Driving Crosscountry 2020 : Arches National Park

Which Shana immediately dubbed "Penis National Park" for obvious reasons.

Driving Crosscountry 2020 : The Grandest Picture from Utah

Shana actually took this picture as we drove through Utah and the Old West. It is the most spectacular picture of the whole trip and truly captures Utah's beauty.

Driving Crosscountry 2020 : Utah's Mesas & Moab Giants

 As we were driving alone, near the tiny town of Moab Utah, We suddenly saw life size dinosaurs! It turns out that there is a dinosaur experience here called the Moab giants. And we just happened to drive by!

These little desert towns, like Moab, in the middle of nowhere were surreal!

 And the mesas began to get more and more Orange like the old West!

Driving Crosscountry 2020 : Utah's Grand Mesas & Great Plains

... and absolutely nothing for miles and miles!

Driving Crosscountry 2020 : Landscape Changes in Utah

What follows are a series of pictures that do as much justice to the landscape changes in Utah as a 2d medium can muster. Description is under each photo.

After the border with Colorado, the Rockies turn to brownish hills in Utah. ...

... and as you travel west, those hills get flatter and rockier, until ...

... suddenly you realize they are mesas, and they are getting more and more orange, but between the mesas ...

... is NOTHING! ... And when I say nothing, I mean NOTHING. Just huge open places with brown grasses, tiny shrubs, open range tumbleweeds (literally) and NO PEOPLE and NO GAS for miles and miles in this "Great Basin."

Some of the mesas are really quite GRAND!

... Then suddenly you notice the mesas aren't really flat anymore due to erosion ...

... they are MORE orange, and have these knobbly spikes on the top ...

And then the mesas become hills again and begin to get more "gray," for lack of a better word. They really contain many colors...

But from a distance they get more and more gray, and more and more flat until you realize that some of the changes in color are from SALT ... and the the flatness turns into ...

... The Salt Flats near Salt Lake City! This was surely the most surreal landscape we saw.

In the western part of Utah, the hills are more like dunes. 

... and to our surprise, that is when we hit Oregon! The Southeastern part of Oregon is not lush AT ALL!

And now a word about the humidity. There is NONE. In fact, in the Great Basin by the mesas, the water feels like it's being sucked out of your skin in a dangerous way. In fact, I had a crust of bread in the car for an hour or so, and it turned into crunchy toast! There were times when I realized that, if the truck broke down, we really could die. But it didn't, and we were safe.

Driving Crosscountry 2020 : Welcome to Utah

We took more pictures in Utah than anywhere else. When contemplating why, I realized that Utah has the most vivid colors, drastic landscapes, and stands in stark contrast to where we live than anywhere else. Watching the land change while driving through this vast desert was nothing short of amazing! (Next post devoted to landscape changes.)

Driving west, the mountains start to get a bit flat until ...

... suddenly MESAS! 

... And in between the mesas? NOTHING. Absolutely NOTHING!

Driving Crosscountry 2020 : Beautiful Rocky Mountain Views & Wild Lavender & Groundhogs?

 A few of our unexpected joys came at gas stations. One of them had a small hike up to the top for a nice view, another had an absolutely huge cliff nearby where we were able to collect some rocks, and then others were full of both wild lavender and these little groundhogs! They were absolutely everywhere!