Summer 2017 western trip, Part 2

The problem with photography of the spectacular places of this world is it can never truly do the spectacles justice...even the panoramic picture above of a highway in the red rock deserts of northern Arizona absolutely pales in comparison to the scenes my eyes actually witnessed...

Photographs never really capture the depth and range of the colors your eyes see, such as the red rocks and blue skies in the picture above, or the size of the bluffs in the background of the picture below:

For example, the picture below is of the Colorado River flowing through one of its many canyons as it ambles across northern Arizona (taken from the Navajo Bridge, which is the one Hope and the kids are pictured on above).  The amazing green color of the river here is only poorly represented in this image, as is the depth to this river--it is 467 feet from the bridge's deck to the water below!!

And the spectacular monsoonal thunderstorms that arise in this region just about every afternoon--their size and color is always much more dramatic than they appear in the picture below:

Below is yet another example of an overlook into the valley we had just driven through, which only hints at the vastness of these spaces:

Yes, for those of you who have never been to the western US, you owe it to yourself--and your kids, if relevant--to see these in person, to see them, touch them, smell them, listen to them, and even taste them...It could very well be a life-changing experience for you!

Enough preaching...After my meeting wrapped up in Flagstaff, we headed almost due north in Arizona (the pictures above are from this trip, pretty much in order).  Our destination, pictured below (the white minivan we rented when we started this trip in Las Vegas), was a condo in Kanab, UT, we had rented for the night through AirBnB:

This was our first experience with this kind of lodging, and it was extremely positive--the condo was spacious, clean, comfortable, and felt much more like home than a hotel room (at about the same price).  The kids were thrilled in that they all got their own beds in separate rooms, and it had a full kitchen and washer/dryer and multiple bathrooms so we could clean up before starting the next leg of the trip.  We'll definitely look to use this service again!  Notice the red rock cliffs in the background of the picture above...the following morning I had an opportunity to stroll along a trail on this cliff line, and took some pictures back towards the town:

As spectacular as this view was, it would pale to the one we had just a few hours later, as we dropped about an hour south of Kanab (back into Arizona) for the biggest spectacle of all on this trip--the Grand Canyon!  With a little prodding, I persuaded Bragg Family South to mosey over for this impressive view over the North Rim:

(Hope's not big on heights, so you won't see her much in these next few pictures).  Kenny, Beth, and I ventured out some more along a narrow ridge called Bright Angel Point, named for its view of some of the more dramatic, multicolored rock formations in the Grand Canyon:

 

 

As I mentioned before, these pictures do not do the Canyon justice!  Hope and Stephen lingered back towards the lodge to work on his Junior Ranger badge.  Over the years, we (especially Hope) have helped the kids earn lots of these small plastic badges by completing a brief set of activities that help kids understand the significance of the various parks and the elements that comprise them, including ecological (plants and wildlife), geological, and social (both past and present).  While it can take some time to do, and can be distracting, we have had a number of positive experiences during these Junior Ranger activities.  For example, for Stephen to get his badge for the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, he had to sit in on a ranger-led talk, and we had a good one from a volunteer ranger (a retiree from Ohio) on the geology of the Canyon:

We couldn't stay long at the North Rim, because we had to get back to Las Vegas by that evening to prep for an early morning flight back to Dallas and then home to Arkansas.  I would be remiss in not including the most spectacular wildlife encounter we had on this trip--while driving through the Kaibab National Forest just after leaving Grand Canyon National Park, we spied a VERY large bird in the top of a dead pine snag.  It intrigued us enough we turned around and drove back for a closer look, and were we glad we did!  Looks like we spotted (in a poor picture below) one of only a few hundred world-wide California condors!

You may recall over the last few decades, this species was rescued from the very brink of extinction by an intensive effort to capture all of the remaining condors in the wild (there was only a couple dozen then) and build their population up through a captive breeding program, followed by carefully supervised release back to the wild.  Most of these birds are found in California, but there are about 80 or so in Arizona and Utah, and we saw one of them!  This was much of the conversation at lunch that day for us:

I forgot to mention one of the other great benefits of working on the Junior Ranger programs--it has gotten us off the beaten path to explore many of the smaller or lesser known national parks/monuments, such as the one in the next set of pictures, Pipe Spring National Monument:

Pipe Spring National Monument is primarily a restored fort/community built in the late 1800s to help control this part of northern Arizona.  While the fort itself (pictured above) is rather small and not terribly dramatic, it had lots of interesting artifacts and history, including the tea set below customized for mustachioed men:

chairs with seats made of rabbit fur:

beds from locally sawn lumber, with the pronounced wood grain painted on:

living history displays of the livestock which supported this fort during its heyday, including horses pictured above and longhorn cattle, pictured below:

and examples of the agriculture practiced in this part of the world, including how the local Native Americans (the Paiutes) planted the "Three Sisters" (corn, beans, squash) in small mound clusters:

While the Mormon pioneers and US government aspects are prominently featured at Pipe Spring, they also work closely with the Paiute, who live in a reservation surrounding this monument.  The image below is of a display of some of the prehistoric material culture of the Paiute:

Not every spectacular sight we saw was part of a national park.  The following pictures are from along Interstate 15 between St. George, UT, and Mesquite, NV en route to Las Vegas...including barrel cactus on a cliff:

and a couple of images while driving I-15 along the canyon of the Virgin River into Nevada:

We arrived in Dallas late the next morning, and by sunset we were back in our much muggier home in Monticello.  Yet another epic Bragg Family South adventure!!