LA to Chicago: Roadtrip Diaries #2 - Western Utah

From Vegas, we drove just a few hours to Zion National Park, in Utah. I am ashamed to say I have never been to Utah, other than driving through or a layover at the Salt Lake City airport. Let me tell you, it is beautiful out there, with 5 national parks and amazing red sandstone formations. It rained quite a bit while we there, but we made good use of their great shuttle system, which they implemented in 1997 to decrease problems associated with high visitation, like parking and traffic. I won't say much about it, but let the images speak for themselves.

Entering the park:


The Court of the Patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob:


The Weeping Rock:


A waterfall (seen from the shuttle):



More clouds rolling in as we leave:


After leaving the park we drove on to our motel in Hatch, about an hour away. The drive was pretty, I particularly liked the way the clouds skated along beside us:


Our room at the motel was the "Moose Madness" room which, of course, displayed a rather large set of antlers. At least they weren't above the bed (sorry, no pictures). But here was the view from our little porch:

Not a bad place to lay our heads down for the night.

Up next: Eastern Utah, more breathtaking stone formations.