The trip there

1987 Our lives in America»July 1987 US Nationals in Lincoln, Nebraska
July 8, 1987   We leave home in San Diego and drive to Las Vegas on July 8, 1987 heading for the US Nationals to be held at Lincoln Nebraska. Las Vegas seems even bigger and more boisterous than it was on our first trip there in 1984 when we still lived in Thornleigh. This is Caesar's Palace We don't stay at Caesar's, we stay in a cheapie motel like they show in the movies. 1987 July NationalsLincolnNebraska 0004 a
1987 July NationalsLincolnNebraska 0005 a We stopped here in 1984 with Brian on our return from the World Titles and had a very cheap prime rib. We go to the same place again January 9, 1987   We leave Las Vegas early next morning and continue our drive along Interstate I15 and cross into Utah at St George. We approach the entrance to Zion National Park.
Zion National Park. The white caps belong to the Three Patriarchs The Three Patriarchs. Trees in Zion are predominantly Fremont Cottonwood, Utah Juniper and Ponderosa Pine . This is a grove of Cottonwoods.
The Great White Throne. This is a light coloured sandstone that wears easily. Ponderosa Pines favour higher elevations. Most of the rocks in Zion National Park are sedimentary rocks – rocks made of bits and pieces of older rocks that have been weathered, eroded, and deposited in layers. These rock layers hold stories of ancient environments and inhabitants very different from those found in Zion today. In this distant past, Zion and the Colorado Plateau were near sea level, and were even in a different place on the globe - close to the equator. The rock layers found in Zion today were deposited between approximately 110 –270 million years ago –only in recent geologic time have they been uplifted and eroded to form the scenery of Zion National Park. This is the Virgin River and, with its tributaries, runs through Zion National Park. This water is the primary agent of erosion that continues to carve and shape Zion.
The North Fork of the Virgin River begins north of Zion at Cascade Falls, where it drains out of Navajo Lake at 9,000 feet above sea level. The East Fork of the Virgin River originates above Long Valley. Both the North and East Forks of the Virgin River run through the park and empty into Lake Mead at about 1000 feet above sea level, where it joins the Colorado River. We continue out of Zion and head towards Bryce Canyon. Bryce Canyon. Sunset Point at 8000 feet at a viewpoint called the Amphitheatre. JGRVariousPictures 0012 a
1987 July NationalsLincolnNebraska 0017 a The trees are probably a mixture of spruce and pines From Inspiration Point, 8143 Ft. The geology of this place is awesome. I made a complete series about the Colorado Plateau that explains how all of this stuff came to be here. Click here if you want to stop this story and start a new tour.
1987 July NationalsLincolnNebraska 0021 a Call of the wild. This is the highest point we visit, 1.1 miles from Sunset Point. Natural Bridge - probably an arch as bridges are carved by streams or rivers.
Rainbow Point, 9105 Ft. On our way out of Bryce Canyon we spot a couple of deer grazing on a grassy patch, with a grove of Aspen trees in the background. We see neither of these in Australia so this is a special experience for us. View point in the Dixie National Forest.   Jenni is now in her second year as a university student. Dixie National Forest is located in Utah with its headquarters in Cedar City. It occupies almost two million acres and stretches for about 170 miles across southern Utah. It is the largest national forest in Utah and straddles the divide between the Great Basin and the Colorado River. We're at 9000 ft in the Dixie National Forest
What appears to be a vast wasteland lies between us and Capitol Reef in the distance. In reality, it is some of the most beautiful scenery to be found on the planet. That's Capitol Reef National Park in the distance Our motel in the Capitol Reef National Park is called the Rim Rock Inn. There are magnificent views of the Henry Mountains 35 miles away from the Stagecoach restaurant where we have breakfast. We love it so much that we come back again twenty years later. That's Jenni's Honda in front of Room 10. The motel is one of a few buildings here at the time; it is magnificent and lonely. In 2022 I look for it again and it is still here listed as a "Rustic Motel" but at $200/night. There are lots of upmarket "resorts" spread through the area as well.
