It saddens us both to know that this year’s holiday season will be almost completely void of family. The older I get the more that I realize how important it is to spend good quality time with family and friends. The biggest drawback of living so far from both of our home towns is those are the places where most of our loved ones live. Unfortunately, getting to them can be rather difficult - both time and money wise. This year is just not working out to travel cross country, so we are going to make the best of the situation and do some exploring closer to home. Southern Utah calls….

Pine Tree Arch

On Thanksgiving day Mollie, Nyah, and I loaded up the car and headed North; destination Moab. We took our time and enjoyed the trip through Southern Utah. On the way Mollie spied the classic restaurant of home cookin’ goodness, Cracker Barrel. I’d never been to one, so it became a mandatory stop in St. George, Utah.

Cracker Barrel

Mollie is obviously excited. After chowing down on some serious chicken, dumplings, ham, turkey, potatoes, gravy, gravy and more gravy, we headed on with fully bellies towards Moab. We cruised into the small town and found our holiday home away from home, La Quinta Inn. Turned out to be a marvelous place to stay, being quite pet friendly and ‘interestingly’ decorated with cheap Indian stuff. Mollie was taking some notes for our house…ceramic moccasins with cheesy flowers are a must.

Awesome Decor

We had a scrumptious Thanksgiving meal of some cashew chicken from the shezuan food joint down the road (only place open in Moab at 9pm), then rolled to bed. We woke early the next morning to the surprise of 3″ of fresh snow! Nyah was excited about it, obviously. In town it melted quickly, but lingered around at the high elevations for a few days.

What's this? Snow?

First stop, Arches National Park. Arches is very cool. There are hundreds of stone arches formed from weaker stone (mineral and salt deposits) eroding out from underneath the more solid sandstone, leaving behind plenty of weird rock formations.

Landscape Arch:

Landscape Arch

Tunnel Arches:

Three Arches

Delicate Arch, and adjacent basin:

Delicate Arch

There’s too many cool photos to post up here. Head into my flickr gallery by clicking on a photo to see lots more, along with some interesting panoramas. The most impressive of the bunch was Landscape Arch, the first photo of this group. The thing is massive, and so thin that its hard to believe that it is still standing.

Cold and hungry, we headed back into town and got some food, then right back out to see some of Canyonlands National Park, which is about 30 miles outside of Moab.

Canyonlands Mesa

Canyonlands is a massive park encompassing miles very exposed and rugged sandstone cliffs, dropping down from plateau to plateau down into the Colorado and San Juan river systems. We drove up on top of the bluffs to get some shots, and found a lot more snow sticking around. The photos don’t do the views justice, these canyons are HUGE. Felt a lot like the Grand Canyon, but more vertical/compressed/jagged. The sun peeked out for only a few minutes and provided some interesting stormy lighting.

Another Canyonlands Bluff

Canyonlands in the Snow

As the sun was setting we rolled back into Moab and spent some time exploring the little town, and had a nice meal at one of the local spots.

Unfortunately for Nyah, National Parks don’t allow dogs anywhere besides parking areas (what’s up with that?!?) so she spent a lot of time on the leash. Too bad, she loved the snow.

Cold dog

Early Saturday morning we rolled out of town, and headed towards the real ‘meat and potatoes’ of our trip. The stretch between Moab directly South to Flagstaff is littered with crazy stuff. Too much to really even post about here. We drove from one “WOW look at that crazy (insert land formation here)” spot to another, about every hour or so. The first stop for the day was Natural Bridges National Monument. My favorite of the trip.

Sipapu Bridge:

Sipapu Bridge

Owachomo Bridge:

Owachomo Pano

Owachomo Bidge from the Pools

As we drove, we joked that they called the park Natural Bridges only because Arches was already taken. A quick trip to the visitor center clearly explained the difference. The bridges above (and others in this deep sandstone canyon) are formed at a bend in a twisting river. As the river snakes around, the water slams over and over into the canyon wall, digging deeper and deeper into a bend until eventually it cracks through, leaving a big U-shaped corner dry, and a Natural Bridge where the corner used to be. I’m not sure if this makes sense…. Anyhow. The bridges are noticeably larger than the Arches. For reference, in the second photo above, Mollie is standing below the bridge. She’s the tiny black speck. Click for a larger version.

We packed up and continued the drive, and ran past more awesomeness. Photos tell the story better than I can….

Goosenecks State Park, Serpentine Ridge:

Goosenecks State Park

Awesome Highway (yes I said highway, just before the bends below it was 4 lane blacktop):

Now that's a road

The Mexican Hat:

The Mexican Hat

Monument Valley:

Monument Valley
Our initial plan was to head down to Flagstaff and camp out for the night, hang around there through Sunday and head home. We arrived in Flagstaff at about 8pm and caught some dinner, and the call to our own beds was too strong to resist. After walking the dog around town a bit, we jumped in the Subaru for a final 4-hour push to get home. We returned to Vegas late Saturday night, happy to be home, and rather pooped from the marathon drive. It was nice to wrap up the long weekend with a relaxing Sunday at home.

Couple more favorite photos:

Owachomo Bridge

Close enough

Landscape Swenson

Panos: (Highly recommend viewing full size)

Owachomo from the North

Highway Pano Monument Valley

Delicate Arch Pano

Canyonlands South Pano

Canyonlands North Pano

Big Landscape Arch Pano