The One That Got Away?

5 Sep 2010--After our grueling hike the day before, yesterday we decided all we could handle was another scenic drive we had heard about...no more hiking for a few days anyway. So we drove out Hwy 12, a scenic byway we came to find out that skirts in and out of the Grand Staircase of the Escalante National Monument...not really sure what that means. haha Anyway, for the 1st several miles, we were looking at scenes that we had come to expect from this area, really nice scenes, but didn't expect a lot of picture taking.




We weren't but a few miles away from the RV Park when we saw this sign for the National Monument. We weren't sure what it was, so stopped in another small town that had a Visitor's Center, and learned that the Grand Staircase is a 1.9 million acre landmass that was up ahead of us along our drive route. I looked up how many square miles that many acres are, and they said it is 2656 square miles, which is 900,000 acres larger than Utah's 5 National Parks put together!!!

We stopped in the of Escalante for lunch and saw this signage and old house along the side of the road. Much more than any other state we have been in, we have been surprised at how many places have spots like these where they sing the praises of the early settlers.

We continued down the road only a couple miles out of Escalante, when we came upon this scene...and let the picture taking begin! haha

I love the swirls in these rocks...looks like someone ran a comb thru them when they were still wet.

Here is a stitch pic that magically has Cathy in 2 places at once, both left and right of the pic...cool shot, huh?

And 2 more shots that show the vastness of the place as viewed from the side of the road.

A little info about the Civilian Conservation Corps...you can see the roads they built, and Native peoples.

After a little while we got back in the car and drove along until we hit the next pull-out along the side of the road. Will wonders never cease!? I feel like my brain is on overload.

We decide to drive down into the valley we are looking at for just a few minutes...unfortunately we have to get back to Fluffy so we don't have time to explore this beautiful place any further. Just look at these rocks we drive thru to get down there!

And as we pass in the car down below.

We road down this road, it was as far as we could drive...I just know we missed a gem here...being larger than the other 5 Utah parks put together, I think you'd need a seperate trip to see this area all by itself. On to Kanab, UT tomorrow, to Zion National park...I hope it as at least as nice as this one we missed.