Working my way back down toward Utah…
Bozeman, Montana
Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming:
Grand Tetons National Park, Wyoming:
Jackson Hole, Wyoming:
Salt Lake City, Utah:
Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah:
Open Range Cattle Heading to Arches…
Arches National Park, Utah:
Canyonlands National Park, Utah:
I’ve been asked where my favorite spots were on the trip, and that’s very difficult to answer. Everything – and I really do mean everything – was just awesome to see. I thought there would be more hiccups on the trip, and that really never happened (thankfully!). To close out these posts, I’m going to post my favorite images from the spots I visited – and trust me, this was really hard to do – but the process of going through all of the photos (almost 6,000 of them) has been a blast because it’s really allowed me to relive everything.
I’m not sure exactly how many posts this is going to take, because I’m limited on post length, but I’ll post them in order of the trip over the course of a couple blog entries.
Nashville, Tennessee:
Memphis, Tennessee:
New Orleans, Louisiana:
My nephews (Gavin & Gage – Bay City, Texas):
Pecos, Texas:
Austin, Texas:
Albuquerque, New Mexico:
Tent Rocks National Monument:
Santa Fe, New Mexico (Sopapilla at Tomasita’s):
Monument Valley, Utah:
Mexican Hat Rock, Utah:
Horseshoe Bend, Arizona:
Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona:
After hitting Arches in the morning, I was able to get to Canyonlands relatively easily before nightfall. I was able to scout out Mesa Arch (with the plan of getting the sunrise there the next morning), as well as Dead Horse Point State Park for that night’s sunset. By no means am I strong at this type of photography, but it is definitely challenging to try to work with the light you’re given and no filters.
On the way in to Canyonlands, you take this winding, switchback-ed (yes, I made that up) climb in and pass these two buttes, the Monitor and the Merrimack, named after the Civil War Battleships. It’s an absolutely beautiful sight…
There’s your obligatory National Park signage as well as what I thought a cool shot of the walking trails one can take in to the Canyon. I loved how it just seems to be laid out there in front of you, inviting you in to the fun…
…and then the bottom just drops out from under you.
The pics above were taken at Dead Horse Point State Park – the view absolutely incredible and I did my best to capture this incredible sunset – I loved the silhouettes of the other photographers who chose a different point to capture the same thing…
And then there’s Mesa Arch…
I went at night to first check it out (the top two pics), in the attempt to scout it out for what I hoped would be incredible sunrise shots the next morning. The second pic across the top is what you see when you look through the arch it self. I’ve seen images of this spot at sunrise and it’s just electric – the light bounces off the bottom of that arch and it’s just mesmerizing. If you click here, you’ll get an idea of what I was hoping for. After waking up at 3:45 to get to the Arch early enough to secure a prime spot, I found out that I was about the 15th person there! What you can’t see from these pictures is the circus that this became – there were about 30 of us in a line with about 45 more behind at varying levels. In addition, there were people high and low. I had a little bit of an idea of what it must be like to work a red carpet!
I was still able to get an angle that I was happy with, but, just as things seemed like they were about to explode, the clouds rolled in and that was it. You win some and you lose some, but I’m still happy with the result and like the way the Arch framed the hoodoos in the background as well as the La Sal Mountains in the background.
For the life of me I can’t remember whether Mexican Hat Rock came between the Valley of the Gods and Monument Valley or after Monument Valley (so if anybody checking this out can help me out, it’d be greatly appreciated, and if it helps, I was traveling West through Utah at this point) – but that really doesn’t matter, this formation is great no matter where exactly it is… 
This was the first time that I saw a formation that I remember saying to myself How in the world is that thing standing and not falling over??? It was easily viewable and accessible from the main highway and I’m still amazed by the thing!
Many of you know that I had the chance to take a six week road trip through the United States this summer. I’m truly not sure that it could have gone better, and I’m in the process of working my way through the 6,000+ images I took during my time on the road. Figuring out how to go about posting them is daunting, to say the least, but I knew that I needed for this one to be first. 
At this point in my trip, most of my days had been filled with visiting cities – and don’t get me wrong, there was nothing wrong with that. I had had a rough, HOT night in Farmington, New Mexico the night before this and decided I needed a detour through the Four Corners area and then Monument Valley before heading to the Grand Canyon as I had originally planned.
If you have ever done this drive through Utah, then you know what I mean when I say that you are on sensory overload the whole time. Everything – and I mean everything, everywhere you look is just the most beautiful thing ever. I needed this day – and I needed it bad.
So I got to this stretch and was just in awe. With a little help from Google, I also found the exact mile mark to get this image, because if you’re a Forrest Gump fan like I am, then you know that this is the point where he finally decided he’d had enough and turned around. By no means had I had enough at this point – in fact, it truly felt as though my trip was just beginning…