Zion is in the middle of the desert but it’s so lush there.  There are hanging gardens, waterfalls, rivers, springs…etc.  Most of the park is way deep in the canyon.  There’s an area called the Narrows that we wanted to go down but it was closed because there was too much water in the river. … Read the rest

We did a lot of hiking in Bryce going in and out of the “amphitheaters” that make up the park.  The landscape is composed of hoodoos- those spire-like looking formations.  The pink part is a softer rock than the white rocks that cap each hoodoo.  This pink-coral color is one of my favorite colors but as you look closer at the rocks, there are greens, yellows, reds, purples ..etc from other minerals in the rocks. … Read the rest

This area is a remnant of an ice age lake which the Great Salt Lake used to be a part of.  These days it’s used for racing I’ve heard when the water level drops in the summer.  In May there was about a foot of water over the salt flats.  It’s funny because you can stop by the side of a busy highway and step out into the flats and because of the water it looks like you’re on a tropical white sand beach somewhere.  … Read the rest

SLC was founded by Mormon leader Joseph Smith in 1847.  This was during a time when a lot of pioneers were migrating to the West Coast.  For the Mormons, it was to find a place where they could practice their religion.  The religion had started in New York and gradually moved west due to conflicts with the state governments in Ohio, Missouri and finally in Illinois where Smith was murdered.… Read the rest

The sense I am getting from visiting all these national parks and seeing bizarre geologic formations is that it took a lot of time for rocks and mountains and the earth to look like this.  In the case of Arches, this process started 300 million years ago and today I’m able to see this little blip in time and in another million years, it might not be called Arches because all the natural arches will have eroded away. … Read the rest

Mesa Verde was the home of ancient people from the 6th to 12th centuries.  Around 650, their homes were merely pits in the mesa but by the 1200’s they had moved their homes to the cliffs in the canyon walls and started using masonry to make larger dwellings.  It’s cool to see this evolution in this one place. … Read the rest

We stopped by Los Ojos on the way to Mesa Verde.  There is a weaving and yarn shop that gets their yarn from a collective of sheep.  The yarn is hand dyed and they have some beautiful colors.  It’s such a cute shop in the middle of nowhere in northern New Mexico.  … Read the rest