Flutterby™! : Utahhhh!

I'll leave the final update for Bryce for last, since those pictures just trump everything else. We left Bryce on Friday morning looking to head up Highway 12 to Escalante State Park, continue on to spend the night near Salt Lake City, head out over the salt flats in the morning so that we'd be in Reno and easy striking distance on Sunday for home. The first place we hit was Kodachrome Basin State Park, but as we were about to turn north into the basin Charlene noted this thing called Grosvenor Arch a few miles off the pavement. We were ahead of schedule, and by serendipity filling in an "off-pavement driving survey", so we pulled the ol' sedan into the dust and headed into the backcountry.

The double arch was very cool, large high limestone in some cool formations, and the drive out there was along some pretty spectacular cliffs. We're now thinking I need to get a 4WD vehicle and we need to spend some time exploring the wilds of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, out beyond the pavement and the parks. In fact we were considering taking some of the back roads out to Highway 12, but the Maxima is distinctly not "high clearance", I was a bit concerned about one of the tires, and we were trying to keep to a schedule.

We did, however, chalk up at least two water crossings more than most SUVs make in their lifetimes.

After everything else, Kodachrome Basin State Park was something of an anti-climax. If we'd taken the time to hike around a bit I'm sure we would have seen more, but we decided to get on down the road.

Second to Bryce, but only by a little bit, was the petrified forest at Escalante State Park. We started up the "nature trail" with the guide, and that lowered our expectations. Then we ran into someone who turned around because there was "one little piece up there". So we considered it as a walk in the sun on a nice day among the piñons. In fact, when we first saw shards we started scouring the ground for more of the little shinies. We should not have been so hasty.

If you go, be sure to take the additional "trail of sleeping rainbows". This is where you run into huge shattered sections of pentrified trunks strewn along the trail. Sliding down gullies where every step is another portion of prehistoric log, with bright reds and obsidian blacks and glossy whites. Well worth the strenuous down and up.

Next: A few images from vast red and white expanses of the canyon lands (not many, Charlene was tired and I realized we need to make a trip back to fully explore that region), Bryce, and maybe a return to Wells, Nevada.