Grand Canyion Here We Come

After leaving Cedar City today, our first stop is Zion National Park, a landscape that was carved out by rushing streams over a period of a million years. Through Kaibab National Forest to the less visited north rim of the Grand Canyon, with views over the mighty Colorado River.

Zion National Park

Grand Canyon

Bryce Canyon - Cedar City

We leave Salt Lake City and travel through the sagebrush landscape of southern Utah to Bryce Canyon National Park with its breathtaking sandstone and limestone cliffs and ever-changing colours. We head west through Dixie National Forest and Cedar Breaks National Monument to Cedar City for our ovrernight stay.

Bryce Canyon

Best Western at Cedar City, UT - our hotl for the night

Grand Teton National Park - Jackson - Salt Lake City

Today, we head south into the magnifiscent Grand Tetons with saw-toothed, 4,115m high ridges crested with snow most of the year. Through "Western" Jackson with its wooden sidewalks and swing-door saloons, and we'll arrive in Salt Lake City, the centre of the Mormon religion,  in the late afternoon where we'll take a brief orientation drive before reaching the Red Lion Hotel for the night.

Grand Tetons

Jackson

Salt lake City

Yellowstone National Park

most interesting Day. Sorry no pictures.


I was sitting down on a park bench this afternoon, waiting for Diane, when someone shouted to me,"Sir, there is a bear heading your way."


I stood up and sure enough a fully grown black bear walked by me about 10 feet away. I got my camera ready but by the time it was running I just got the back end of it. By now lots of people came running to me telling me ho lucky I was not getting eaten.


a few minutes later someone else was shouting, "Bear,"

when we saw a grizzly bear following the black bear. well this time I was ready and caught it on camera, just as a ranger ordered everyone back into their vehicles, well, our bus was about 500 metres down the road so we returned to the bus and hoped for the best.


nothing can now beat this experience.

Yellowstone National Park

We leave Cody and drive through the Shoshone National Forest to Yellowstone National Park, following the Grand Loop Road to Artist Point with views of Yellowstone Canyon and the Lower Falls, nearly twice the height of Niagara. Next, we visit the geyser basins with bubbling mud paint pots and finally the reliable "blow" of Old Faithful, Yellowstone's great geyser.

We stay two nights in West Yellowstone, the western gateway to the park. Located in Wyoming, Montana nd Idaho, it is home to a large variety of wildlife including grizzly bears, wolves, bisons and elk and we hope we'll see some of those (from a distance).

Old faithful

Yellowstone National Park

We stay two nights in West Yellowstone, the western gateway to the park. Located in Wyoming, Montana nd Idaho, it is home to a large variety of wildlife including grizzly bears, wolves, bisons and elk and we hope we'll see some of those.

Keystone - Cody

We head through the rich, mountainous country to Buffalo, where open-range cattle kings made war on the sheep ranchers of the 1880s. We drive past Sheridan, the scene of many fierce battles between the U.S. Cavalry and the Sioux, Cheyenne and Crowe Indians.

Then we climb over the Bighorn Mountains en route to the overnight stay in Buffalo Bill's frontier town of Cody.

Town of Cody

Badlands National Park - Keystone

First a drive through Fort Pierre National Grassland to see the prairie as it once was when only buffalo and the Sioux Indians occupied the land. Next we go to Badlands National Park, where 37 million years of wind and water have carved out a remarkable colourful sight. Then we head deep into the Black Hills and behold the granite faces of Mount Rushmore, a giant monument to four American presidents - Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Roosevelt.

Mount Rushmore Monument