Out of one desert, into another

Before leaving Utah on Friday afternoon we hiked a wash (mostly dry riverbed) in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. It was a great hike - we had to wade through streams barefoot, scramble up rocks and we explored windows (nooks in the canyon walls) and a very cool, though short and dead-end slot canyon. Here are some choice shots:

After fording our first of 8 or so cold and rocky streams.

See that little person in the picture? That's me, and this picture gives a great perspective on the scale of the canyon.

The sensuous curves and striated color patterns of the canyon walls were stunning

Zac puts his feet up in a window in the canyon wall.

That amazing slot canyon I mentioned.

Our original plan had been to camp in GSENM, but upon discovering the extremely remote location (no food anywhere for miles and miles!!!) we scratched that and proceeded to Flagstaff, AZ instead. It wasn't a planned stop for our trip, but we ended up at a great hotel called Little America (can't you just imagine George Dubya saying those words in his weird twang?) which looked frighteningly like a truck stop from the outside but was really nice on the inside. We ate two really great meals in Flagstaff: dinner at the Beaver Street Brewery and breakfast at Macy's cafe (oh, the irony of the name!).

Today we drove to Santa Fe, NM (also an unplanned stop) where we are staying for the night and tomorrow we head to Dallas, TX.