The Rim Rock Inn is three miles out of Torrey, Utah. If I had a choice to return to one or two more places in my life, here would be one of them. Eighty million years ago, this part of America was submerged at the bottom of a huge seaway called the Western Interior Seaway. It ran from the Gulf through to the arctic. We're looking at the layers of sand and silt that formed millions of years ago at the bottom of that ocean. Petroglyphs created by the Anasazi. They were gone by 1300 CE; historians list drought among the possible causes for their disappearance.
Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. It is full of water right now (but not in 2022). The lake was created by the damming of the Colorado at Glenn Canyon Dam in Page, Arizona. Quote: "Glen Canyon Dam is quickly becoming a relic of the past. While there may be too much concrete to fully remove the dam, it will eventually need to be re-engineered in order to preserve the remaining biological integrity of Grand Canyon and the Colorado River." "Sipapu" a natural bridge in Bridges National Monument. "Owachomo". This bridge is still standing when we return twenty years later. The cracks in the bridge are evident even on our current journey.
Kachina Bridge. Natural Bridges National Monument is located about 50 miles northwest of the Four Corners boundary of southeast Utah, at the junction of White Canyon and Armstrong Canyon, part of the Colorado River drainage. July 10, 1987   This is the Valley of the Gods in SE Utah as we continue on our way south to monument Valley. Draw an imaginary line between where we stand to the centre of the three buttes. This is East, North is to our left. That butte in the centre is farthest away and therefore more Easterly. This butte is called the East Midden Butte. The butte on the left of picture is closest to us and is the West midden Butte. The remaining butte is the Merrick Butte and is more to the south than the other two. This makes the mesa on the right of the picture more to the South as well and it is possibly the Elephant Butte (hard to tell with a wide angle lens). Take the imaginary line and move it in your mind out of the picture to the left. This is the Arizona/Utah State border, so Utah is out of this picture to your left. This map makes everything a little less difficult to place. Nearly everything you see is to the East of the visitor Centre.
We now know that the single finger salute is from the East Midden, and the big lump on the right is Merrick Butte. The West Midden gives a single finger salute from a finger on its right side. The best view of Monument Valley is from the visitor centre at Monument Valley Tribal Park. What staggers the imagination is that the whole of Monument Valley was once filled with rock to the top of these middens and it all wore away (and is still wearing away). Now imagine what this would look like if it had been wearing away for 550 million years like the Petermann Ranges in Australia. Where did so much water come from to wear this away over a mere 80 million years? A four-wheel track winds its way through the park.
We're In Utah looking south as we return to travelling northwards. We're now at the head of Monument Valley looking south again. A view in Utah of the entire valley from the north. On our way back north, we go back via the Valley of the Gods again.
This is Mexican Hat Rock at Mexican Hat, Utah. Note the squeezing of the rocks in the background. According to Google, in 2022 the rock is still balancing there just as it was 35 years ago. You gotta wonder for how much longer? Valley of the Gods from from US 163. Looking down into the Valley of the Gods. We drive from the valley floor up a dirt road full of switchbacks to get to the top of the plateau.
From the top of plateau looking down into the Valley of the Gods. These are the Indian Ruins in the Edge of the Cedars State Historical Monument in Blanding Utah. We stay overnight at a motel in Monticello on our way to Moab. July 11, 1987   These petroglyphs are called Newspaper Rock in Newspaper Rock State Historic Monument, Utah. Newspaper Rock is located in San Juan County, Utah, along Utah State Route 211, 53 miles south of Moab. On our way to Canyonlands National Park. The exit to Canyonlands is between Monticello and Moab on US 191.
