Utah

Monday morning we left Ian and Brian behind to battle their own way to the airport, while we headed for Utah. Whats in Utah??? Well, if you can imagine a rich red desert, with massive rock formations, spires and hoodoos (more rocks), with white water rafting rivers , then that is Utah. The scenery in this place is absolutely amazing. We had never seen anything like it ever!

Monday morning we collected our rental car (A Ford Focus - which was slightly better than the last car we hired) and drove 4.5 hours to Bryce Canyon. The canyon is famous for their rock formations and deep canyons. We will let the photos tell the story.

Ryno overlooking the canyon

Kristy @ Bryce Canyon

Us with rock formations at the canyon

This was a natural tunnel that had formed in the stone (Bryce Canyon)

We then drove another 4.5 hours to our destination of Moab, not before driving through more mountains and rock formations, which seemed like was leading us nowhere, because they seemed to stretch on forever. Every time you drove over another crest, the scenery seemed to change. There were also heaps of mountains with motorbike tracks all over them - you could have some serious fun if you had a moto out here!

Moto tracks on the side of a mountain

Tuesday

Today we drove to Arches National Park. This park is renowned for its natural arch formations in the rocks. The pictures below are larger so you can actually see us in the pictures - the rocks are that large it is hard to spot us!

Balanced rock - looks like only a matter of time til the rock falls

Delicate Arch - we could have done a 3 mile walk out to the arch, but it was just too hot. We took the 1/2 mile walk to the lookout instead (where we still managed to get burnt!)

Ryan overlooking one of the gorges - dont look down!

We also wanted to go rafting although we didn't have much time to spare, so we drove back to town and made a rafting trip with about 5 minutes to spare. They took us in a bus along the second most scenic road in the USA, where films like Thelma and Louise, City Slickers 2 and John Wayne movies had been filmed. They dropped us at the Colorado River, where we boarded our raft. We actually had someone doing the paddling for us! There were only a couple of sets of rapids (the biggest about a class III, most being I or II), one which we got to get out of the boat and float down ourselves! We also got to do a fair bit of swimming, which was refreshing because it was so hot!

After rafting we went back to Arches NP, where we contemplated a 3 mile sunset walk out to the Delicate Arch. It was still so hot, so we passed on that idea and instead walked out to the Windows formation, then we drove down to Pine and Tunnel Arch, which we also had to walk to. Ryan was taking some photos and was swooped by what sounded like a small jet plane, but was actually a large black bird that had a nest on top of one of the arches! It was so loud and quick!

Windows

Kristy in the North Window

Ryan at the South window - the cliff behind him is so steep, it is impossible to climb without equipment (or hurting yourself badly!)


Kristy at Pine Arch (this is where Ryan was swooped)

That night we had dinner back in Moab, then drove 1 hour to the Green River where we spent the night.

Wednesday - 4TH JULY!

Happy Independence Day!

We hit the road at about 9am. The main interstate roads are 75mph (120kph), which are the fastest we had ever seen. To reach our next destination, Salt Lake City, we had to drive on the interstate for a short while, before turning off on to another major highway. After turning off, Ryan resumed the speed of about 81mph. We then noticed that we were very quickly approaching what looked like a cop car! Sure enough, the car in front pulls over to the side of the road and turns on his lights, signalling for us to pull over. He asked for Ryan's license and insurance papers, as well as what we were up to, where we were going, etc. Kristy made some really good small talk with the officer about where the best fireworks would be in Salt Lake City (SLC) for the 4th of July celebrations. He then explained that we were doing 81mph in a 65mph zone (or 130kph in a 105kph zone). We explained that we assumed it was the same speed and it was an honest mistake (although he claimed we had passed 2 signs with the speed limit on it). He then went back to his car to process the ticket and returned with only a warning!! YAY! There was no fine, loss of points, etc. Small talk always helps out in situations like that! :)

The Great Salt Lake - you can see some of the salt in the foreground

After 3.5 hours on the road we reached SLC, but decided to drive another 100 miles to the famous Bonneville Salt Flats raceway! We drove past the Great Salt Lake along the way and just over an hour later, we reached the speedway, which is 44,000 acres of salt flats.

Ryan at Bonneville Salt Flat International Speedway

On the salt lake - there actually used to be a lake here a long time ago, however it dried up and left massive deposits of salt

The land speed record (the fastest speed achieved by any wheeled vehicle on land) was achieved here. It is standardized as the speed over a course of fixed length, averaged over two runs in opposite directions. The current absolute (or unlimited) record holder is ThrustSSC, a twin turbofan jet-powered car which has achieved a whopping 763 mph (slightly under 1228 km/h) over one mile, breaking the sound barrier.

We couldn't drive all the way out there without taking the rental car for a small thrashing. So we both had a turn of doing donuts and racing along the flats (we only reached speeds of about 75mph, which was definitely fast enough!).

The Focus on the Salt Lake - about to cop a hard time (we have it on vid cam!) If you look closely, you can see salt spraying out from the tyres

We dropped our car back to SLC airport and caught our hotel shuttle to our hotel and checked in. It was then time for us to celebrate Independence Day, which we didn't care about, but was more an excuse to drink! We went to the closest bar, but we had to pay a membership to get in (that's the rules in Utah, which has a strong Mormon population and the headquarters is based here too). The bar was empty and so was the city - we think everyone must have flocked to the beaches for the vacation period. We spent all night at the bar, then walked in to town where we were told we could get a good view of the fireworks. It couldn't have been a worse view, so we ran back to our hotel and watched them from our balcony. They were fairly lame. Can you believe that there was still snow on the mountain tops, despite the extremely hot weather? People told us they still snowboard in July!

Thursday - Phoenix, AZ

We had to get up early this morning to make our 710am flight. Our original flight was supposed to be SLC to Phoenix, Arizona to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Cleveland, Ohio where our car was. The lady checking us in at the airport found a quicker flight route - SLC to Phoenix to Cleveland, which she booked us on. Although we got home 1 hour quicker, and didn't have to stop start so many times, we did have a 4 hour delay in Phoenix, so we took the opportunity to explore the city for a few hours. We can tell you there is absolutely nothing to do in the city of Phoenix. We had a coffee and a bite to eat, walked around the city for a while, then back to the airport for our flight home.

About the only thing for us to do in Phoenix was take photos of us with cacti (which we had been hanging to do since we were in the desert!)