Grand Circle Hightlights

As I thought about the best way to share our vacation (without totally overwhelming my readers), several formats came to mind. I could do a day-by-day series, or maybe I could link similar features into a couple of posts. Then I remembered the little notebook that I kept along the way. I decided that my travel diary, with just the highlights, might be the best way to share nine days' adventures in a nutshell. 

Thursday, September 24th, we picked up our daughter Ashley at the airport and headed south. All we did was drive so that on Friday we could start exploring. We found Sego, a coal mining ghost town and visited Dead Horse State Park.

We saw tons of these little lizards. 

Dead Horse State Park

Saturday was the first of the "biggies." When we visited Arches NP a couple of years ago, we admired Delicate Arch from the viewpoint below. But we vowed that next time, we'd hike up to it. So hike we did, and it was worth the effort. 

Delicate Arch

I will call him Pickles. 

Sunday found us at Mesa Verde NP. We joined a ranger-led tour of Balcony House. It was a lot of fun, with ladders, tunnels, and a nearly-sheer climb up "stairs" carved into the cliff-face. Like real-life Mario of GameBoy days. We got a special treat that evening as we drove across Monument Valley at dusk. The full moon rose behind us, then immediately began its eclipse.

Cliff Palace

Balcony House

Sunset in Monument Valley

Monday was "destination day." The Grand Canyon was the initial feature we had in mind when we began planning our trip, and it did not disappoint. We spent the whole day alternately hiking the South Rim and hopping on and off shuttle buses when look-outs were further apart. On Tuesday, we visited the Horseshoe Bend and the North Rim.

South Rim

We hit Bryce Canyon NP on Wednesday. This was another of the places that we visited way too briefly in '13. This time, I desperately wanted to hike down into the canyon, not just look over it from the top. We were looking for the Queen's Garden trail, the gentlest slope down into the canyon. Instead, we ended up on the Navajo Loop ~ steep, but rewarding. 

Yes, that is the trail, and yes, we are going back up it. 

Well, isn't that encouraging? 

A waterfall in the desert? Oh, yes! Thursday, we made the six-mile (round-trip) hike to 126-ft Calf Creek Falls in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. Back at the car, I insisted on the back seat in hope of getting a nap. Not so much ~ I just got carsick! We found a pullout at Boulder Pass and let my head stop spinning and my tummy stop cartwheeling. A small herd of deer were kind enough to step out of the beautiful golden aspens and entertain us until I was able to continue. 

There were a lot of these brown trout in the clear water of the creek. 

We left Vernal, UT on Friday morning with an eye on the nasty-looking clouds building over South Pass. Sure enough, the rain chased us all the way home. Fortunately, we mostly missed the worst of it. We drove only a couple of miles in hail and heavy rain, though there were many places that obviously got really wet just before we came through. 

This is definitely one of those vacations where we will need to go back to work to rest up! We crammed every day full, even approaching "sensory overload" a time or two, but I wouldn't give back a single moment of it.