The Grand Circle Tour comprises of all the National Parks and National Monuments in lower Utah, Colorado, Nevada, and Arizona. We don’t know of any in New Mexico, but it’s included anyway. Okay, so we have been working on ‘doing’ the Grand Circle Tour ever since we went full time in September 2000. For one reason or another this tour has been postponed until now. Of course we have done bits and pieces of this tour but year we are aiming to complete the tour.
We began our tour at Great Basin National Park and were not disappointed. This proved to be a pretty park and although not large in size and so high elevation that it is difficult to get to a good part of the year and not really on the way to anywhere.
Okay, so now we are in Utah and ogling and googling over the lovely red rock that I personally love! We began here in Utah at Bryce National Park, which is awesome! However, to get to Bryce from the west you must come through Red Canyon, which is a spectacular prelude to Bryce! All the cars slamming on brakes and stopping for a photo op! It’s the funniest thing and fun to be a part of this action too. By the way, the campground here is only $12.00 (1/2 off with old peoples pass) with water and dump and scenery to amaze and please any one.
Bryce is one of it’s own. A huge amphitheater of various colored rock in shapes formed and changed each year with the erosion of natural causes. It is the “fastest changing” landscape (geologically speaking) in our National Park system. The park has a 18 mile rim drive gradually gaining 1200ft. There are a number of overlooks and in summer there is a “free” tram in the park. There is also a “rim trail” which offers you a chance to see from the rim as you walk.
There are many trails offered throughout the park. Depending on the time you have to afford, and time of year of course, since this park gets snowed in and there are signs everywhere to beware of lightening strikes when the weather turns bad. Yikes, I don’t want any part of that…
Next we visited Cedar Breaks National Monument. This is another ampitheater type park over 10,000 ft and the day we chose to go was cold as the dickens and windy as all get out! Yes, we did manage to get out of the car and I am sure this could be a neat place to hike but guess we’ll have to wait until another time to find out for sure. Our big highlight of this trip was being stopped along the road by a herd of sheep! Yes, that’s right, who knows how many but there were sheep all over the road and both sides. We did spot two dogs herding the sheep and 1 man with a horse. There was a FED EX truck who did not find this especially fun and sort of edged his way through the melee.
Finally Kodachrome Basin State Park – a very unusual park. The day began with many clouds and quite chilly (39) but by the time we arrived at this park we lucked out with the sun breaking through and we were treated to a beautiful day with fun sights everywhere we looked. We did a few of the trails – one the panorama trail with Fred Flintstone marking the beginning the trail and the Shakespear cave trail where there is a natural bridge. Oh yes, stopped by to see chimney rock named by National Geographic in 1949 when they gave the park it’s name for all the color! This park is located on the Utah’s Highway 12 Scenic Byway. A definite stop and what fun it would be to camp here a few days.
