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| Behind tonight's campground |
This
morning I thought of the comment that Jennifer made on the blog…”If you get
served a lemon, make lemonade”!...with regard to the National Park issue, so as
we left Cedar City on Route 14 and climbed 4000 feet in about 15 miles through
the most amazing scenery, I thought yes, this is truly magnificent. We were in
Canyon Country, real red rock scenery without having to go to a National Park.
And I think there are probably going to be a lot of red rock photos over the
next little while!
When we got
to the top we detoured into the Cedar Breaks National Monument, and although
the Visitors centre and facilities were closed and there were cones in front of
the viewing areas, a number of others along with us just walked over them to
take a look….WOW, what a sight. Although at 10,500 feet we were puffing quite a
bit and decided not to do the 1 mile walk to another lookout!
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| Cedar Breaks National Monument |
Back on 14
heading east and through probably what was the peak of the aspen colour
(lemonade again!!!), they were just glowing canary yellow in the sun as we
drove through a high plateau, one of the best drives we have had.
Rejoined
Route 89 heading south and were soon into real canyon country. As the state
parks were still open we had heard about The Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park
which had a camping area, thinking it would be a good place to camp for the
night, but the wind had got up to quite a gale and we got to the park but it
was rather hard to make “lemonade” out of the situation, there was sand blowing
everywhere, the camp was full and they were using an “overflow” area, so moved
on.
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| A quick photo of the Pink Sand Dunes |
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| The information centre in Kanak |
Arrived
into Kanak on the border with Arizona,
quite a nice small town and stopped at the information centre which had been
painted with great murals. We went inside to find out about camping in the
area, but the poor gentleman who was just a volunteer was struggling with so
many questions from so many people as a result of the closures. Heard a
European visitor who was being quite rude to him as if it was his fault that
she couldn’t see the Grand Canyon!
We found a
good RV camp in town right at the base of a red rock sheer face. After quite a
frustrating afternoon, with everything that the tour guides said to do was
closed, I took my camera and went for a good walk up into the hills, a
“lemonade time” as the late sun hit the mountains. I met a lady from New Jersey
while taking photos, they had flown in on Sunday to stay a week in the
apartment in town that they had booked months ago, with plans to visit all the
National Parks in the area…felt so sorry for them, they are like so many people
at the moment. At least we have time up our sleeve and can return when the do
open.
By 7pm, the
wind that had been with us all afternoon, making driving the RV rather difficult,
really intensified and for a few hours we were really buffeted around.
Evidently we are catching the end of a storm.
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| Have seen so many people stopping to use public toilets, they are all closed. Grateful for having our own loo on board! |
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| This country is just stunning. |
Comments
Those images just brought a tear to the eye...simply fizzing with breathtaking colour and majesty.
xx J