This wasn’t a planned trip for this year. But since I have a business trip to Utah, and we already got a national park pass, it became a good idea to explore Utah’s parks!

犹他州出差，提前一周和老艾过去游玩儿

May 19, 2024 Home to Bryce

Four hours of flight, four hours of driving and about four miles of hiking were a good start for this trip. Somehow there was miscommunication that Erik thought it was a vacation, but it was actually an Utah boot camp trip. Erik wanted to call it a death march, but I think he was exaggerating it and negative thinking is not good for us.🤭

Highlights of Bryce: Navajo trail plus Queen’s Garden trail. Bryce view point, Inspiration view point and Natural bridge.

布莱斯国家公园

May 20, 2024 Walk with the wind

Around 6am, both of us were awake, even though one of us woke up naturally and the other wasn’t. I was excited about the idea of seeing sunrise at Sunrise Point in Bryce, but it was too late, because sun rise would be at 6:15am. But, we were excited that we got to rise when sun rose today.

We headed out after free breakfast buffet without 🥓 . Very disappointing.

We hiked Bucksin gulch overlook via Wire pass trail first. It was about 6 miles, but hiking through slot canyon was first time for both of us. It was a lot of fun!…maybe not with the wind part.

第一个峡谷徒步

We haven’t seen hoodoos for about a month now after New Mexico’s trip. We missed hoodoos. Therefore, our second hike of the day was White ghost hoodoos!

We drove through 🌈 mountains, and Terrans that made me feel like I am in a different world. After 30 mins off road without seeing another car, google map told us to stop, and we did. We walked through a “gate” and began to wonder around without knowing where we were heading. We knew though we wanted to see hoodoos. I pulled up my compass and headed south where the hoodoos supposed to be, but several steps after, there was cliff…no hoodoos in sight. The wind was blowing so strongly and all I could remember was “don’t underestimate the nature”. Even though I missed hoodoos, I think I wanted to make sure I am alive to see them again. We gave in to Ghost Hoodoos.

We hopped in the car and drove further down to see what’s out there. Another trail head looking gate! it pointed to hoodoo’s direction! We were definitely ready to see Ghost hoodoo. Here we go again, but we didn’t see them after half a mile which what I remembered where they should be, but, after a mile we did! They didn’t disappoint me. They are very different than New Mexico hoodoos. I guess no two hoodoos are the same!

白蘑菇群

May 21, 2024 Page

Today is fairly a relaxing day. We went to Horse shoe bend first and got this epic shot. I didn’t download it from the internet. It is just that pretty. Standing at the edge of the canyon, the view was stunning.

马蹄湾

Then we checked out the new wave. We parked our car next to the trail, if there is one. We found this hidden gem in this wilderness. None of us knew what the true wave looks like, but this did look wavy enough to us.

新波浪谷 ：）

Highlight today is the Antelope canyon tour. I didn’t have high expectations since we already hiked a slot canyon, but it impressed me, except the place was super crowded. 0.25 mile long and it took us more than an hour. And each step we took cost a lot of money.

Can you see: sea horse, a heart, smiling shark, Jeri, lion’s head, woman in the wind, a chief’s head, and an eagle’s head?

羚羊谷

5/22 Monument valley and The needles in Canyonland NP

We arrived at monument valley a little before 10am. I had been debated if we should join a tour or not in order to go into the restricted area. I couldn’t decide and didn’t make any reservations. When we got there, the idea of going to places that I wasn’t allowed to go still tempted me. So I walked up to a tour booth. After inquiring for the price, my bargaining skills developed in China came in handy. From $110 per person to $100 for two going into the restricted area! After paying $100 cash, we went with our guide Herbert. He was a super nice guy, growing up here locally. All the monuments were nice, but I enjoyed our short time with Herbert knowing a little about him and his cultural more.

Female hogan and male hogan. No nails, very different structure. The female hogan has 9 main beams symbolizing 9 months of pregnancy…so interesting.

印第安人房屋

Can you see Famous trio of buttes, Three sisters, Elephant butte , The hand, Sleeping dragon, The chief, and Snoopy?

