Middle Earth

When you look at a map of the state of Utah, the vast middle is crossed by scant highways and dotted with tiny towns. In short, it looks like there is a whole lot of nothing out there, which is correct. However, as we spent a whole day driving the very long way from Zion to Aurora, UT, we discovered that the nothing (feel free to hum "The Neverending Story", I know you want to) is amazingly varied and stunningly beautiful. As we drove I kept thinking that surely we had passed all the beautiful stuff and that the rest would be ugly and boring, but no! We would come around a bend or over a hill and a whole new vista would stretch out before me, different than what we had left behind and even more 1amazing. We drove through Escalante National Monument and on north and as we drove the view changed from this:

to this:

and then this:

and this:

followed by this:

and finally this:

We watched the sun go down as we drove. It was a great day. We even stopped and played in Calf Creek, carefully avoiding the snake we saw. Fun for all!