Southwest USA Trip - September 2015: Day 3 of My Trip

So, I was thinking today, as I was traveling through some of our beautiful country, how much my Dad would probably really love to see some of these sites too, if he was able to take this journey with me. Because when I think about it, it has to be all those nature shows and weekly episodes of The Wild Kingdom we'd watch that really turned me onto the beauty in nature.

My Dad has always been an outdoors man, enjoying fishing and camping, and both he and our Mom would take us all camping or boating and water skiing. To this day, my sisters and their families all enjoy travel and nature so with that in mind, I'd like to dedicate this trip to my Dad. Since I know he's also following my posts and blog and enjoying all the sites, it's just more reason for me to enjoy this for both of us. And when he looks at the pictures of Monument Valley below, like me I'm sure he can also envision John Wayne out there riding his horse.

So to start with, I've had a very full day of travel today (Friday, 09/18/2015). I left Santa Fe pretty early this morning while the sun was just starting to come up because I knew I had alot I wanted to accomplish today.

My agenda had already included traveling North from Santa Fe into Southern Colorado. However, the ladies I met in Santa Fe (see Day 2 blog entry) were telling me about a place called Ghost Ranch located in Abiquiu, NM, which was about an hour North of SF. Well as it turns out, it was on the exact same route I was already taking so I added it to my agenda of stops for the day and I'm glad I did (see pictures below).

Leaving Ghost Ranch, I continued my journey North towards Pagosa Springs, CO, and then West over to Durango and Cortez. Since I had so many differnet destinations along the way today, I decided to break out the pictures and group them into each of the separate legs of my trip. From Cortez, I went past the 4 Corners, dipped down into Northern Arizona for part of the drive before moving North and up to Monument Valley then Mexican Hat, UT.

Just past Mexican Hat was Goosenecks State Park and the Moki Dugway Overlook. Moki Dugway is by far the absolute craziest switchback I have ever driven. And I've driven on a few. As a matter of fact, please visit this link (below) to read about Moki Dugway and just what I went through to capture these images. Better yet, after reading about it, watch the GoPro Video that's attached showing the drive up to the overlook (sorry Mom).

Check this out: http://www.dangerousroads.org/north-america/usa/783-mokee-dugway-usa.html

Both Goosenecks State Park and Moki Dugway provided for some amazing vistas so I'm glad I took the time to explore them today.

After that, I was ready to head to Blanding, unload the car, and grab some dinner. Tomorrow includes trips to both Natural Bridges and Canyonlands National Parks as I make my way up to Moab.

Hope you enjoy the pictures as much as I enjoy seeing these places in person and taking the photos. Yes the joy of digital is I can take as many as I want and not worry about having to pay to develop them before seeing if any of them turned out. So overkill maybe, but you never know which one you'll want to frame and which you'll just delete.

Lots to share and lots more to come. Thanks for following!

Photographer's Disclaimer: By the way, I'm no professional photographer. Heck, I've never even taken a photography class, though I plan to one day. Try as I might, a photograph will never fully capture or replace the experience of actually viewing in person. The huge open spaces all around that the camera just can't capture. This is my 4th or 5th trip to many of these locations and it just never gets old for me. I know my camera can do a lot more than I'll ever learn how to use, at least while on this trip. So please excuse the quality of some of these as, unfortunately, right now I'm focused more on quantity simply because I'm trying to capture so many moments. Therefore, the sheer volume is more than I have time to devote to "cleaning" up. That's for later when I get home. Combined with the fact that these hotel internet connections are not the greatest, it takes quite a bit of time to get them all uploaded and then sorted and posted. But I hope you enjoy them just the same.