纪念碑谷

We stopped at only three places in the restricted area: Eye of the wind, big hogan arch and Moccasin arch. Can you tell which is which?

纪念碑谷印第安人区

What was a treat for us was a Navajo style concert played by two other guides from two other tour groups. They played flutes for us and sang Navajo songs. What amazing was that when they played, there was no specific songs, but they played based on how they felt the notes went…the music was so spiritual. They said it was a way for them to get Mother Earth and Father in heaven to hear them…

印第安导游演奏乐器

Mexican hat and Muley Point

I was THERE, Forest Gump! Erik laughed at me when I was commenting that the movie should have chosen another place, so that people are not risking their lives trying to take a picture after the movie😝

《阿甘正传》拍摄地点

We went to the Needles area of Canyonland national park. I think I knew why it wasn’t that popular. I wasn’t super impressed with the long drive to get to it. Maybe my expectations were too high. It was pretty, but I didn’t see what I expected. Somehow I thought there would be lots of pointy rock formations. Don’t ask me why…the needles?

5/23 Arch National Park

We worked in the morning until it was close to our park entry time of noon.

What do you expect to see in Arch Nation park? Any guesses? These are not ALL of them…

拱门国家公园

Hmmm…which one above looks like Double O arch? I thought it was clear until I was looking at the pictures…lol.. In order to see the Double O, I felt like we were risking our lives, especially in a strong wind. After Double O trail, my knees cannot do the Delicate arch trail anymore and we could only see it from faraway via an easier trail🙁. Life is full of choices. I always want the cake and eat it all, but always fail to do so…

Besides arches, the park actually has a lot to offer, even a pair of Keens…

拱门国家公园

How about flaming Mexican for dinner after an exciting day?

5/24 Canyonland National Park

Arches yesterday, canyons today.

峡谷国家公园

Highlight of today was the breakfast I had! No, just kidding, I did enjoy the free bagel and sausage, but the highlight was the back road from Canyonland national park to Moab. More than 2 hours of unpaved road with changing scenery of all kinds of landscapes made it an unforgettable experience. I felt like being completely immersed in the nature. Everything is so beautiful in its own way. This is one of the best scenic drives I ever had. Erik did a great job driving. Maybe being a farm boy growing up helped. It is definitely not something the city girl wanted to handle.

How cool are the lenticular clouds!

5/25 To Escalante

Several stops on route 24 with amazing views. Purple Mountain, Long Dong Silver, Factory Butte, Moon Overlook and Bentonite Hills.

沿途风景点

The whole drive today was enjoyable, reminded me of Iceland trip.

沿途风景

5/27 Erik’s favorite day

Slot canyon hike day! Peekaboo and Spooky trail. From Erik’s first try from the entrance, I think he secretly got excited about the hike🤭, he was able to go through!

It was quite a hike under the sun to the canyon. Can you see the canyons? The little open on the left in the picture is the entrance.

But once you were in, it was a lot of fun! Some climbing to begin with. Lots of hikers on the trail.

Overall, it was not as hard as the wild caving we did. Being a small person is a good thing today. Erik missed walking forward after😂

窄峡谷徒步

We drove 5 hours after the hike all the way to Salt Lake City. Our tough travel days are over.

5/27 Salt Lake City

Our last travel day today. We drove two hours to see Bonneville salt flat. Well, I am not sure how to appreciate it very well. We drove on it. Everywhere is white and shiny. We stepped on the salt. I tasted it and confirmed it was salty. I got my shoes layered with salt, and our car took a lot of salt back as well. We saw other people having picnic on salt flat, playing ball catching, skate boarding, dog walking, napping…should we stay longer?

Next stop was Great salt lake which is famous for its two colors, blue and red. It was my first time to see red colored lake. It was so beautiful. We couldn’t access the road where one side is blue and the other is red (left upper corner picture), but it looked so cool even from faraway.

盐湖城

Our nine days Utah trip ended today. Erik is leaving tomorrow and my business trip starts. It was such a wonderful break. God blessed us with good weathers and everything couldn’t be better. I am so grateful how God keeps an eye on us the whole time.

I LOVE trips to see what nature offers us, but, we did talk about a culture trip for the next for a change. Time to plan again😜