Utah

We arrived in Utah in the afternoon. We drove right to the Salt Flat and was awed by the uneding flat road. We were scared to take our little car onto the flats since the person at the cafe by them told us that many cars get stuck. But while we were standing on them, an SUV came up and drove right onto them. It disappeared into the horizon within seconds. If you’re a fan of speeding, that’s probably the best place in the States to visit. Not to mention it’s quite neat.

We then drove to Provo where I decided I was too tired to continue so we spent the night in a hotel and relaxed and did the laundrey and logged in. In the morning, we took our time leaving and drove towards Zion National Park. On the way, we stopped at Marysvale around where we had read about two ghost towns. We stopped for lunch at this tiny cafe which had the best burgers I’ve eatned in quite some time. We then drove up to Bullion which wasn’t really a ghost town; it was an old town which was really no longer there. There was an exhibit with the mining equipment. It was interesting but not exactly what we were looking for.

We then drove down tothrough Red Canyon to Bryce Park. It had started to rain and within minutes, it ppoured and started to thunder loudly. e saw several flashes of lightning. We drove anyway and by the time we arrived at Bryce, it was trickling a tiny amount. The shaved and cony mountains of red, pink, yellow, white and orange covered miles and miles. I was so awestruck that I couldn’t stop taking pictures. I thikn it might be the most beautiful sight I’ve seen on this trip.

An hour or so later, we drove to Zion Park and got there throught the east enterance, which turned out to be interesting but a bummer. The winding roads took a long time to get through and by the time we were in the park and got on the shuttle (you can’t drive in the park, you have to take the shuttle) it was already 8:30pm. We went up to Weeping Rock and walked a trail that was only a quarter of a mile long before it got dark. We made a note to definitely come back to this park as the huge mountains that towered over us in multicolor fascinated Jake and he wanted to do some of the longer and steeper hikes that we hadn’t had the time to do. A truly inspiring park.

We drove to St. George for the night and plan to take the quicker, though by no means quik, route to the Four Corners, Canyon of the Ancients and then Canyon de Chelly.We’ll see how far we’ll get. Utah, albeit hot, was amazing and we haven’t even seen half of it.

Lodging: La Quinta Inn, Provo @ $62.10 , Singletree Inn, St. George @ $41.50Car’s Mileage: 16,110

Gas: $11.87@1.69 & $14.07@1.78

Roads: 80 to SLC, 15 to Provo, 70 and 89 to Bryce and to Zion, 15 to St. George

Sites: Bonneville Salt Flats, Provo, Bryce National Park, Red Canyon, Zion National Park