Hunting the Big 5...

We're in Northern AZ this week. 

We left Nevada and the Las Vegas area and have moved a bit farther north with the warming spring temps although we did see new snow over the weekend at the higher elevations and drove over one pass on Monday with Clyde hitched to the Fox which had a bit of snow.

Winter may not be over yet. 




Zion today and Bryce tomorrow...both are in the top 5 of the National Park portfolio.

Staying at a great new RV park in a beautiful location in the Paiute Reservation just below the AZ/UT border.

Unfortunately it has painfully slow internet and there's NO cell service in the area. 

Otherwise, all is well...and we're enjoying the remoteness, which makes for dark skys and bright stars!





Lots of new pics and content to publish, although likely no new posts till next week when we get better internet.

Publishing pictures is a bandwidth hog! 

I will endeavor to create some new posts this week offline and add photos and publish once we move to our next location.




The Wild Woman and I are continually amazed, and very humbled.  This entire adventure is truly a blessing...1000 times more than we could ever imagine.

These kind of adventures just don't happen for a kid that grew up poor from Wolcott.



I had to fight back tears today after driving out of the tunnel in Zion.

It was too beautiful...truly visual overload...almost too much stimulus for me to process...everywhere we looked...just not sure how anything could be more stunning.

I want to study all of it...the mountain texture, the layers and shapes, the sunlight and shadows...to capture it...memorize it...drink it all in...and hold on to it for longer than just a fleeting glance.

The height of the mountains, the canyon walls, the sheer rock cliffs, the layered stratas and river carved rock faces...

And the clashes of color - tans, oranges, browns, and burnt siennas all mixed and dotted with the blue green of the sages and dark greens of the pines and creasote bushes...

Heaven must be spectacular to be more beautiful than Zion.




We did two hikes today...just under 5 miles in total.  Like little kids who had never been off the farm...gawking everywhere. 

The last one was to a high canyon overlook...scrappy little hike, not long, but over layered rock, natural staircases and water worn rock ledges.  Some of it edgy, with the 16" rock path tight roping some fairly steep 20 and 30 foot drop offs.

And the final vista...an epic canyon overlook, nosebleed high...with a sheer vertical drop to the canyon floor ~2000 feet below.

The icing on top - a small herd of Desert Mountain Sheep grazing just over on the next slope.




And the Wonder Woman...right there by my side - step for step.

Amazed - - - no, more like in jaw dropping awe of her determination to teardown her boundaries.



Promise there will be more on Zion in a later post. 



Let the adventure continue...