Road Trip 2014 Utah (Part 1)

I took SO many pictures in Utah.  It was hard to pick a few to post!  We started out in Moab and loved that town! There were some great western/cowboy shops.  Found a beautiful pair of boots--but didn't buy them.  We spent two nights in Bowen Motel.  Wednesday morning we got up at 5:45 and headed to Arches Natl Park.  It is SO interesting!  We spent 9 hours driving and hiking.  We covered about 8 miles on several hikes to arches including Delicate Arch--a great hike!

That's Don in the arch....gives you an idea of how big it is!

Delicate Arch--beautiful!

Broken Arch

Incredible vistas in Utah!

This is Balance Rock (on the right).  Just Balance Rock (on top) is 55 feet high and weighs 3500 tons!

Don in another arch.

I love the swirls in this huge rock mountain.

 Next stop was Canyonlands National Park.  Not far away from Arches but so very different.  We hike the white Rim Overlook Trail, 3 miles round trip.  Beautiful views of the canyonlands!

I love the colors in these rocks

Next was on to Goblin Valley State Park.  It was recommended to us by another camper.  What a unique surprise it was!  Erosion has designed these little goblin-like formations.  They are big and cover a very wide area.  We were the only people there except for a guy and his dogs.

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This man (cool pants, dude!) was there with his 3 Spanish Waterdogs.  They were so funny and playful and their fur was solid dreadlocks!

As you can see they goblins are big!

And they just go on and on.

 

I believe these are called the Three Kings.

Our plan was to drive to Capital Reef National Park--just a short drive--and camp out for a couple of nights.  But the campground was full!  We drove on Scenic Byway 12.  It was an amazing drive with sheer dropoffs, some snow and groves of aspens.  We were driving to Zion, but it was too far so we stayed at a little cabin a few hours away.  We arrived at Zion at 9:30 am and drove straight to the campground to find a spot.  It was full so we just had to drive around and wait until we saw someone leaving their site. Thankfully, we got a great site about the same time the camp host put up the "Campground Full" sign.

Our campsite in Zion. The mountains are on the right behind the trees.  Beautiful!

 Many more Zion pick coming on Part 2