The Mouths on the road - heading to the American canyons

As you may have noticed, @lamouthe and myself (@lemouth being writing today) have been away for about three weeks. Everyone deserves a vacation break, even us!

After sending the kids to the grandparents (actually, the grandparents asked for them in the first place, which is how everything started), we decided to undertake a road trip, as when we were younger. The aim was to discover the canyon country and travel across the American Southwest!

Amazing sceneries, unique colors, breathtaking luminosities! Please choose your superlative. They are all valid! If you don’t know what to say, please have a look below.

_{[Source: Galaxy S7; location: Red Canyon]}

So red and orange! So hilly, so… whatever. The picture speaks by itself.

With this series of posts, both my wife and myself will discuss our trip, sharing varied pictures and comments about what we visited. Even if we will discuss the same trip, we will share different pictures and provide a different vision. So please do not hesitate to follow both or stories (on this unique blog)!

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The trip

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We made a heavy usage of the huge amount of information about all the places we visited already available online to prepare our trip. We quickly converged on what to do and how to do it, making also use of my memories from my first visit of that region when I was 11 or 12. I was not a physicist at that time! ^^

_{[Source: special thanks to Google Map]}

Thanks to our good old Google Map friend, our trip is visible on the above picture. We chose to camp in the different sites, to be as close as possible to the amazing landscapes we decided to see. We also wanted to spend enough time everywhere, staying two nights where usual tours were actually spending one night. We wanted to hike, do attractions, etc.

• We landed in Las Vegas, to rent the car, do some shopping and start 10 intense days of camping and hiking in the canyons. Some material was indeed needed, therefore the shopping. Although we carried a lot from France (including a tent), we had to buy a significant amount of stuff too.

• On the second day, we head up to Grand Canyon Village, on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. Of course, this included a drive on the mythic road 66. We stayed there two nights to hike and fly in a helicopter above the Grand!

• We continued towards Monument Valley where we spent one night in the Navajo Nation. While camping in an amazing place (see one of the pictures below), we also enjoyed an amazing jeep tour through the site!

• We then drive to Page where we stayed two nights to visit Lake Powell and the various surrounding canyons, including the famous Antelope Canyons (see below for a picture).

• We then came back to the Grand Canyon, but this time to enjoy its woody and calmer North Rim where we spent one night. One extra hike on top of the Grand.

• Afterwards, we drove to Bryce Canyon, getting higher in altitude with a more reasonable, sometimes freezing, temperature. We stayed there two nights to enjoy some hiking at a more reasonable temperature, and discover a very different landscape! Some hoodoos are shared below.

• Finally, we went to Zion National Park, for more hikes in a landscape different from anything seen so far (one picture below), visiting Cedar Breaks on the way. Again, two nights to enjoy the Park as much as possible!

• Before coming back home, what is better than three full days at Las Vegas? Fine food, amazing shows and some gambling just for the picture (none of us cares about gambling).

As this canyon area is known to be crowded during the summer, we booked all camping sites in March 2018. We also pre-booked a few guided tours, like those at the Antelope Canyons and the helicopter tour above the Grand Canyon. Those are usually so popular that that they are hard to get if not booked quickly.

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A few pictures

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In the following posts of this series, we will provide more information and pictures of the places we visited. But in the meantime, please enjoy these four ones for the fun. Note that we have 4000 pictures in total, and we will not be able to share them all (no way to post all of that to Steem)…

_{[Source: Galaxy S7; location: Monument Valley, at the campsite]}

_{[Source: Galaxy S7; location: Antelope Canyon]}

_{[Source: Galaxy S7; location: Bryce Canyon]}

_{[Source: Galaxy S7; location: Zion National Park]}

See you hopefully all soon for the next episodes: flying to the American Southwest, Las Vegas and visiting Hoover Dam.