Route 66 or Bust!

This is my favorite T@B photo from the last adventure Millie and I took out West when were on the way to Moab, Utah. Well, after looking at this photo all winter long and then enduring a couple really cold weeks in Chicago, I couldn't take it any longer, and started planning a February snowbird adventure back out West.

The plan this time is to do a nearly 6000-mile, 3 week trip roughly following Route 66 out to California, where I'll then do a loop through Death Valley, Yosemite, and the central California coast before returning home via Route 66 again (catching sites I skipped on the trip out).

Utah

After leaving the snow of Colorado, my instinct was right--- Utah was clear and dry. I reached Moab just as nightfall was approaching, and after finding most of the RV parks full, I found one pothole filled site in a BLM campground along the Colorado River in the marvelous canyon just east of Moab.

The next morning, I went to Arches National Park to take all these photographs. The sunrise created a very neat donut hole shadow in the section of the park called "The Windows"

I then hiked the trail up to Delicate Arch. Not the long, strenuous trail that takes you directly to the arch, but the slightly shorter, moderately difficult one that leads you to a point directly across a canyon from the arch. You never see this canyon until you reach the summit of the trail, and then, boom, it reveals itself in this amazing scene!

Here's what it looks like a little lower from the summit (where you can't yet see the canyon). A couple of us photographers sat up on the summit to rest and take in the spirituality of this wonderful place. This was the last thing I saw before walking back down the trail to start my long drive back home to Chicago.