A Quick Visit to Zion and Bryce

It has been 20 + years since I was last at Zion National Park, and 17 years since I have been to Bryce Canyon.  Wow how things have changed.

Springdale the little town that at the entrance is huge and very touristy.  You cannot drive into the lodge anymore, you may only take a shuttle which would be a big negatory with Bobbin.  So we just did a drive through.

The colors and the rock formations still are amazing.  We were heading toward Mt. Carmel up the twisty, turny road to the tunnel.

All along the road were these huge white flowers.

There was road work going up the steep twisty grade.  Imagine my surprise when I looked up and spotted this climber.

The road work was welcome, I could take pictures out of the sunroof of the car.

We made it out and headed toward Bryce Canyon.  The last time I was there was right after 9/11 and that time there was a forest fire.  Guess what?  There was a forest fire burning one more time.  They are allowing controlled natural burns now, so we didn't make it to the very end of the road.

The hoodoos are amazing, and again the color gradations of the rock, and even the sky were fabulous.

From Bryce Canyon we backtracked to Kanab, UT and toward Monument Valley.  I was always under the impression that it was a turn off, but actually you can see all of the rock formations from the road if you travel highway 163.  Unfortunately dusk was settling, and there were really no turn offs so that I could take any photos, but the images saved in my mind are amazing.

We found a place to stay the night in Blanding, UT, and we were lucky to find it.

The next morning we were definitely on a heading toward home.  The poison oak I had contracted was getting worse even though I put Calamine lotion on and washed many times with Fel's Naptha soap.

We headed into Colorado, through Cortez, Durango, Pueblo on a beeline toward Kansas on Highway 50....yep still on the loneliest highway in America.  I had seen signs before for the Sand Creek Massacre Memorial, and decided that it was a good time to visit.

As I mentioned in my I like post we were too late to go into the memorial area, but we took pictures of it from the road.

This is where I saw the butterfly tree.

Then Bobbin and I got lost.  I wanted to get to I-70, but somehow ended up on I-40 a road going through miles, and miles of farmland with an occasional small town.  I figured if we kept heading East we were at least going in the right general direction.  Finally we reached I-70 and stopped for the night in a town called WaKeeney, KS.

The next day was an early awake, and long drive, but Bobbin and I arrived at home on September 23 at about 2:30am.

Bobbin and I are done traveling for a while, it is nice to be home, and I missed my blogger friends.