What are we happy with our hat and gloves …. still -8celcius. Sunrise was at 7:30am but unfortunately our room was facing north and also the sun rose over the pump station. Therefore I quickly went back in the heat of our room.

The road to our next national park, Canyonlands, was first through Capital Reef with domes-looking rock formations and it continued again between fantastic views.

After a 3-hour ride and a picnic in the car, we arrived at Canyonland National Patk. This is where the Green river runs into the Colorado River and split the Park in 3 sections like a Y. We did the Island in the Sky section ( middle of the Y).

We did the popular Grand View trail. But what a grand view!!! The difference with the previous canyons is that we are not walking in the bottom of the canyon and looking up, but now we are walking on a plateau, at 6,080ft high, and looking down into the canyon.

After dropping off our luggage we had an evening boat ride by Canyonlands by Day and Night. We had first a Dutch oven dinner (basically a bbq) and then a fantastic light- and sound show on the Colorado river

Dany and his sister Arlette had in the meantime a dinner at the Sunset Grill, on top of a rock and overlooking the town of Moab

Yes it was this morning -8celcius (25 Fahrenheit); yes we had our long pants on; yes even Dany had his jeans on; yes we had to buy hats and gloves. But it was again a WOWday, a six star day. Unbelievable what we have seen

The SR-12 (State road) was truly a scenic route, build during the Depression years in the 1930s under Roosevelt to provide work. This was a free unpaid National Parkway. Highest point was at 9,600 ft (3,000m).

The scariest part of this scenic road was when as on the left side as on the right side a steep ravine was and at the same time in front was at the top of a hill with no view. Oh boy was this a scare for Dany …..

We saw frozen water sprinklers at the farms.

We also saw free range cows, crossing our road under the eye of a real cowboy!

We did the Hickman Bridge Trail, quite a good exercise (moderate walk). Beautiful beautiful views.

At the end we were awarded with the Hickman Bridge (an arch).

We also did the Grand Wash Trail. Walking in the bedding of the river, which in spring can have flooding, and between the 6,000 ft high sheer drops. It was awesome. (I can not find immediately the pictures showing how we were walking between the canyon, just 15 feet wide – for tomorrow …)

We were still able to do the scenic drive at Capitol Reef. But halfway Dany was tired …

Now we are at a hotel at the foot of Capital Reef. Maybe we will be up early for a sunset ….

Dinner at a Mexican and everybody tasted for the first time a fajita😜

It’s the day of Red Canyon and Bryce National Park

Our route was through Zion National Park on the Mount Carmel scenic Highway with an impressive tunnel.

We noticed barely the first sign of Indian Summer and tomorrow it’s going to snow in Colorado Springs. Are we going to skip fall???

In Red Canyon we were in for a surprise. In my book it was mentioned that the Arches trail was an easy 0.7 mile. Oh boy, what an adventure, but it was worthwhile and so beautiful. Lots of climbing and some spots was on hands and feet and ….we were the only visitors.

Out hotel is the BW Ruby’s Inn (hotel since 1916), where everything is: hotel, restaurant, general store, shuttle to Bryce Canyon. So we bought there our picnic and found on site a nice table in the sun for our lunch, maybe our last warm sun for the week to come.

Shuttle took us to Bryce Point, our first look to the Amphiteater and all the hoodoos in the valley. Bryce Point is at 8,200 ft high.

We took again the shuttle as the start of the Rim Trail was so windy. At Inspirational Point we did walk the 45min Rim Trail to Sunset Point, where we could start the famous Navajo loop trail, all down between the hoodoos. What a trail! To be honest, we only did a part as it started to be pretty dark between the rock formations and we had to do the steep walk back and half of our group remained on top 😜 We were exhausted …

Do come back and scroll also down to earlier days as I will add pictures taken by my other team members. I do not know how many pictures we took in total between the 7 of us? Even Dany took some. It was amazing, we did not know where to look. It is sooooo beautiful here

Now we are ready for bed. No airco, but heat is on. I already prepared my clothes for tomorrow: warm socks, long warm pants, Dany is debating if he can keep his shorts on. It is suddenly cold and windy outside. It’s going to be interested what we can do tomorrow at Capitol Reef.

