Travel-log - warning - **many many** pictures

Dear all,

I just came back from a trip with my family to Rocky Mountains - visiting some national parks full of the great formation of earth - rocks, that is. Great stuff! My wife and two daughters were of couse with me, along with my 4 watches - 3 Seikos and one Casio. I initially planned to bring along my Orient Star (Granpa's watch), but it seems that I managed to get it magnetized a bit so it was running a couple minutes fast a day now(it was only a couple seconds fast a day). Hummm, no good for an important trip. so, those watches I brought along are - Puppy (skx007 mod), skx013, 4s15 AoD, and G-Shock with radio reception for timing purpose.

Here we go -

The first day (half day) was spent at Logan Airport, waiting for a initially delayed but eventually cancelled flight from 3pm to 11pm. Came home with all the luggages, tired.

The airliner put us on a direct flight to Las Vegas the second day. So we arrived at Las Vegas without instance (only 24 hours late). A couple hours of driving we arrived at a resort at Brian Head, Utah.

The third day, the tour finally started. Are you still with me?

- Zion National Park -
The impression is giant and huge rocks, extruding out of the surface pointing to the sky without and hesitations. Like these:






I had a portable tripod with me so we took some pictures like this:



I had my Puppy with me:


The next day
- Bryce Canyon National Park -
The rock formation in this park is different - smaller cores, and many rock cores going together making a very magnificent view, like these




We got to climb up some smaller ones ( don't worry, we were with the girls)


To the end of the park route, there were some trails going into woods/mountains. Most part of these trails were still covered with snow, but this fact did not stop us, especially our 5 and 7 years old girls




Oh, I was wearing skx013 on mil-spec strap



Though it looks scarily cold in these pictures, snow, mountain top, etc.., it was actually not that bad during these days.

The next day - Kolob Canyon part of Zion National Park
This was a near-by one as weather report said that a snow storm was coming at 5pm. Since we stayed at Brian Head, an elevation 12,000 feet resort with a 10 mile steep drive from 5,000 feet up, we really wanted to come back before the storm started.

Same magnificent formation of rocks here


This trail at the end of the route in this park was the most interesting one we had. It was definitely covered with snow of 2 feet deep throughout. The trail was about a mile long (making it 2 miles, roughly 3200 meters, roundtrip). It goes on up and the view welcoming you is, on the left side the giant rock formation of Zion National Park, and on the right side, some smoother mountains partially covered with snow. My camera could not really capture the feeling of the view, but here you go:




Puppy was still with me:



The next day, snow came and went, so we planned a much further trip - to Great Basin National Park. Actually, it turned out the following days I had to drive more miles per day. According to prochures, Great Basin has an very interesting eco-system because of the abrupt elevation change from around 5,000 feet to 13,000 feet.

You see, after one third of the trip, I was still looking at a sign saying that another 120 miles to go:


I had to find something interesting to keep me awake while driving. Here are some views on the road. We were actually driving accross valleys between mountains. Those civil engineers must have had an easy job in building these roads.

How about straight lines?


Faithful Puppy coming all along



A couple hours later we were there.


Unfortunatelly, the majority of the mountain was closed because of snow. So we visited Lehman Caves, also part of the park.




Then we went out under the sun and have some other snow fun (and rocks, of course) in the one and only opened trail of this park.





It was funny that the farmers put their cows just around the road. They would not care if they are hit by cars or stolen, I suppose. On our way back through the same set of valleys and mountains:



My skx007 mod I call her Puppy



The next day, well going south to see some water - Glen Canyon Dam -

I was wearing my 4S15 AoD


Took some macro shots under the sun, can you imagine that?




The view was definitely different, but, one thing is still the same - so magnificent of views. The great scale of this earth rock formation:






We climbed on some rocks again on the other side of the river bank (the left side of water in the above photo)




Sunset was gorgeous as well



A R E - Y O U - S T I L L - W I T H - M E ???

In preparing to visit Gran Canyon, we had to drive many miles into Arizona and find a place to spend the night, before we can make time for it. This drive ran cross some interesting places, but along most of the trip, all we saw were great and huge mountains. Like these:





At corners, there are some locations called "Mountain dwellers", where some local residents are selling crafts, etc.... Some location was interesting too


River running/cutting through


The day before the last
On the way to Grand Canyon, we visited Sunset Crater Volcano Park, a volcano erupted around 1000 years ago (no documents from any eye-witness account, only the geological evidence suggests). It is still alive, and no one can tell when it will erupt again.


There is no way to see the crater, except from the sky. So I took some shots of my skx013 on lava (cold and black)




Then a group of ruins of natives called Wupatki National Monument





Some photos finally taken from Gran Canyon. The formation and the view out of the formation is really God's creation. It is beyond words.







My skx013 was honored to take part in the picture



We took a break at Las Vegas before we flew back to Boston. The artificial beauty of the Town is no comparison to the natural wonders we had just experienced.

So there you go. Not comprehensive at all, just some brief moments of AWEs we had during the trip there. Hope you like them.



Vincent