Day 13 Friday 7/5 -- Arches to Bryce Utah

As Jarad described in our last entry, the scenery across Utah from Arches to Bryce was phenomenal. As he says, Rt 70 is "one of the craziest Interstates you'll ever drive on."  

Mesas of every hue, gold, red, pink, white, lining the road. Deep cuts through multilayered stone. Scenic turnouts every few miles (but no services of any kind for 106 miles!)  A Navajo man was selling beautiful handcrafted items at one stop. He had been to the Pow Wow in Charlemont Mass a few years ago!

See the tiny cars in this photo?  

We turned south along Capitol Reef Natl Park, huge domes of white on our right, mountainous forest on our left. We hit 4000 miles travelled here. The road rose into mts with two passes over 9000 feet. The first faced green gazing lands, the second sparse red earth. Jarad piped at both as his pics showed. The music attracted a local camper packing a pistol on his hip. Jarad gladly played an encore.

Grand Staircase Escalante National Park is enormous; we drove through the northwest corner over the San Rafael Swell, a series of 190 million year old sand dunes. The road was borderline treacherous, with hairpin turns and sheer cliffs on one and even both sides of the road at times. The views were worth it!

Just as we did with Arches, we came up a back way to Bryce National Park that gave a foretaste of what be seeing the next day.