After the awesome chopper ride, we drove all the way to Antelope Canyon. Luckily Kim sped a little bit because the tour guides were already selling our spot to other people. But we arrived just in time and took place on one of the Big Foot monster trucks. The road to the canyon required huge wheels though, as it was basically right through the desert dunes.
The canyon itself was quite the sight. Probably the smallest canyon that we'll encounter, it surely had its charm. The narrow passages played with the light very well and the tour guide helped us to take the best pictures possible. A nice change from the huge bombastic canyons we saw earlier.
After the Antelope Canyon, we drove off to Monument Valley. When we arrived there it was already pitch-black. We set up our tent at the Goulding camping grounds right next to Monument Valley. Quite a challenge when you can't see anything! Oh yeah, we also had a late night visitor, a Tarantula spider crawling its way through the tents. Unfortunately some Italians went ballistic and crushed the poor guy with a wooden log.
The next day we visited Monument Valley. Just as the name suggests, it's a valley full of monuments. These monuments are huge rock structures called "buttes" or "mesas". We drove around them on a dirt road, but nothing really exciting. These rocks are so huge you can see them from miles away and the view doesn't get much different from up close.
Anyways, when we got back at our camping spot, me and Kim dove into the local pool. A nice refreshment but with 2m x 5m dimensions we didn't do a lot of swimming.
Afterwards we decided to visit "Teardrop Arch", a remote arch on top of a mountain. Normally off-limits, but we snook past the fences. Without a trail to follow we climbed up the mountain with hands and feet. Of course when we reached the top and sat in the Teardrop Arch it gave us a great feeling of satisfaction, something the entire Monument Valley kind of failed to deliver.
That kind of wrapped up the day, so we got back in our tent prepared for the next day.
After waking up we took a well deserved shower, broke down our tent and headed out to Goosenecks State Park. A lot of goose necks right there! The river had made some awesome corners in the rocks which really made an impression. After that we went to the Valley of the Gods. This valley is best compared to Monument Valley, but smaller, and a whole lot less popular. Which is a good thing in my opinion. We also went through it on a dirt road, but this time we almost didn't see any tourist on our path. A lot more enjoyable for sure!
The next park on our plan was Natural Bridges. It's quite like the National Park "Arches" that is coming up later on, but smaller and less popular. Pretty cool stuff, the park has three big bridges with a lot of trails around them. We started with the regular view points, but wanted to undertake an entire hike to the bottom of the park. However, as it started to rain a little bit and as giant thunderclouds were approaching we decided to head back to our car sooner than planned. In every park you see many signs stating the danger of flash floods, so we didn't want to get right in the middle of one of those at the bottom of the canyons!
We headed forward to Canyonlands National Park, at least the bottom section. As it began to rain even more we had to cut our trip short so we only got a quick look at the Needles part of the park. Pretty cool though to see waterfalls form because of the sudden amount of rain. Right when we got back in our car storm really broke lose upon us. We made way to Moab, right next to Arches National Park. We checked into our motel "Best Western". Not bad for a motel!
The day after we prepared for our hike in Arches. We forgot to have a decent breakfast though, and that probably wasn't very smart considering the hike we were about to undertake.
We selected "Devils Garden" for our trail, the longest and most strenuous hike possible. We saw a lot of arches on the road, but foremost a whole lot of sun. I burned both my arms, Tom got a bad headache from the sun and Kim's feet felt like they've been tortured. No pain no gain, right?
Due to a lack of breakfast and the strenuous hike, we felt like we could eat a horse. When we went to Moab's local Brewery we therefore ordered the full rack of pork ribs. Normally in Belgium one rack would be only a start, but somehow these racks are gigantic. None of us managed to finish.
We got a good night sleep after that huge meal. The next day awaits!
Dead Horse Point was our first destination of Wednesday. We tried to go via a dirtroad but after driving an hour we found out it was closed... Unfortunately there was no alternative so we had to go all the way back to Moab to take the entire way around. When arriving there we learned that a high plateau was used to guide wild horses into a trap. After a while hunters forgot about the horses and while the Colorado river was within eyesight, the 2000 feet drop prevented them from getting any water. So that's where the name "Dead Horse Point" originated from.
We also went back to Canyonlands National Park, but now the more Northern part called "Island in the Sky". Another collection of awesome breath-taking views passed our way.
We header off towards Bryce via a long scenic road through the mountains and a couple parks such as Capital Reef National Park. We discovered a couple Petroglyphs on the walls along the road, ancient drawings of Indians that represented celebrations and hunt scenarios.
When we arrived after driving this incredible road, we settled down in Bryce Canyon Pines motel. We had some of the pies where Pines is famous for, and I've got to say they're worth it!
So now I'm concluding this wall of text in Pines, waiting anxiously for the next day. We're about to visit Bryce, another amazing National Park.
Andreas
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