Our car is loaded to the rim (no need of the rooftop bag😁!) and everybody found their seat and @8:06am we were on the road!!!!!! Up to Zion National Park

First a stop in St.George town, build by the first Mormon settlers in 1871. This Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is older than the church in Salt Lake City, although start date is later. It was build in 5 years, where the other church took 40 years. We also got a tour in the annexe of the Church, where the principals of the book of Normon was explained. (Picture will be for later- I can’t transfer pictures from my Sony camera🙉😫)

We did some shopping in St.Georges so we could buy our picnic lunch.

Upon arrival in the town of Springdale, we took the free shuttle from our hotel to the National Park.

Zion national park is another WOW experience! Mandatory shuttle bus took us into the park; no waiting or we were just lucky😜

We did the Emerald Pool trail (1.2m). Pictures will follow.

We also did the Riverside walk. This canyon is walking next to the Virgin River and admiring the sheer drops next to you (like 2,000 ft= 650m high)

It’s sunny beautiful and we are all ready to explore the Strip

Everybody knows Las Vegas is a Wow experience. My last time was in 2004 and again new resorts like the Wynn captures my interest.

We were on the road by 8:15am and forgot to take our daily picture 🙈

But at our Starbucks stop in Flagstaff we did it. Sunny, but windy and happy faces as this is our last leg to Las Vegas.

FYI this area altitude is 1,971m (6470ft) high and Las Vegas is 620m (2030ft) and now we feel it in our ears😜

The Willaert-clan (Jose and his wife Christine and his sister Rita) are flying today from Brussels to Atlanta and then off to Las Vegas and arriving late.

And we (the Claeys-can) will arrive Las Vegas around 5-6pm.

Lunch in Kingman, AZ. And we passed an airplane yard. Fun for Dany. We saw a Delta fleet (some without motors) , DHL planes and even a Douglas DC4. A Caravelle, which plane my father took in august of 1952 flying from Brussels to the Congo, Stanleyville with stops in Rome and Cairo. We still have letters in which he describes the inside of this plane to his parents.

Landscape starts to be more and more desert, more sand and less bushes. In between the her-and-there bushes we had some cactus already.

We just drove and walked over the Hoover Dam (from the Arizona side). Just a preview as in 2 weeks we will be here again.

We are in Las Vegas after 2,500 miles!! Dany did a splendid driving job and he was happy with our rented Toyota Sienna

While we did our laundry, the Willaerts arrived sound and safe. Now the group is complete

Today only 93 miles to drive. And I’m very excited as we will do one of my bucket list items ie Petrified Forest and Painted Desert National Park. I have my walking boots on, we have our lunch (bananas and apples), all cameras charged. And we will gain again an hour, meaning now 9 hours behind Brussels, 3 hours behind Charlotte. Hard to keep up which watch is adapted and which is still on which time zone ….🙉😜

And did you notice it? We have our sunglasses back on our nose and no sweaters😃

It was a great fantastic day! The Max! We left the hotel at 9am and after an hour drive, we were at 9am at the National Park. Our annual pass for the car plus all passengers was only 21$!! (Sometimes good to be a senior😜).

It was truly beautiful; we took so many pictures and don’t know which one to pick …

Gallup and the area is called the Plains meaning we were at 6500’ above sealable (apr2100m) and Dany had some problems at this height.

We started with the Tawa trail, watching the Painted Desert in brown tones/stripes

There were petroglyphs; here depicting the white ibis with a frog (I forgot how old now … maybe from 1240AD)

We did the Blue Mesa trail; gone for more than a hour. This trail was so beautiful (1.5km). Here the tones were more lavender/light purple.

We did the Crystal Forest trail in Petrified Forest. We were all so mesmerized about all these “stone” trees which are 265 M years old, when this area was a subtropical Forest.

We did the Giant Log trail

So many more fantastic memories

We had a nice Italian dinner at Mesa Italian in Holbrook. We were pretty hungry as lunch was just some fruit and yoghurt (picnic after our Blue Mesa trail)

Sofar every day a good start with a morning swim. It was a noisy night, meaning at least every hour a honky 5-engine 1-mile train was passing our hotel. Arlette has been counting them and informed us that it was much more than 1 a hour.