Canyonlands National Park in Southeastern Utah is known for its dramatic desert landscape carved by the Colorado River. The Needles area in Canyonland NP Canyonlands is the most rugged of the Utah National Parks. We don't see many retirees driving around here. The Chocolate Drops buttes in the Maze district
Closeup of the Needles Canyonlands National Park is very rugged; there are dirt foot trails only in most places (in 1987 at least) The Colorado River flows through Canyonlands. The Green River is a major river that ends when it joins the Colorado in Canyonlands. The Green river gets its water from the Rockies in Colorado. We leave Canyonlands and head north to Dead Horse Point State Park near Moab.
This is Dead Horse Point that, according to legend, is so named because of its use as a natural corral by cowboys in the 19th century, where horses often died of exposure. Dead Horse Point is at an elevation of 5900 ft and the Colorado River below is around 2000 ft. This place almost matches the Grand Canyon as a breathtaking panorama. It is one of Nature's greatest spectacles. At Dead Horse point looking east to the mountains in Utah. Thelma and Louise Point is near the tiny bit of river showing in the left centre. The Colorado is flowing south from here to join the Green River in Canyonlands.
The mountains in the background are in Utah near the border with Colorado. These blue areas are potash (Potassium chloride) evaporation ponds. Miners pump water from the Colorado River deep underground to reach the potash ore 3,900 feet below the surface. The water dissolves the soluble potash into a brine, which is then pumped into underground caverns. Once it is fully dissolved, the potash brine is pumped to one of the evaporation ponds. From Dead Horse Point looking SW. We now head for Arches National Park. Somewhere along the route we spot these horses and we wonder if they are wild.
From Dead Horse Point, we drive through Moab into Arches National Park. These are the Three Gossips. The North Window. Double Arch. The story of Arches begins roughly 65 million years ago; the same time as when the dinosaurs died. At that time, the area was a dry seabed spreading from horizon to horizon.   Turrett Arch
If you stood in Devils Garden then, the striking red rock features we see today would have been buried thousands of feet below you, raw material as yet uncarved. Jenni sitting in the North Window. Then the landscape slowly began to change. First, geologic compression forces wrinkled and folded the buried sandstone, as if it were a giant rug 0making lumps across the middle called Anticlines. Note: In an anticline, the oldest rocks are in the centre of the fold. As the sandstone warped, fractures tore through it, establishing the patterns for rock sculptures of the future.
Next, the entire region began to rise, climbing from sea level to thousands of feet in elevation - from zero to 5600 ft.   This is the North Window Arch. Window Arch on the Window Arch Trail. Interesting is the folded rock on the right side of the arch. After climbing from sea level the forces of erosion carved layer after layer of rock away. Once exposed, deeply buried sandstone layers rebounded and expanded, like a sponge expands after it's squeezed. This created even more fractures, each one a pathway for water to seep into the rock and further break it down. This is called the Devil's Garden. This expansion created even more fractures, each one a pathway for water to seep into the rock and further break it down.   Balanced Rock
Tourists seem like dwarfs compared with the size of the arch. Wall Arch, located along the popular Devils Garden Trail at Arches National Park collapsed sometime during the night of August 4, 2008. Rock has continued to fall from the arms of the remaining portion of the arch necessitating the closure of the Devils Garden Trail just beyond Landscape Arch. I don't have a picture of the wall arch. The Manti-La Sal National Forest in the background. Peaks are at 12,000 ft and still have snow on them. The Manti–La Sal National Forest covers more than 1.2 million acres and is located in the central and southeastern parts of Utah and the extreme western part of Colorado. From Arches we turn around and head a couple of miles south, through Moab and connect with SR128. This very small road follows the Colorado River for about 50 miles until we connect with I70 going East. The scenery is spectacular and traffic is minimal.
We drive into the Rockies along I70 After climbing the Rockies, we drive to Grand Junction Colorado, 150 miles from Moab, where we meet up with Bob, Jim and Kaz and spend the night there in a motel. End of this segment. So why did I spend so much time reconstructing this trip through Arizona/Southern Utah? Because these three days are most definitely among my life's very best moments.