Russ and Rob's Travels: Grand Canyon to Canyonland

Monument Road, the long straight road lead us across rather flat desolate landscape with red rock monuments set along each side of the roadside. These red stone masterpieces tower 400 – 1000 ft within the valley which is aptly named " Monument" valley. The valley lies within the Novojo Indian nation on the southern border of Utah. This Old America’s West and has been photographed and filmed and is famous for movies. Real John Wayne country....

We crossed the San Juan river and into Utah, the third state we had visited since our trip began. A lunch stop along the river was enjoyed before continuing onto Moab in southeastern Utah where we stayed two nights in an RV park. On route we stopped to photograph and walk some well known rock formations such as Twin peaks, Church rock and Wilsons Arch and in the distance their were views of snow topped mountains .

The following morning it was time to explore nearby Canyonlands National Park which is very well named for it's all types of canyons. We all jumped into troopy and headed off. First it was a visit to lights in the sky visitor’s centre for information. We then walked the two hour return Grand View Trail giving us magnificent canyon views at different view points along the track. Our return trip was on the 4WD track starting from the 6080 ft at its top, down the canyon wall and 36 mile along its floor passing the salt ponds and potash processing plant as we neared Moab.

Being amongst the cliffs and seeing the changes in the colours of the rock formations as the sun beamed down across them was an awesome experience. Around every corner was another photograph of God’s amazing Masterpiece. We spent most of our daylight hours exploring the area so by the time we were home we were really appreciative of our pizza, pasta, soup and salad prepared by a chef for us at a very reasonable price.

Canyonland is described as "the most weird, wonderful, magical place on earth—there is nothing else like it anywhere.