We still have our sweater and rain jacket on. Today just to drive, 360 miles or 570km, only 5 hours. Most probably a boring 5 hours drive, excellent for any of us to catch up on our sleep.

It’s misty, foggy, drizzle rain; landscape is just brown grass with some small green bushes.

We had a lunch stop in Albuquerque. The first 3 hours was a drizzly rain, but driving into Albuquerque it was truly raining cats and dogs. Therefore a short walk around the Plaza in Old Town, listening to mariachis under an umbrella, visiting the San Felipe de Neri Catholic Church (1706), eating some tacos and tostados in La Placita. I hope they have tomorrow better weather as the Balloon Festival will start.

In the afternoon sun joined us again and the landscape is suddenly so much nicer. Still the same dessert grad with here and there bushes

After my nap on the road I suddenly saw “Sky City” and I remembered I visited this in March of 1998, when I did my road trip with my mom and youngest sister. Luckily I could convince Dany to take this side trip.

We were on the border of Acoma Sky City but it was closed this weekend for their own Haa’ku celebration. We were not allowed to take pictures of Sky City.

Do you see a difference in this picture? No sunglasses or eyes closing, we all have a sweater on. So far no rain, but it is forecasted for the day.

Do you also see the mistake on the picture? Clovis is not in TX, but just in New Mexico =NM

Lunch in Amarillo: no “yellow” sun in Amarillo but grey grey rain and more rain. Amarillo must be the city of agricultural logistics and distribution.

Arlette and Daniel got the Waffle House experience, with hashbrowns smothered, covered, diced, capped, …. a true local experience😜 and Dany could even smoke inside.

The highlight of the day was the visit of the Optima Dairy farm in Friona, TX. This farm is operated and owned by a Belgian couple Koen and Els Ally, original from Deurle. Dany, Daniel and Arlette knew the Ally family and farm in Belgium. We were welcomed open heartily by an enthousiast Els, who showed us around. More info about their farm on https://www.plattelandstv.be/videos/boerenstebuiten/vlaamse-boeren-amerika-koeien-texas (in Dutch) OR https://youtu.be/6CvXL89AfGk (in English).

There has been no rain in Friona since April 6th and now it rained for 3 days. Luckily the rain stopped for an hour so we could visit the operation. Unfortunately it was wet, but quite interesting. In 12 hours all cows are milked twice. They started in 2010 with 102 cows and now they have already 3,200 and it is still the smallest farm in Friona, but I’m sure they are the most motivated farmers. Although West Texas is hot, there is constantly lots of wind so the cows can survive. Their 3 sons in high school are well integrated and all play American football and they are on a 5-game winning streak with the help of their oldest son kicking talent.

Dinner was at Chipotle’s, also for us a first.

Today was a total different day as it was 20 Celsius colder and some streets under water. We even got an emergency alert on our phone. And by the evening we gained an hour again.

9:00am on the road again! Happy I was still able to do some swimming, although an 8-laps little pool. Also Arlette informed me during breakfast that not the hot weather yesterday did bother her, but mainly all these cold cold airco’s. Today we try to enjoy this warm sunny weather, as we realize we are driving towards rain.

Nothing special organized for today. Tonight we will catch up with many of our Belgian and US tv-series like Bull, Thuis, Grenslanders, …

Driving through the “hilly” Ozark Mountains and still all trees are green. I’m not sure if there will be a beautiful Indian summer, the leaves are falling off due to the drought.

Picnic in Fort Smith River Park along the Arkansas River (banana and apple). Pitty there was not a hiking trail on that side of the park, only a view on an old train bridge.

At least, around 5pm, driving through Oklahoma City. Apparently ranked the 27th among US cities in population. We did drive under the SkyDance pedestrian bridge. Wish we could have walked it.

It must be very windy in Oklahoma as we passed hundreds of windmills. In 2017 Oklahoma’s installed wind generation capacity was almost 7,500 megawatts, supplying almost a third of the state’s generated electricity.

In this flat part of the country, we found a hill. And on this hill there is a famous fabulous restaurant The White Dog hill restaurant. There was no dog, only a grey cat. We had a nice sunset view (not the best) and great food for our dinner. After many hours in the car, this was lovely. Also we find out we are on Historic Route 66!