Today our tour of the national parks of Utah begins...
Woke up the next morning with this view from the Econo Lodge in St. George...not too shabby. And then it was off to
visit some national parks...
Zion National Park
This place was amazing as you might expect. You drive along the bottom of the canyon and marvel upwards at all the
crazy cliffs looming over you. For the most part I'l let the photos do the talking...learn all about the park here.
No, that's not George Clooney...look closer.
There was this small waterfall called Weeping Rock that you could make a short hike to...why not?
So you get closer, nice view and all, and it looks like you can keep going and walk behind the falls...
...But what we hadn't counted on was this!!! It was pretty damn cold, and all that mist from the falls had coated everything
in layers of ice. It was really quite awesome.
The view from behind the falls...the slight graininess is due to the mist from the falls.
Now having grown up in the south I'd seen plenty of ice storms, but this was the first time Chelsea had ever seen any-
thing of this nature.
The many colors of the cliff wall behind the falls.
After you leave the valley floor you begin to climb out of the canyon...this is a view from near the top of the canyon rim.
Once we came out the other side of the tunnel, the landscape was entirely different...the cliffs/rocks had a rounded off
look to them, as opposed to the jagged nature inside the valley.
I remember this one was called Checkerboard Mesa, because of the cross-hatching.
The drive through the mostly desolate countryside...beautiful, but lonely. Every once in a blue moon you'd pass another
car or house.
I thought it was a nice drive, but Chelsea wasn't feeling it (she is also not really feeling that I put this photo up...).
Bryce Canyon National Park
A breathtaking national park, just as I'd hoped and expected it would be. As opposed to being in the valley floor at Zion,
here you ride along the top of the canyon and look down at the unreal formations. This is only an hour or two from Zion,
but a completely different landscape. Read more about the park here.
A poor attempt at putting together a "panoramic" shot.
And another one. I need to get one of those "photoshop for dummies" books.
If you haven't guessed from all the snow on the ground, it ws friggin' cold. Somewhere around 19 degrees with the wind
gusting upwards of 30-40 mph.
This is what the drive looked between the various overlooks. As you might imagie, there weren't a lot of people there
other than us...which despite the temperatures, was pretty nice. It felt like we had our own personal national park.
Somewhat of a close-up of the hoodoos that make the park famous.
I took some photos with my real cameras too...hopefully they'll se the light of day in the near future.