USA Road Trip - Week 2

The second week of our road trip across the US was all about canyons. We left Grand Teton National Park and headed south into Utah. The first stop in Utah was Bryce Canyon National Park. If you’ve never heard of this place or seen pictures, you’re missing out. This place was amazing. It is a huge valley full of red rock formations shaped like giant pillars. There are hundreds of these pillars and they look really sharp in the early morning or late evening sun. We drove the length of the canyon and stopped at all the viewpoints, and then the following morning we went on a hike down into the canyon. This hike was incredible. Walking amidst the pillars and trees with dark red sand and stone all around you was really cool.

After Bryce Canyon we travelled south-west towards Zion National Park. This park also has large canyons with red rocks, but it looked completely different. There were huge towering cliffs and a very picturesque river running through. We hiked part of this park as well, and really enjoyed it.

After Zion we headed further south towards the Grand Canyon. We really were looking forward to seeing it. It did not disappoint. The canyon is so large that it is impossible to take it all in. We spent two days in Grand Canyon National Park and one morning we got up at 4:30am to hike down into the canyon. It is pretty much impossible to hike during the middle of the day here as it is way too hot. We went down a good portion of the way and we had a lot of spectacular early morning sunrise vistas. The sunshine on the canyon walls turns everything bright shades of red, yellow, and orange and it made it one of the most scenic hikes we’d ever been on. We turned around just in time to make it back up before the mid-day sun attempted to scorch us.

After the Grand Canyon we started working our way back north. On our drive we passed through Monument Valley which was an incredible experience. It is a giant valley with flat ground all around except for a bunch of massive rock monuments poking up out of the ground. It was absolutely amazing to see.

After driving through Monument Valley we drove the rest of the way towards Arches National Park and stayed the night just outside the park. The following morning we got up and did a really scenic drive through the park. Arches has some of the funkiest shaped rock formations. They had giant arches carved out of rock and also all kinds of other weird shapes as well. It was a really cool drive. It would be awesome to come back some day to do some extensive hiking through the park.

That pretty much gets us up to date. We’re currently in Grand Junction, Colorado getting some minor repairs done to our Jeep. There’s something wrong with the electronic throttle control, so we’re waiting for the repairs to be done. They’ve assured us that everything will be fixed ASAP and we’ll be back on the road this evening. Other than this problem, we’ve really enjoyed the vehicle. It’s got great gas mileage, comfortable seats, and it’s got lots of room for all our camping gear. Perfect for a road trip.

We plan on spending the next few days in the state of Colorado, exploring and hiking in the Rockies. After that, it’s pretty much straight home. The plan is to be back home by next Thursday (August 25th). We’ll likely post about the final week of our road trip once we get back home.

Here's the photos from the last week. Enjoy!

BLOG ROADTRIP DAY 9-16