Vacation - Breathtaking through the Canyons and National Parks

After exploring Las Vegas for a 4 night stay we checked out of the Bellagio and picked up our rental car. The next 4-1/2 days we spent driving loving the beautiful view and stopping at canyons and driving through National Parks.

It was amazing to see that this scenery really was real and just has huge as pictures...although pictures do not do justice to what we saw.

so many different rock formations and type of rocks...

This looks like a town engraved high in the rock...

Lovely coloured view....beautiful blue skies on a perfect day....

So many different formations as if it was sculpted for us....for us all to behold...

we saw archways and natural bridges....

We didn't see forests and rivers and lakes like we have at home. It was dry and sparce but in some areas we saw some evergreens growing in the most unlikely places...

how different the rocks were cut and preserved through the years compared to those in other areas affected by different waters and minerals...

In Zion National Park a shuttle bus is the only way to travel during the summer/fall months. This one took us an almost 90 minute ride through the park. This picture was taken through the skylight in the bus....very high...

This was our first view of Bryce Canyons. We'd parked the car and walked up the slope to reach this point. We had no idea what we would see at the top. This view was overwhelming absolutely breathless.....

I had such emotion drawn from this canyon's view. I was not even surprised to see the very same reaction from Marc. We were almost taken over with tears.... I had never experienced anything like it...

this was so lovely...the colours...the shapes...the vastness..

This was the highest elevation we were at. We took pictures of Marc beside different elevations signs starting at 2000". We could the height after walking any kind of slope. It was harder to catch our breath. There were many hikers in the areas and throughout the parks there were different hiking trails and people were rock climbing too....

This gave me the "heeby jeebies"....imagine one false move and you would go right down that "shaft" area...THAT is a long way down. It would be a bad day I'm afraid. oh my....

we continued our drive....

Its remarkable how the rock has worn its patterns and left these forms at the top....

We visited Archways National Park....imagine this forming as a result of rushing waters and winds and sedament over the years...

more archways.....

I'll finish up some more of our drive tomorrow as we headed back towards Las Vegas during the second week. We made up some fun pictures as we stopped along the way to Grand Canyon. This past weekend we watched slideshows over and over of the over 1100 pictures we'd taken. Magnificent.

I hope your day today is magnificent also.... Judi xoxo