Day Three

3.02.05

Grand Junction, Colorado

It’s Wednesday now. Day 3 of the “Farewell Tour of the U.S.A.” and what a day or couple of days it has been. I wanted to say a bit more about Zion before I go further. We had no idea what to expect from this national park except for some photos we had seen and the bit we had read in our Eyewitness Guide and the AAA Guide Books. To say that the park has an intimate feeling in the midst of towering peaks seems an unlikely description. However, driving through and then stopping at points along the park, you are so close to the rock formations that shoot straight up to the sky and surround you in a swirl of texture and color that you feel completely enveloped by the park and embraced by its beauty.

Leaving Zion you drive through a section of the Grand Staircase – Escalante National Monument, an enormous and diverse area of southern Utah. Bob and I took turns saying “Oh my god!” and trying to come up with adequate language to describe what we were seeing. Cliffs of crimson, rust, sienna and gold, the sheer force of nature visible around every turn, changing as fast as the light that worked its way across the rocky faces – some soft and gentle shapes, like mounds, others jagged and abstract as a cubist painting.

Our next stop was Bryce Canyon. We arrived in the late afternoon and again were overwhelmed by the site of this national park. You drive through Bryce and are surrounded on all sides by dense forests of evergreen – in this case, with a blanket of snow all around. On the canyon side there are pull outs where you can catch glimpses of the red rock canyon and the formations they call “hoodoos” – pillars of rock left by erosion on the canyon floor. It reminded me of the feeling of seeing stalactites and stalagmites in caves but these were huge and rust colored and reaching up to fantastic heights. These deep rust colored spires were dusted with snow creating quite a contrast against the blue of the sky. The process of erosion continues before your very eyes – indeed, we witnessed the rusty residue of spires turning the snow below a reddish brown. We watched the sun set over the canyon from Inspiration Point and I froze my fingers off trying to capture the moment in my watercolor journal.

This morning we circled back to Inspiration Point for one last look and left Bryce, hoping to reach Grand Junction by end of day. The route we chose took us through Capital Reef National Park. Again, we were blown away by the diversity of the landscape as we passed ridges and cliffs and rock formations, each unique and different from anything we had seen up to that point.

We plan on arriving in Denver tomorrow by dinner and look forward to spending a few days with my sister Suzanne and my nieces Sam & Maddie. We’ll be ready for a few days break from the car but mostly can’t wait to see them and spend time with them before we leave for Italy.

Now I’ll say buona notte dear friends and family.
Thanks for caring about us.

Rosemary & Bob