Road Trip 2022 – To Utah, Colorado and back

This Road Trip was never meant to be such a long road trip – but with Alaska giving us a vague message about cancelled flights, but then having no customer service to be able to help understand what that meant – we cancelled the flights completely, loaded up the car and drove instead! The actual cancelled flight turned out to be the return one from Albuquerque – and we could easily have rescheduled something else if we’d known, but never mind. A slight change of plans as we didn’t need to go as far South if we were driving home, so Mesa Verde was our furthest point – and instead of flying to Las Vegas as a starting point – we drove to Salt Lake City.

First stop on the planned tour, after heading down beyond Salt Lake City was Losee Canyon in the Red Canyon region.

We then took a quick drive into Bryce National Park to find our feet, before heading out to Tropic and our AirBnB and appreciating the clear skies and an eclipse!

Back into Bryce the following morning – and this was an amazing experience. In some ways the Grand Canyon is too big, whereas the scale of Bryce makes it less daunting.

The next day we headed up to Capitol Reef taking in quite a few great spots on the way. Angels Palace, Boynton Overlook and the Anasazi State Museum – with lunch at Magnolia’s Street Food – excellent!

The E Burr Trail, Singing Canyon, the Reef Overlook and Larb Overlook came next.

After arriving at the Capitol Reef Resort, we took a quick drive down the Gorge Road and back for sunset at the resort.

More views of Capitol Reef the following morning, as we headed Southwest towards Colorado – taking in Hite Overlook, Blarney Canyon and Natural Bridges along the way.

Bluff Dwellings was out overnight stop – but not before a sunset trip to Sunset Point and Goosenecks State Park.

Hovenweep National Monument and Lowry Pueblo were stops on the way to Mesa Verde.

We made it to Mesa Verde in time for a first visit and sunset.

A further look around Mesa Verde the following day, before heading North, with a very worthwhile stop at Needles Overlook, the always dependable Trailhead Public House and Eatery in Moab, then finishing the day in Salt Lake City.

We split the journey home from Salt Lake City, looping up through the Bittersweet Mountains to Hamilton MT, taking in a swim at Lost Trails Hot Spring. Through some snow on the way up too.