Posts Tagged ‘Vermillion Cliffs’

Utah Trip: Horseshoe Bend, Vermillion Cliffs and Everything Navajo

Sunday, June 19th, 2011

Due to lack of internet I could not post this last night, but here it is now that I have internet. The story of yesterday. 🙂

 

Today was a day of reminiscing, we went back and visited many places that we saw last year on our road trip to Michigan and loved. The first of our most memorable revisits was Horseshoe Bend, a colossal gooseneck near Lake Powell.

This extraordinarily impressive geological monolith is one of my favorite views I have ever seen. Sadly the lightning was a far cry from last years and resulted in shadowed photos. Good photos or not, this was beyond amazing and I am really glad to go back and have another chance to see this unique structure.

One of the most memorable parts about going to Horseshoe Bend last year was the amazing lizard we found. This beautiful creature had spots and brightly orange colored stripes. He was gorgeous and today I was on a lizard hunt in hope of finding a similar lizard. In the end I did, see the next post for the full story but here is one photo for now.

Our next revisit was to the Vermillion Cliffs, which includes the Navajo Bridge and the Cliff Dweller’s Lodge. This wonderful park is surrounded by beautiful red cliffs and blue skies.

The first part of the park contains the Navajo Bridge, which bridges the beautiful Colorado River.

The Cliff Dweller’s Lodge is home to one of my favorite photos I have ever taken. The old adobe home on the side of the road with turquoise door and window frames that can be found at the Cliff Dweller’s Lodge is a truly beautiful little piece of ancient times.  Before I gave the picture of only the door and window, but now here is the entire house.

Surrounding this old home are the Vermillion Cliffs and these strange boulder homes that have been built up and once upon a time, lived in.  These strange homes are littered about in a hap-hazard fashion but are extremely intriguing due to their balanced and fragile looking structure.

While exploring these old places my mom and I were having fun stopping at every single Native American jewelry stand we came across. All over the side of the roads are little stands full of gorgeous hand made jewelry, dream-catchers, and pottery. We had a lot of fun shopping around and talking to the local Navajo’s about their beautiful home.

After a long day of reminiscing we took an unexpected turn and decided to go to Death Valley.

We had plans of going to Bishop and then Devil’s Postpile National Park, but found out that it is still closed due to the snow pack they still have.  So yes, a strange choice for the summer where even at night it is 107 degrees outside, but we did it anyways. So tonight we find ourselves staying at the Stovepipe Wells in the heart of Death Valley after driving down an omnisouly straight and long road out into the desert.

Tomorrow we will hike out before sunrise to see the sand dunes in the early morning glow before the sun bears down on us with its unforgiving heat.

0