glenmomesa, arbryzion

Having resided in Southern California for over 40 years, I was yet to visit the many beautiful national parks and monuments in our neighboring states of Arizona, Utah, and Colorado. So when a friend couple suggested/invited us to join them for a 9-day road trip to these crown jewels of the West, we gladly obliged.

​Glen Canyon
An eight and a half hour drive from Orange County took us to Page, Arizona, a one-time "Government Camp" for construction workers turned tourist gateway to this National Recreation Area. We stayed two days there to explore the photogenic sandstone caves of Antelope Canyon, a beautiful, circuitous bend of Colorado River, and the grand dam that flooded its namesake canyon to create the second largest artificial reservoir (Lake Powell) of the US.

 

 

 

​​Monument Valley
A rough but steady 17-mile drive on a semi-dirt road took us through a dozen awe-inspiring giant redstone pillars with shapes and names like "The Mittens", "The Cube", "The Camel", "Three Sisters"... that formed the iconic backgrounds of many Western movies.
 

 

​Mesa Verde

A grand "cave house" ancient native Americans built and lived in some eight hundred years ago right underneath a cliff top 7000 feet high was a site we visited after entering Colorado and seeing more mountainous green than stony red as in Arizona.

​Arches
We hiked to stand underneath a Window Arch, watched from afar the Skyline Arch and the Delicate Arch, stayed a canyon-wide gap away from the Fiery Furnace, and enjoyed the shady cool inside the Sand Dune Arch as we toured this popular national park in Utah.

 

 

Bryce
After some breathtaking views of the canyon at a high overlook point and a hike along its ridge, we came back early next morning to watch the sunrise that lit up an amphitheater of hoodoo phalanx in stages.
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Zion
A glittering red paveway seemed to welcome us to this deep canyon flanked by wild rock formations and tugged by a gentle stream meandering through it once we passed the park's entrance station. We took its convenient shuttle service to the in-park lodge for lunch and then hiked to a pond where mule deer appeared and water flared down from cleft rocks.
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Wendy and Al are a couple we knew who sold their restaurant business in Orange County 22 years ago and moved to a little town in Colorado to start anew. They successfully built and ran and then sold their restaurant business there to retire with a new three-acre home Al built himself. We stopped by to visit them during our trip, they welcomed us with great hospitality that included a gourmet steak dinner Al the great chef cooked himself and a hearty breakfast with organic eggs direct from their farmer friends.
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To travel is to learn. Did you know there is a national presidential campaign going on within the US right now? It is in a "Navajo Nation" whose territory covers portions of Arizona, Utah, New Mexico and is bigger than ten US states, with its own constitution, government, and even taxing power.

​And have you heard of Great Basin, Colorado Plateau, and Mojave Desert? They are the three geographical "provinces" that pretty much make up the American Southwest:

I felt more connected with my American Southwestern kin states as we drove through our own Mojave Desert towns of Barstow and Victorville on our way home.