Tag ArchiveEverywhere Once |

Is This the Best National Park in the U.S.

by Brian on December 7, 2012 in Travel

Bryce Canyon National Park, Landscape, Hoodoos, Sunrise

Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah

There’s a certain “love the one you’re with” aspect to judging things. Whether books, or movies, or music, or – in this case – national parks, we often give preference to our most recent experience. Still bathed in the glow of something amazing it is difficult to rank older experiences objectively. Was that incredible place we just left really that much better than the incredible place we visited earlier in the year? We can’t sample them back to back in a blind taste test. Which is probably why our annual “Best Of” travel articles are always so hard to put together. It’s also why this particular post is expressed in the form of a question.

A Drive Through Capitol Reef

by Brian on November 30, 2012 in Travel, United States, Utah

From Cedar City we made our way to Capitol Reef National Park in south-central Utah. The park includes an eight-mile paved scenic drive that passes amazing formations, like “The Castle”:

But to really experience Capitol Reef’s awesomeness, you need to leave the asphalt and explore its hundreds of miles of lesser-developed roads.

A Walk Through Wall Street

by Brian on November 28, 2012 in Travel, United States, Utah

A photographer walks through the towering columns in the “Wall Street” section of Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah.

The Play is the Thing

by Brian on November 20, 2012 in Travel, United States, Utah

Cedar Breaks National Monument, Utah

We rolled into Cedar City, Utah, simply looking for a spot to overnight while exploring the surrounding desert landscape. What we found was a vibrant college town complete with Texas-topping barbeque and a production of Hamlet besting anything we experienced in twenty years of Manhattan Shakespeare productions. Pretty impressive for a city of just 29,000.

Located in the southwestern corner of Utah, Cedar City is sometimes called the Gateway to the Parks. From here you can reach Zion, Bryce, Great Basin, Capitol Reef, Grand Staircase-Escalante, Lake Powell and even the Grand Canyon all within a several hour scenic drive. But our purpose for coming was to visit Cedar Breaks National Monument, just 22 miles from the city’s center.