Southern Utah is beyond beautiful!!!

Today was an amazing day! Saying WOW even louder doesn’t say enough! We headed South on hiway 28 from Nephi and got into some incredible geology. It was wondrous! I am having a hard time describing what we saw. Keep in mind that this whole day was at between 4,200 and 7,700 above sea level. The mountains around us were as high as 11,000’. It looks like it was a plain that got dug out by glaciers and then the melting ice created rivers and streams that eroded the softer rocks and soils. The colors were different than anything else. Everything was tones of grey through red. Much of it was stacked on top of each other in many layers of sediment with the grey gravel looking stuff down to the red near the bottom. Some of these “piles” are several hundred feet high and the road is cut right through them. At Richfield we found a Subway, (they still have the foot long for five dollar deal going on) and had lunch. I was struggling a bit to breath and asked the lady what was the elevation. We were at 6,600’! Cripe, no wonder!? We were far enough south that even that high they don’t get that much snow. The hills around were much higher and did have some snow left on them. The town looked like it had been there a while and we saw some beautiful old houses and city buildings that were still in good repair. Others weren’t so much. At Panguitch (pan-goo-itch) we turned east and headed for Bryce Canyon. On the way we drove through Red Canyon and we were impressed! The red rocks looked like they were stacked on each other like dinner rolls and were a hundred feet tall. The eroded red soil flowed down around the stacks like you’d poured out a bowl of red sugar. We grabbed a baggy full at Corral Pink Dunes because it was so red and sooo fine (texture-wise). We pulled into the Bryce Canyon tourist info center, but first they wanted a week’s pay just enter the dang National Park boundary! Well, if you know me, you know I think we pay enough taxes already and all we wanted was to take a quick look. We didn’t get the quick look, we got the quick turn around and left. That’s OK, We seen pictures before in the brochure. Not too much further we found the little town of Kanab where we shut off the car. It wasn’t a long day of driving, but it was bee-you-tee-ful! Tomorrow we’re off to see if the road to the North Edge of the Grand Canyon is open. Then it’s onto Flagstaff. O boy!