Utah

Were here at Escalante outfitters in Southern Utah about 50 miles from Bryce Canyon Nat'l Park. It boasts Pizza Beer Cabins Gear. . . so we stopped. 2 pitchers later were going to find refuge in a "primitive camping" location in some National Forest.

The ride from Arches (eastern Utah) was VERY scenic, picturesque, dramatic, beautiful, peaceful, humbling and silent. Besides some streaks from airplanes in the sky the red rock desert and eroded bluffs look ancient and indian.

We reserved our next two nights of camping at Zion National Park and Grand Canyon so we SHOULD not have a stressful late night arrival full of surprises and wasted gas like we had in the Rockies. But damn, the next day cutting across that fresh young mountain range in a wintery May was quite nice.

So I've been thoroughly impressed with this vast ever changing country. Its amazing this space is unified. I appreciate that. But being from the Northeast IS like being from another country sometimes. Many friendlies and many not so friendlies. Utahans are very outdoor gear headed protective types sick of tourists congesting their red rock lanes. Most often we heard "Get the F**k out of the road!!"

Computer running low. Maybe we'll get Wi-Fi somewhere else down the road!
Ciao

1/2 Way

After Baton Rouge we headed further west to Texas. At the last minute we got in touch with a friend we met in South Korea who lives in Houston. He invited us to stay at his parents house who were incredibly hospitable, feeding us and putting a roof over our head. Needless to say it was very hard to leave them. We headed next to San Antonio to walk around and then camped about an hour outside of the city in Kerrville. We hiked around the park the next day and then off to Guadalupe National Park. Flat, long and dry was the drive. We tried to camp near Carlsbad Cavern so we could go the next, but it didn't work out and we drove late into the night through New Mexico to Santa Fe. Passing through Roswell (weird) we stopped at a Walgreens to get some things, as we got out of the car a lady yelled at us "Get a job motherf*****s!" Don't know why but it was funny to us, and probably one of the only unfriendly people we've met so far. We got into Santa Fe very late and slept/hardly slept in the car. Santa Fe is a very quaint town and as Mike said, "It reminds me of a Disney land theme village." As we were leaving I commented on a the woman flowers who was in the car next to us. She started to talk to us and lead us to the next highway we were going on, so nice! Northern New Mexico is so beautiful, we stopped and bought some fruit from a man and his truck, he thinks we'll be back. And here we are in Denver for today.
picasaweb.google.com/ana.stachowiak/SanAntonioGuadalupeSantaFeTheRoad#