Grand Canyon, Arizona

Grand Canyon - my final stop on the tour! A great way to end this great adventure! The canyon was a little on the hazy side, I must say. Had a very nice campground with easy access to the South Rim and all the amenities. Did a helicopter ride and a mule ride half-way down to the Colorado River. Here are some pics:

A nice shot of the Canyon

Another shot of the Grand Canyon

A coral of mules waiting to go!

On the way down the canyon...

A little rest stop along the way

Zion National Park, Utah

I drove along Highway 89 from Bryce Canyon to Zion National Park. As usual, it was a very nice drive with lots of scenery everywhere. Zion is a beautiful place, but not as pretty as Bryce or Arches, in my opinion. I only got to see a very small area of the park, however, so coming back might be a good thing for me to do.


Three peaks know as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob


I believe this is "Jacob"





A tranquil place...

Bryce Canyon, Utah

Well, I had heard so many great things about Bryce Canyon…and it did not disappoint! My breath was literally taken away when I saw the first set of Hoodoos. Bryce has a single road about 20 miles long where you drive along and pull off to view the scenery. It can be done in half a day. It is really a spectacular sight!


Nearing arrival at Bryce




This is the first viewpoint...the pic doesn't do it justice!



More beautiful views



A "city" of hoodoos



One of the locals...



How's this for a sunset?

Capitol Reef National Park, Utah

After leaving Goblin State Park, Hwy 24 ran through a beautiful gem of a park called Capitol Reef National Park (http://www.nps.gov/care/). Before I tell you about the park, I have to mention that the drive from Goblin over to this place was one of the most spectacular on the trip! Really beautiful desert scenery. Really a must if you're traveling this park of the country.

Anyway, I had no expectations of Capitol Reef and thought I'd pass right on through. Turns out there is a very nice campground mid-way through the park, and I stayed the night because the scenery was so great!

The park is actually very long, running north-south, while Hwy 24 cuts through it from east-west. So I only got to see a small part of it. But it was really, really great! The scenery is so diverse...from towering rock-canyon walls, to interesting buttes and spires, to petroglyphs, waterfalls, etc. Really, really beautiful! The weather was perfect too. There was even a 12 mile long off-road trail for taking 4x4's to see some very cool natural rock formations and canyons.

This place was excellent and I'd highly recommend it to anyone!

A view near the park entrance

Some local residents

A view from the campground

Some Petryglyphs on a canyon wall

A nice meadow nearby...

The name says it all...

A wind and water-carved rock

The RV looks a little insignificant against this backdrop

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Goblin State Park, Utah

After leaving the Arches/Canyonlands/Dead Horse area of Utah, the next stop was this place, called Goblin State Park. The park is small and can be seen in an hour or two. It consists of many mushroom-shaped pinnacles that someone must have thought resembled goblins. It was a quick little venture off of Highway 24.

Dead Horse State Park, Utah

Dead Horse State Park is very near Canyonlands Nat'l Park. In fact, it's a turnoff on the way. Dead Horse got its name, apparently, from long ago, when this place was used as a natural corral for horse thieves. The plateau drops off with sheer cliffs several hundred meters tall on 3 sides, with only a narrow neck of land (30 yards or so) connecting the plateau to the main plateau. Thus it was easy for rustlers to simply fence off this narrow neck, and keep their horses from running away. Unfortunately the dry desert conditions, lack of food and water, and limited space often killed the horses. The area was used as the set for the Grand Canyon scenes in the 1991 film Thelma & Louise.

This is a really small park: there's really one one spot to look out at, but what a sight! At sunset, this place is so beautiful. I can't tell you how nice this place was; the pictures do not do it justice. So, if you come out this way, make sure you leave about an hour near sunset to check this place out!

Canyonlands National Park, Utah

Just a few miles north and east of Arches National Park is a place called Canyonlands National Park. The park is very large, so there's no way to see the whole thing in just one day. As the name suggests, there are a lot of canyons here! A lot of natural beauty in the way the Colorado River has carved this place over time. Here are a few shots:



The Monitor and the Merimac




A butte in the distance




One of the highlights of the park




A tall spire




A nice scenic shot

Arches Nation Park (revisited)

Well, Arches was so beautiful, I had to go back. Plus, I really wanted to see the centerpiece of this place, Delicate Arch, pictured above. If you go to my photosite (www.tomsphotosonline.com), you'll see that there was actually a wedding going on at Delicate Arch. It's a bit of a hike to get there, too!

Anyway, I got to see some of the places I missed my previous visit. If you go to my photosite, you'll see the link as "Arches National Park (1) (2)". Just hit the "(2) to see the pictures.

A beautiful shot of the surrounding scenery

Panoramic of Park Avenue...one of my favorites in the park

A shot of what I call "Spire City"

A close-up of Spire City

Balanced Rock (right)

How's that for a balanced rock?

One of the "windows" in the "Windows" area of the park

Double Arch...really spectacular (and huge!)

Arches National Park, Utah

How beautiful is this?

After visiting Monument Valley, Cathy, Mom, and I traveled north to Arches National Park, just north of Moab, Utah. It was a beautiful sight as we neared Moab, with high, rugged cliffs on our left illuminated from behind by the waning sun. We arrived at Arches a little late in the day and saw as much as we could in about 2 hrs time.

The entrace to the park was spectacular, with incredibly high, sheer rock walls all around. Our favorite place, I think, was an area called Park Avenue, which was a little valley surrounded by tall, sheer rocks all around. I really encourage you to take a look at both of my Arches photo pages, accessed by going to: www.tomsphotosonline.com. Unfortunately, even those photos don't do this place justice. It was really very beautiful.

We drove though the park and saw as much as we could. We didn't have time to see the most famous Arch, called Delicate Arch (although on a second trip through for me, I did see it).

Here is a rock formation called Balanced Rock (oddly enough):

This thing was huge!




This area is known as The Garden of Eden. I thought that the mountains provided quite a nice backdrop.

The following picture is looking south from an area that contains Double Arch:

This formation is called Three Gossips:




A final shot looking at one of the nearby mountains:




I didn't get any good shots of any arches in the park because I was time constrained. However, I did make it back to Arches a few days later after dropping Mom and Cathy off in Salt Lake City, Utah. More to come...