A Beautiful World

Previous: Day 6 - One Day at Sedona, AZ Day 7 of  road trip . Next : Day 8 - Joshua Tree National Park, CA

Previous: Day 5 (part 2) - Petrified Forest National Park Day 6 of  road trip . We packed our stuff and left hotel at Flagstaff around 9am to leave for Sedona. Soon enough we had taken exit for highway 89A from I17. This is truly a majestic drive unwinding road through sea of red rocks. We drove slowly to fully enjoy this beautiful drive. We reached Sedona around 10am. As it was a Thanksgiving day, there was not much crowd in the town. Visitor center was closed but we picked up the map from nearby hotel. Our first stop was scenic overlook near  Airport mesa . Here was a view from this point. Airport Mesa After this, we did a small trail up the hill to get a beautiful view of the red rocks from Airport Mesa. We were little lucky to get a parking spot. This is one of the most beautiful spot in Sedona to enjoy red rocks. After spending good 3--45 mins on top of Airport Mesa, we next tried to see Cathedral Rock but could not find a good spot for the same. Aft...

Previous : Day 5 (part 1) - Canyon De Chelly National Monument Day 5 (part 2) of  road trip . From Canyon De Chelly to Petrified Forest took about 2 hours via highway 91. The fog got left behind somewhere along the way :) From my research done on this park, a time of 3 to 4 hours was given as sufficient time to experience the park. We reached the park around 2 PM and entered via Painted Desert Visitor Center. We had our lunch and then picked park map from the visitor center.  Our first stop was Painted desert. The rocks were more red and light red color. I guess because of lack of sunlight, we did not see any other colors. Here is a picture of this Painted Desert.   .  Here is another picture with more red effect (I disabled some option - I think it was white balance in camera which made the picture have more red than normal). In the park, we came across Painted Desert Inn. It was quite a place in the middle of almost nowhere. ...

Previous : Day 4 (part 2) - Mesa Verde National Park Day 5 (part 1) of  road trip . Today we had planned to cover Canyon De Chelly (CDC) National Monument (NM) and Petrified Forest National Park. We left our hotel in Cortez CO around 7am and started driving towards Canyon De Chelly. On the way, we came across Four Corners NM but it was supposed to open at 8am and there was a queue already of few vehicles. We decided not to see this place as it would have taken out almost 45 mins - 1 hr from our already tight schedule. As we got closer to CDC, we came across very heavy fog which kept getting thicker and thicker as we approached Chinle AZ. I was optimistic of fog clearing away (based on my experience in last few days) but alas we were not that lucky this time. We reached visitor center around 9:15am and were told that they had no idea how long fog will take to clear up. We decided to do the White House trail  to the floor of the canyon and hoped that fog will clear up by...

Previous: Day 3 (part 2) - Vermilion Cliffs, Navajo Bridge, Antelope Canyon Day 4  (part 1) of road trip . As mentioned in my last post, we decided to skip other Page, AZ attractions (I had previously thought of going to Horseshoe Bend) and started early for Monument Valley, Navajo Tribal Park after having breakfast at the hotel. On the way, I kept coming across a familiar sight of Navajo people asking for lift at roadside. I have seen this being a common practice in India but was pleasantly surprised to see the same in US :). However I did not stop anywhere to give a lift. The road from Page to Monument Valley had very little traffic. As we reached closer to Monument Valley, we took the this photograph from outside the Park. The view, even from outside, is exhilarating. We paid $5 at the entrance and moved towards the 17 mile unpaved trail in the park. Before coming to Monument Valley, I had done fair amount of reading done to see if its worth taking a risk to drive w...

Previous: Day 3 - Grand Canyon National Park - North Rim Day 3 (part 2) of road trip . From Highway AZ-67, we took right on Highway 89A towards Page. I had read about this route being very scenic and we were thrilled as we came across stunning cliffs along this route. Here is first one (I forgot the name of the place). As we moved along, we kept coming across beautiful views until we hit Vermilion Cliff  and I was totally mesmerized by the view and got a feeling of absolute joy: Vermilion Cliffs on Highway 89A Our next stop (within few mins) was  Navajo Bridge  (apparently only bridge which crosses Colorado river. It was also a very nice 30 mins stop. There is one bridge for traffic and other for pedestrian. We parked our car and took a walk on the pedestrian bridge. There were stalls for selling Native Americans selling jewelry (this was a very common sight throughout AZ trip - in Navajo area). Here is a view of Colorado river from the bridge....

Previous: Day 2 - Death Valley National Park Day 3  of road trip . We stayed with our approach of starting early from hotel to maximize our outdoor in sunlight. Had our breakfast in hotel at Hurricane and started for Grand Canyon North rim (had done a trip to South Rim in 2012 summer). Before starting, I was regularly checking for road conditions update to make sure we can go (the park was going to close any day for winter). Here is how it looked outside the hotel as we started. View from hotel @Hurricane, UT GPS showed about 2 hours travel to North rim. As we started, shortly we hit heavy fog and I was little anxious if we will be able to see anything but I continued. After some 30 mins driving, the fog was gone and it was all back to normal. The road leading to Grand Canyon was heavenly and there was no one around to see all this beauty (I'll understand the reason about an hour later :). The whole area was covered in beautiful white snow . Got to see a deer as well in...

This trip was planned for Thanksgiving week in Nov 2013. We had thought of visiting the following places in a circle (I usually try to have a nice circle with each destination about 2/3 hours away from each other). CA, AZ, CO Roadtrip Circle Starting / Ending (point A / O in the map) - Fremont CA B - Kings Canyon National Park C - Sequoia National Park D - Death Valley National Park E - Grand Canyon National Park - North Rim F - Antelope Canyon / Slot Canyon G - Monument Valley, Navajo Tribal Park H - Mesa Verde National Park I - Canyon De Chelly National Monument J - Petrified Forest National Park K - Sedona AZ L - Saguaro National Park M - Scottsdale AZ N - Joshua Tree National Park I had done some research about the places through TripAdvisor and had initially planned to start on Friday (Nov 22) and reach near Joshua Tree. But the weather pattern during the week meant that I reverse the circle (which turned out to be a wonderful decision). Tip#1 : Keep...