Day 15 - Destination Utah

So I'm sitting here in a comfortable chair in a comfortable campground in Glendale, Utah.  That's the chair to the right. This campground is an active apple orchard and ranch and it's very clean, quiet and comfortable.  Sometimes you never know what you're going to get despite campground guides and pictures on the internet, but this has been a nice little surprise.

The girls have already made friends here at Bauer's Canyon Ranch

I thought the trip from Mesa Verde to GCNP was breathtaking, but driving north on 89 through Northern Arizona into Southwestern Utah was stunning...

Lisa's taking some great pictures at 60 mph!

Then we crossed the Colorado River via the Navajo Bridge.  This is the same Colorado River that we could see from the Grand Canyon rim and there's something about the scope of that makes me feel pretty small.  I decided to pull off into a sketchy looking pull-off just before the bridge - I really needed water and were we ever rewarded by what we found...

Before you actually get to the river, the view is something like this

But then you get to the bridge and look down...  I couldn't believe my eyes

A view of the Navajo Bridge from the pedestrian bridge

After crossing the Colorado (we're still not positive why it so GREEN), where the temperature was 106 in Marble Canyon, we climbed back up into the Grand Canyon NP.  From 3,500 ft to 7,900 ft in less than an hour and we had conquered our 3rd mountain pass of the trip.  Up near Jacob Lake and around the summit was 73 degrees - another mind boggling temperature change to me.  But also going from the arid, rock formations that we had grown used and then driving up and through a pine forest was the neatest thing.

Ponderosa pine forest on our way up to Jacob Lake

Lisa gets another Welcome sign!

The rocks are starting to change...

This cloud may be the neatest darn cloud I've ever seen (at camp as we were setting up)

So today's trip was a short 5 hour trek - my kind of day.  Tomorrow it's on to Zion National Park!