey took us north, and entered the park via a dirt road. This quickly turned into a "technical" ... read more

Okay.....I know it sounds repetitive, but it's another beautiful day here. Woke up this morning to the sounds of a rooster crowing, and a cow mooing. Our cabins were adjacent to a farm with many animals. It was different from what we are used to, but nice. Actually Tropic is a real farm community, and we found out that all of the local businesses close for the Winter. After breakfast we headed down Highway 12, another scenic road, towards Capital Reef NP. The highway did not disappoint with its breathtaking scenery. Rt12 is not the shortest way to get to Capital Reef, but it's certainly the most scenic. It follows the few rivers and streams out here, and you're surrounded by high cliffs frequently. Eventually it all changed to green farmland and green mountains. In fact, ... read more

This morning we woke up to another beautiful day, had breakfast and headed out of Zion to Bryce Canyon, NP. We decided to take the Zion- Mt Carmel Highway. This scenic highway is know for it's switchbacks, slickrock canyons and sweeping views. The road which is ten miles long has two tunnels which were dug through the face of the cliffs. One of them is 1.1 miles long, took 3 years to build, and cost a fortune. The tunnel has large "windows" that give you a peek at the beauty surrounding it. The sheer cliffs on the side of the road had Diane catching up on her e-mail, or playing a game on her phone which is usually the case when we are on this type of road. As we exited the tunnel the landscape around ... read more

After a great nights sleep and a delicious breakfast we headed out to explore Zion, NP. The town of Springdale, in partnership with the park, have a wonderful free shuttle service with stops throughout the town and to the park. Once in the park there is another shuttle service that stops at all of the various trails and scenic areas. This was begun to cut down on the number of vehicles that had previously crowded the park, and to cut down on the pollution caused by them. We decided on the advice of one of the park rangers to ride to the shuttles' last stop, and work our way back. The scenery here is just beautiful. The various shades of red, white and browns, along with the steep slopes through the canyon were breathtaking. Our first ... read more

Today we had to pack up the car and check out of our Airbnb condo but it was only 4.5 hours of driving to Las Vegas. That’s a pretty short driving day for us!! Our first goal for the day was a stop at Zion National Park. The only problem with visiting Zion is you must ride the shuttle buses to and from the highlight points. No cars are allowed. There was a scenic road of about 14 miles you could drive. The road had many pull off places for photos. It was beautiful but did not compare to Bryce. We did get to see some Big horn sheep! There was road work, curvy roads, a couple of tunnels, and lots of people. Once we loaded back in the car it was off to Vegas. We ... read more