Zion National Park is popular. So popular in fact that private cars are no longer allowed in most of the park. Anyone who has experienced the overflowing parking lots at Arches will understand that banning cars is a good thing.

Rather than drive, visitors use the free bus system to

Between the Escalante and Zion, we passed through one of my favorite Utah attractions, Red Canyon. Mary Anne and I drove through this area when we visited Bryce Canyon in 2013.

Red Canyon is small but has some really pretty scenery. Here are a few examples.

I‘m messing with

Grand Staircase – Escalante National Monument was the focus of some recent controversy. Trump and his spineless appointees reduced the size of the monument in order to facilitate oil and gas exploration. Fortunately adult, not to say sane, control has returned to the White House and the acerage has been restored.

There was a gym downstairs from a small company where I used to work. I would use their locker room to change before lunchtime runs. A very fit older fellow handed out towels and locker keys. Nice guy. He would sometimes wear a t-shirt that said: The older I get,

From Moab, Utah where we stayed while visiting Arches, we drove back north to Green River, then southwest to Torrey. We stayed here for a couple of nights while visiting Capitol Reef National Park.

I like this relatively small, relatively unvisited park. There are fewer hikes and nothing so magnificent

In the end, we drove about 2000 miles between Seattle and Scottsdale. By US standards that’s not much, but to Europeans a 3200 km trip may seem significant.

We heard that the parking lots and trails at Arches were overflowing and that the park rangers were closing the gate

We followed Highway 1 along the California coast to Half Moon Bay where we had lunch and encountered the spectacular, shortened VW bus shown above. It is so Californian!

After lunch, we continued until we approached San Francisco where we joined the larger Highway 101. After a long, slow trip

This post is just a slide show. It begins at Ragged Point at the southern end of the drive and ends at Carmel to the north.

How was it? I imagined a twisty road amidst attractive coastline. I was not disappointed. For those inclined to spend multiple days in the

The three guest houses that make up the “Spanish village” of Hearst’s imagination are like the Three Bears: small, medium and large sizes. We were able to have a look inside the largest of the three, which is where the Hearst family stays when they come to call.

Casa