Tina and I took a trip recently to Arizona and Utah to visit various places, including the Grand Canyon, Zion, and Bryce Canyon National Parks. We had an amazing time, especially since we had never been to that part of the country before. It reminded me a lot of the Australian Outback, with the red rocks, open landscape, and dramatic cliffs.
We flew in to Phoenix, AZ, and from there, drove up to the Montezuma Castle National Monument in Camp Verde, AZ.
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| Montezuma Castle National Monument, Camp Verde, AZ |
From there, it was a 2-hour drive to the Grand Canyon National Park. We only spent a full day at the Grand Canyon, but it was enough for us, since we weren't planning on camping there overnight.
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| Grand Canyon National Park |
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| View from Bright Angel Trail. We only went about 1.5 miles down this trail and then came back up. |
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| Grand Canyon National Park. |
From the Grand Canyon, we took a 2-hour drive to Page, AZ. This was probably my favorite part of the trip. We got to see Horseshoe Bend, which was breathtaking.
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| Horseshoe Bend in Page, AZ. |
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| Tina and me at Horseshoe Bend. |
The best part of Page, however, was Lower Antelope Canyon. It's this really narrow sandstone canyon that was carved out by flash floods over time. We entered through this narrow slit, and once we were below, it was incredible - unlike anything I've seen or experienced before.
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| The exit of Lower Antelope Canyon, but it gives you an idea of what we climbed down. |
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| The view from Lower Antelope Canyon. |
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| Tina and I in Lower Antelope Canyon. |
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| Tina walking around in Lower Antelope Canyon. |
From Page, AZ, we crossed the Arizona-Utah border and arrived at Zion National Park after about 2 hours in the car. We stayed in Springdale, UT, which was right outside the park. We spent two days here, but it was two days well-spent, because Zion has some neat hikes. My favorite hike was Angels Landing, which was a pretty strenuous 5.5-mile hike covering an elevation change of 1,500 feet, but it was a fun and exciting hike, and well worth it. At some points during the hike, there were chains installed to hold on to to help prevent people from mis-stepping and falling. It was kind of scary, but kind of cool too. Another memorable hike was Observation Point, which was an 8-mile hike to the highest point in the park. The hike itself wasn't as thrilling, even though there was a neat mini-canyon we walked through, but the view at the end was still spectacular.
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| Zion National Park in our matching shirts. |
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| View from Observation Point, the highest point in Zion National Park. |
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| This is one of the many stunning views we had as we walked along Angels Landing. |
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| Hiking up Angels Landing. This hopefully gives you an idea of how steep the elevation change was, and how fun the hike itself was. When you have a hike that has chains installed to hold on to in case you misstep, it can feel somewhat dangerous. |
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| View from atop Angels Landing. |
After time at Zion National Park, we took another 2-hour car ride over to Bryce Canyon National Park, where we didn't do much hiking (we were pretty tired by that point), but still were able to enjoy some nice views.
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| Bryce Canyon National Park. |
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| Tina and I at Bryce Canyon National Park. |
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| The sun setting over Bryce Canyon National Park. |
From Bryce Canyon National Park, we drove to Salt Lake City, UT, and flew back to Seattle.
Overall, it was a great trip, and to be able to see and experience all that we did really reaffirms to me how complex creation is and how I find it impossible to believe that all of it could have happened without an intelligent Creator behind it all. And to think - this is just one region among many in all of America, which is just one country among many in the entire world, which is just one planet among many in our galaxy.
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| Appreciating God's creation. |
