Moab, Utah is also very convenient to another one of the “Grand Circle” National Parks – Canyonlands.  The complete list of Grand Circle parks is below.  We will have been to 5 out of 12 on this trip.  Anyone paying attention & can name all 5?  Prizes will not be awarded.

• Arches National Park (UT)
• Black Canyon of Gunnison (CO)
• Bryce Canyon (UT)
• Canyonlands (UT)
• Capitol Reef (UT)
• Chaco Culture (NM)
• Grand Canyon (AZ)
• Great Basin (NV)
• Mesa Verde (CO)
• Pecos Nat’l Historical Park (NM)
• Petrified Forest (AZ)
• Zion (UT)

Some of the areas at Canyonlands were already closed for the season, but we were able to access enough of the park to get a feel for it.  We had read reviews from other travelers comparing it to the Grand Canyon, and while it is not on such a large scale, it is reminiscent of the Grand Canyon.  Without all the crowds of people.  It’s definitely the place to visit in the summer if you aren’t a fan of the unwashed masses.

Look – they have an arch here too:

Rachel & I are not in favor of this variant spelling:

This might be my favorite park yet.  And not just because there weren’t any crazy hogbacks, razorbacks, switchbacks or evil tunnels to wreak havoc on my nerves.  (I didn’t even know what hogbacks or razorbacks were until I met them in the Big Horn Mountains.  But, that’s another story).

Arches National Park, an easy drive from the funky little town Moab in Utah, is home to well over 2,000 arches.

How are arches formed you ask?

Yeah, I couldn’t read that either.  Try this:

We had lots of amazing examples to see.  For example:

There were lots of other interesting rock formations there too.  Peter made the girls turn away while he posed for this picture:

We were all very impressed with Balanced Rock:

Here’s some for the family photo album:

And finally:

We could have had Bryce Canyon National Park all to ourselves too, but as it was predicted to be 20 below (!) we decided to skip that one and head to… well, Brian Head.

We knew we were going to be here at some point this week, so we had our mail from Florida sent to us, marked “General Delivery Brian Head, UT  84719”.   It was fun trying to find the Post Office.  Turns out, it was at Apple Annie’s – a general store near the Brian Head Ski Resort.  How convenient.

Since Peter would like to be able to ski in any & every state that he can, we knew we had to check it out.  Plus, they offer snow tubing for those of us who hate cold weather. (ahem).

Rachel was a champ & went skiing with Peter.  Then Peter went snowboarding while I took the girls snow tubing.  Grandma Fran stayed in the nice warm lodge.

Zion National Park is so busy April through October that only park shuttle buses are allowed in the park.  Naturally, we had the park and the roads all to ourselves.

We were interested in seeing the Court of Patriarchs – these three peaks are called:  Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  It’s not everyday you can see a sandstone prophet.

We hiked a little and Peter decided to ambush the girls with some snowballs.  Rachel managed to hide, but Summer wasn’t so lucky…

Yeah, I wanted to say damn dam…  but we actually liked this one.  The Glen Canyon Dam in Page, Arizona is what created the beautiful Lake Powell.  The second largest man-made lake in the US (behind Lake Mead) and home to all those cool houseboats. But, more about that later.

Since we are traveling off-season and seem to have all these interesting places to ourselves, we had our own personal tour guide of the Glen Canyon Dam & found it very informative.  Summer was in charge of the camera, and after our lovely tour guide told us not to photograph any of the security guards,  she made it her mission to snap pictures of all them.  Repeatedly.  Each of them are glaring at her in the photos.  In the interest of keeping Summer off any government ” watch list”, I’ve chosen not to publish those pictures.

Some interesting facts:

We were all strangely fascinated by the recent book titled Over the Edge: Death in Grand Canyon co-written by two Flagstaff authors.  It’s for sale in all the gift shops around here.  The book chronicles the “Gripping accounts of all known fatal mishaps in the most famous of the World’s Seven Natural Wonders”.  Yeah, all 683 of them since the early 1860’s.  The most common cause is actually aircraft, mostly scenic, which accounts for 379 victims.

Even so, we kept well away from the edge… it’s a long way down.

Sedona is the land of red rock.  At least, that’s what we were calling it.  I looked it up & found this info about the geology of these red rocks: “Over millions of years, layers of sandstone and limestone were left in the area by a receding ocean. Iron oxide eventually covered the grains of sandstone and, in a natural process, rust formed. The stunningly beautiful red rocks of Sedona are the result of this process.”

Some of these rock formations have fun names like Courthouse Butte, Bell Rock, Cockscomb, The Fin, Coffeepot Rock, Steamboat Rock, and lots more.  We liked Snoopy Rock.  Can you find him?  He’s laying on his back, head to the left, just below the largest rock formation.  His big nose is sticking straight up.

We knew that Sedona was supposed to be an artsy community with crystal shops, spiritual healers, psychic readers, etc. etc. but what we didn’t know was about the vortexes.  There are lots of them around & they are described as a place, usually on or near an interesting rock formation, where people have reported feeling inspired by a beneficial source of energy.

One piece of literature stated that vortexes are “believed to be spiritual locations where the energy is right to facilitate prayer, mediation and healing. Vortex sites are believed to be locations having energy flow that exists on multiple dimensions. The energy of the vortexes interacts with a person’s inner self. It is not easily explained. Obviously it must be experienced.”

So, naturally we had to experience it.  We didn’t pray, meditate, or do any healing, but the static electricity up there was incredible.  Check out Summer’s hair:

And then, out of nowhere, it started to rain.  Big, fat raindrops that quickly turned into hail.  The hailstones were actually blue!  Just as quickly as this weird storm started, it suddenly stopped.

Here we are at the top of the airport mesa, vortexing.  Click through really fast, it’s fun.

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