9-15-09- Gallup, New Mexico

We are now in Gallup New Mexico. Prior to coming here we were in Salt Lake City, Utah. While there we visited Temple Square. This square block included the Mormon Temple, Assembly Hall, and the Mormon Tabernacle. The Temple took 40 years to build with each brick taking two weeks to be carried by oxen and transported the 20 miles away. Eventually the railroad that was compeleted in 1869 carried the remaining stones at a much faster rate.

We also visited the State Capitol. The most unusual part of this is that this is the first Capitol that we have seen so far that had not burnt down.

We have slowly moved on and drove to Bryce Canyon. It was an incredible drive and beautiful especially the last 2 hours over route 89. Bryce Canyon was wonderful. We spent one day going through the park. It is hard to describe the rock formations and hopefully you can see the beauty from the pictures. We took a hike down to the bottom of the canyon and the view was so different looking up than looking down.

We stayed in this area for three days and then moved on to Zion National Forest. Wow! This is my favorite National Park so far. We entered the park from the East. After about two minutes we saw some rock formations that were called Checkerboard. From there we drove through the park seeing so many different formations. There was a 1.1 mile tunnel that was carved through the mountain that took three years to complete. I couldn’t stop saying how beautiful the area was. I keep thinking that I have to come back here and bring one of the grandkids. I think they would love this and the other National Parks in the area.




We have traveled down some back roads that took us to Four Corners. That is the corner of Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona. Of course what we have read it that this is not the actual corner of where the four states meet. We were told that the surveyors said this is not accurate.
Well it didn’t matter because we took pictures and enjoyed ourselves. We actually stayed in the area over night. We were locked in and had the park all to ourselves. It was wonderful. There was a lightning storm for a short time. In the morning I got up at 5:30 to see the sunrise at 5:58. The iphone “app” said that is when sunrise was but it didn’t take into consideration that the reservation observed the daylight savings time. So I waited until 6:58 to see the sunrise.

Well we are now in Gallup, New Mexico and will write more from there.