M&D's Big Adventure

It was a mere 34°C when we got up this morning so we delayed our journey to Las Vegas and used the relative cool to do some packing. We were on the road by 10.00am. The landscape soon changed from attractive rocks to desert. We joined a freeway and once more found ourselves in a gorge. Although 75 mph (120 kph) was the maximum speed, even thinking of driving slower resulted in huge trucks tailgating us. Our knuckles were white. We were through it fairly quickly as a result and we were able to look at the increasingly bland desert as we neared Las Vegas. We hadn't realised what a huge proportion of the South West is desert. Las Vegas had reached 44°C when we arrived. We stayed at Arizona Charlie's RV Park again. It wasn't as full as when we stayed 67 nights earlier. We think this is probably due to it being concrete and gravel and, with temperatures in the 40s, the concrete radiates it back. We had a farewell dinner with our travel companions...

The trip to Zion Canyon was a mere 84 miles (135 Km) but it still took well over three hours by the time we had paused to look at scenery and had to wait because of heavy traffic. We enjoyed pretty scenery as we left Bryce. When we saw the Checkerboard Mesa we knew we were near Zion. At the park entrance motor homes were charged an additional $15. This is because the tunnel isn't high enough for us to engage with two-way traffic and not scrape our roof. It all had to be held up so we could drive down the centre line. The tunnel was a mile long. We drove slowly down the middle of the tunnel attempting (and succeeding) a drive in which our roof touched neither the top nor the edge of the tunnel. On emerging we had to immediately navigate a series of steeply descending switchbacks while our eyes adjusted to sudden bright sunshine. No chance for photos as the navigator was also fully engaged in keeping the driver on the road. Zion park is named Zion because the f...

Our trip in the shuttle bus took us to Rainbow point 9115 feet (2778 meters) above sea level. Our  driver provided a lot of information as we climbed, especially about the forest, the species in it, and the place of fires as a natural phenomenon in forests.  He showed us a tree that had been hit by lightning. A tourist was impaled with hundreds of splinters from the tree. The tourist is no more but the tree survives, despite a big chunk of its bark and some of the wood being blasted. As we have moved from park to park, brochures and visitor centres have provided information on the geology of each park and how it fits in with the bigger picture. Unfortunately, some of the information, especially about time frames, varies from source to source! The brief story is that rock and rock material has been building for up to a billion years. There are various layers of different types of rock and that rock has changed through pressure, heat, etc. In addition, earthquakes an...

Another day, another canyon. At least it seemed that way as we contemplated a 300 mile (480 km) drive to Bryce Canyon in Utah. We wondered what more we could see. It turned out that we would see plenty that was new to us. We backtracked for about an hour, passing an elk grazing at the side of the road and then past Cameron Trading Post once more. As before, the ever changing landscape, mostly desert, kept us alert. As we neared Bryce Canyon we noticed more red rock, and trees appeared on the slopes. We also crossed into another time zone so we had a 23 hour day and fatigue and lateness prevented us from venturing into the park. However, we did sign up for a 3½ hour trip to the back of the park. It was free, included in our entrance fee, and very useful to us as motorhomes aren't allowed on those roads. As it was Independence Day we joined two other couples and went to the local rodeo. Bowlegged cowpersons from NZ and Australia. The crowd stan...