We left Flagstaff this morning and headed towards Zion. We hit some traffic getting out of town but after 20 or 30 miles we settled into our usual road less traveled and motored along. The scenery was fantastic. As we rolled along it kept changing. It can’t get any better than this; or can it?

We entered the Painted Desert. Holy cow! The colors are sensational. Each strata of rock in the mesas had a different hue. Mahgrit took tons of pictures and they are great but, this is something you have to see for yourself. Pictures can’t do it justice. We took a detour towards Tuba City because one of our books said this section was the best the desert had to offer. The book didn’t lie. It only got better and better. We saw a hand painted sign saying “dinosaur footprints” , well what the heck, we took the left turn. Guess what? There were real dinosaur footprints embedded in the rock, including the footprint of a small TRex. See Mahgrit’s pictures they are really good. We continued on to Tuba City. Ok little town with a cool trading post. Really nice stuff, not junk.

Left Tuba City and continued on toward Zion. We still had a long way to go. We left the Painted Desert area heading north. It can’t get any better than this. But wait, it does. The landscape continued to change. We went fro 6,000 feet to 8,000 feet to 7,000 etc. we changed altitudes so often that the popping in my ears was so frequent I thought that there was static on the IPad ;-).

We were down in a valley at 4,000 feet running parallel to a huge Mesa for 26 miles. The road made a hairpin turn and we were crossing the Colorado River over a huge gorge. Then we did dozens of switchbacks driving up and out of the valley up to 8,000 feet. Every time we thought the view couldn’t get any better …. It did!

We went from Arizona into Utah. Again there was a subtle change in the landscape every turn more beautiful than the one before. The last part of our journey took us into Zion National Park. Once again the senior park pass got us in for $0.00. How can you beat that. Well once in Zion things took a turn for the unbelievable. It is the most beautiful place I have ever been. We were driving down the road and Mahgrit starts to yell, ” I don’t know where to point the camera” . It was a true conundrum. Where was the best shot? We were surrounded by beauty.

Ok, we got to our hotel, got settled in, fed the girls, and went out to eat. See Mahgrit’s pictures of what we saw as we walked and from the small deck off of our room.

Tomorrow we are going to take a tour so we can both see the sights.

P.S. Did you notice I avoided the word AWESOME. 😉 but, it was.