Anything but Bland(ing)

When we got up this morning Rick got up and looked out the window. To his "Guess what?" I was gonna guess rain. But NO! His reply was SNOW! It had snowed about an inch overnight. We certainly weren't expecting that. So we started checking out the weather forecast to see how fast we should head outta here. No snow in the forecast, just a slight chance overnight. So we decided not to worry about it.

I was actually excited to be able to see the desert with a dusting of snow. I've always liked the photos with that combo. I think my mom painted a picture like that too.

So we took off and it was amazing, at every turn or just over every ridge was a brand new view. It was fantastic. Unfortunately, with so much to look at and/or photograph we didn't make very good time. I think we did maybe about 200 miles max.

We saw the Natural Bridges Park with 3 natural bridges. Unfortunately, having just spent 2 days seeing dozens of much more dramatic arches the bridges weren't as exciting as they should have been. But we did hike down to one and got shots from below.

We passed lots of buttes, canyons, the Colorado river, a pretty bridge. There was a "Jacob's Chair," a "Cheesebox Butte," "Dirty Devil," "Factory Butte," "Bear's Ears Pass," "Glen Canyon." But my favorite spot was a little historical town called Fruita. The ancient Indians grew fruit there, then the Mormons. They have old restored buildings, a small river running alongside the rock wall, lots of bright autumn yellow trees, parks, petroglyphs, lots of fairly tame mule deer. Very colorful, clean and interesting. My best shot I think of the whole trip was one of a pair of horses eating with the sun backlighting them.

We were going to fly down hwy 12, touted "the scenic highway you can't miss" to the town of Escalante tonight but at a photo stop Rick ended up talking to a couple like us and they were adamant that we stay in Torrey, just before hwy 12 to see it in the AM hours. We told them how hard it had been to get just as far as we did today and they said if we thought that was good we haven't seen anything yet.

So I'd like to get up early, like 6 and hit the road to get the most of the light for the day. It would be nice to go to Crestline by tomorrow night but now it looks like we may spend just one more night out here and leave for CA Friday AM.

I think I may wear out my camera on this trip.