Our Home is Where We Park It

2006 Travel Pictures

Page Last Updated: February 19, 2009

Big Bend National Park in West Texas gives a new meaning to REMOTE.

 

Pictured is the southern most of three Rio Grande canyons.

 

Southwest Utah has many more interesting sights to offer than we could believe.

The Bureau of Land Management  manages some very interesting land too remote and undeveloped to be good parks.

Escalante Staircase National Monument is BLM administered, and is bigger than many Eastern states.

Several scenic drives are partly or wholly included in Escalante Staircase, so we have combined all scenic drives with the BLM drives. Grosvner's Arch (left) is on Cottonwood Road.

Utah highway 12 may be the most wonderful drive in this country. We have not yet seen another to top it, but we have certainly not seen everything.

 

Traveling Morgans—Spring 2006

2006 Destinations and Travel Highlights

We left Apache Junction (near Superstition Mountains and Phoenix) in mid March and traveled to the Pacific Ocean. We were investigation some possible jobs for the following Winter. We also wanted to check out one city we thought might be that rarity — a city suitable for people who like to be out of doors. Namely San Diego. After  a few days, we elected not to spend additional time in San Diego. None of the job possibilities turned into jobs, but we enjoyed checking out some sections of  southern California , the Arizona– California border and southern Nevada (links to these are coming).

The picture at left is the San Andreas fault from Key View in Joshua Tree National Park.

 

Big Bend National Park

Job Searching (for a future winter) Spring 2007

2006 was our second real year of full time RVing. We worked at Ruby’s Inn near Bryce Canyon National Park for most of the summer. We had some time to explore other nearby scenic wonders.

Bryce Canyon gets our vote as the most spectacular naturally carved rock we have seen.

It is like God sent a battalion of angels to create an inspiration for all human sculptors,  using only wind, water and temperature change, and he gave them as many millions of years as they needed.

This is truly as much of a “must see” as Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon.

The above is a composite view of the 270 degree view from Bryce Point — actually multiple pictures stitched together by AutoStitch.

Click the picture for a large version, or you can see a huge picture that takes a long time to download.

Bryce Canyon

The state parks of Southwest Utah sit near some of the most beautiful national parks and monuments in the country. The state parks are overshadowed, but worth exploring in their own right.

 

Some were outstanding, such as Kodachrome Basin SP, and
Fremont Indian SP.

Others were very good, such as Coral Pink Sand Dunes SP, Snow Canyon SP, and Escalante Petrified Forest SP

We also visited unique Goblin Valley SP, which was used as an “other planet” setting in the movie “Galaxy Quest”.

 

At left is Chimney Rock from Kodachrome Basin State Park featured in a National Geographic spread from the 1930’s.

State Parks in SW Utah

Moab hosts two national parks (Arches and Canyonlands) a state park with a wonderful view (Dead Horse Point) and nearly unlimited outdoor recreation opportunities.

At left is Double Arch from Arches National Park.

Since 1939 Monument Valley has been used as a place to film movies — especially westerns.

The scenery is stunning.

This would be Utah’s 6th national park, except it is within Navajo Nation Lands.

BLM Lands & Scenic Drives in SW Utah

Monument Valley

Moab Area

Traveling Morgans—Fall 2006

Southwest Utah is full of wonderful places to see. The Red Canyon section of Dixie National Forest, Cedar Breaks National Monument, Zion National Park, and Capitol Reef National Park are of few of these.

Shown here is a composite view of the Chessman Ridge in Cedar Breaks National Monument — — actually multiple pictures stitched together by AutoStitch.

Other National Parks, National Forests & National Monuments in SW Utah