Around October last year sometime Purple Homme & Violet Femme came across to pay us a visit. However rather than do the usual 'this is New Orleans, wow' tour, we decided to meet in Las Vegas and tour around the 4 corners region of the US. For those who someone aren't up on US slang, the area is called 4 corners for the very simple reason that it's the only place in the US where four states meet at a single spot - Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona. The whole area is famous for being canyon country, one is known for being particularly grand....
We started off catching up in Vegas and cruising the strip for something not horribly tacky. Giving up, we decided to get in the spirit and hopped on the replica roller-coaster above the New York; New York casino. That was actually a lot of fun, a really good coaster.
Later on we headed out to see a late-night showing of "Spamalot". For those of you who've managed not to hear about this, this is a stage version of the Monty Python movie "The Holy Grail", with a bunch of extra songs thrown in and done (at least in Vegas) by Americans. It's hard to know exactly how to describe the result in a phrase, I'm trying to choose between:
Horrendous.
Cringe-worthy.
Just plain not funny.
Take your pick. Anyone who can make Monty Python not funny has really worked hard. Afterwards we spent some time trying to figure out exactly where they went wrong, and we couldn't really figure out precisely what was wrong. Somehow they made the excellent source material really unfunny.
The next morning we grabbed our hire car and headed out east of Vegas for a quick side trip to drive across the Hoover dam. Right now you can drive across the top of the dam wall, but pretty soon you won't be able to as due to "concerns around terrorism" they are building a bypass over the top of the canyon.
By the way, our hire car was a really nifty Volvo. Yes, I really just typed that sentence. I must be getting old, as I really enjoyed driving it.
Back to the dam - it's an impressive piece of engineering, but it's actually really difficult to get a decent photo of the size of the dam from the front. So you'll just have to put up with the upriver side pictures that we did manage to get. It's impressive, and I'm sure it does provide hydro power to the entire continent, but it's probably not exciting enough to go out of your way for.
The bypass being built across the top of the canyon.
The upriver side of the dam.After that we retraced our steps and headed north into Utah towards Zion national park. I have no idea what the entrance to Zion looks like as I slept through that bit. But the canyon itself is truly spectacular. The place was apparently named Zion by Mormon settlers in an attempt to encourage people to live there. I can't really see why this was necessary, I would have thought a couple of photos would do the trick.
Anyway, lots of pictures below of stunning sheer cliffs, waterfalls and wildlife (ok, just a single deer). Enjoy.
A cool waterfall without much water which we hiked up to. After we got to the top, Purple Homme decided he'd walked enough and wandered back down, while Violet Femme; Gator Girl & myself went for a longer hike up to the base of the cliffs.
Violet Femme pondering the universe.
The views from the bus stop.That night we stayed in Springdale, then hopped back in mean Volvo machine and headed further north into Utah to Bryce Canyon. This canyon was one of the freakiest places we visited. The camera really doesn't do justice to the amazing colours of this place. If it wasn't for the large amount of tourists that were also wandering around with us, it would have been quite eerie. As it was, we had to settle for stunning.
Stunning...and weird.....
Violet Femme & Purple Homme posing on the hike downhill.
This picture is mainly here just to show off my "Utah Rocks!" cap....
These pictures never work out as good as you hope.
Violet Femme taking a break.
That's what I call determined. 20 years or so of effort by that tree to finally see the sun.
The hike back out.
More odd and stunning scenery.We stayed that night in a little nowhere town called Torrey on our way between Bryce and Moab. It's a long drive with interesting variations on desolate. There's not much vegetation, but the rubble changes colour in different ways. After 5 hours of this drive, you notice these kind of things.
Red desert.
Grey desert.
Light brown desert.
Sunrise over desert.
Stripy-rock red desert (with Gator Girl showing her excitement at the latest change in the rocks).
On the trip we passed by Goblin Valley state park, which is another in what you're probably gathering by now is a long stream of really odd scenery. This place feels like another planet, by a strange and predictable co-incidence was actually used as another planet in a recent movie...anyone pick the movie?
After that long and rather brown trip, we ended up in the quite un-Mormon town of Moab. Moab is nice little town between the Arches and Canyonlands national parks. It's a bit of a tourist town, but in a good way. For a start it was the first place for ages where we were able to get a decent coffee. It's also home to a thriving mountain biking community, which I'll come back to later.
The ended up staying in cabins about 10 miles out of town, mainly because they were cheap, but they were also a pretty good place to stay. The first day we went up to Dead Horse state park to look down on the Colorado river. Despite the pretty name it's a stunning view over the Colorado river. In fact, the amazing meander loops, cliffs and rock formations meant that the eyes of this pseudo-geologist were misting up a little. Probably the altitude.
We also spent some time checking out the other rock formations in the Canyonlands park, including the top of some sheer cliffs and some rather funky rock arches.
Like this one...
Violet Femme getting very close to the edge...
This edge.....Anyway, I'm running out of time to finish this up today, so I'm going to call this part 1 and return soon with the rest of the story. Coming up next time: more arches, more rock formations, mountain biking, clifftop dwellings and a final very large canyon.
I'll leave you with this final thought from Moab:
