Ah Utah!

July 27
So our night in an unsecured tent passed uneventfully and we got up early to see sunrise in Monument Valley – which was AWESOME! So beautiful – and as a fan of Western movies in my childhood I got a real kick from seeing where they were really staged – we even got to see John Wayne's cabin from the movie "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon". The real fun part came when trying to leave Mounment Valley J the road through the valley to see all the buttes & peaks is unpaved, and in areas, quite sandy. On the way out the last uphill section is quite steep and rutted, our little automatic ford focus had a hard time getting out of a couple of sand drifts – I would get stuck, have to reverse a bit, try to drive forward, then get stuck – the wheels would spin, sand would fly – and repeat. We got out after about 5/10 minutes – not too bad...but the other foreigners who were watching decided to go back to the visitors' center and take a guided tour than risk driving in the sand themselves.

After breakfast, we packed up our tent & belongings and headed further west to Moab , Utah. Moab seems like quite a cool little town, adventure capital of the area for sure. There are tons of places hawking jeep, biking, climbing, rafting tours and possibly anything else you want to do as well. We came here for the myriad of National Parks in the area. After finding a hostel (Lazy Lizard – the cheapest & best kept secret in Moab), we headed out to Canyonlands – which both Melissa & I preferred to the Grand Canyon. There were far less people around for one, and because the canyons are all together you see far more – its really really cool.

After Canyonlands we took off to Dead Horse Point State Park, where the final scenes from Thelma & Louise were filmed. Unfortunately we didn't see the ridge they drove off – but it was really beautiful, and in the distance we could see huge bolts of lightning flash in the sky.

July 28
This morning we went to Arches National Park to see the sandstone arches. Pretty impressive stuff up close when you realise how large they are. It was absolutely roasting & sunny there. So we didn't hang around too long after snapping some pics.

Then we hit the road for Bryce Canyon – took us most of the day to get there. It is really beautiful despite the fact that we were dodging rain showers to get photos - a total change from this morning's sun.

Tomorrow we are hitting Zion Canyon to attempt to hike the Narrows, but its not looking too good at the moment due to the torrential rain in the area – if that doesn't work then we're going to do some day hikes instead.