The Great American Road Trip : Part 3
- Melissa Meares
- Nov 24, 2024
- 6 min read
Updated: Jan 21
My husband and I embarked on a month-long road trip across the western United States to visit as many national parks as we possibly could. You can find part 1 and part 2 of our journey here. In this final blog post, I will detail our final leg of the journey starting in California, through Arizona, Utah, Colorado and back to Tennessee.
If you do a trip like this, I highly recommend this National Park Guide, this Wildlife Guide, and this National Park Passport book.
California: Yosemite National Park
Yosemite is without a doubt one of the most awe-inspiring national parks in the US. Fall is a great time to visit Yosemite because it is much less busy, no reservations are required, and the fall colors are still gorgeous! Unfortunately, Glacier Point Road and Tioga Road were closed the day we arrived (and opened the day after we left! Bad luck!) so we could not visit some of the spots we had hoped, so I guess we will have to come back!
The drive into Yosemite Valley is quite lengthy so we opted to pay for a campsite in the valley. The campgrounds are not all open in the shoulder season, so make sure to look before you go! We did the paved walk to Bridalveil Falls which is dog-friendly! Yay for Dolly!
Tunnel View is the most iconic view of Yosemite Valley. We really enjoyed our time in Yosemite and were so sad to leave! We met so many people with sprinter vans, probably more than in any other place we visited!
Arizona: Grand Canyon National Park
I honestly can't believe we did it, but we saw the sunset in Yosemite Saturday night and made it to sunset at the Grand Canyon by Sunday night! It is difficult to describe the true scope and breadth of the Grand Canyon, but it is absolutely massive. Sunset and blue hour are beautiful at the south rim because the red and orange rock gets a purple haze to it and it is truly stunning.
We were lucky enough to stumble upon Astronomy Night at the Grand Canyon (it just happened to be in the parking lot we had parked in), so we got to look at the moon, Saturn, and various galaxies and star clusters through telescopes, and talk to several amazing volunteers (one man has been doing this for 30 years and actually built his own telescope!) They also did a constellation talk which we will share on our YouTube channel! It was such a wonderful night.
We camped outside the park and hiked to Horseshoe Bend the next morning. Horseshoe Bend is a portion of the Colorado River that makes a U. It is dog-friendly (they even gave Dolly a treat at the entrance gate!) but does cost a small fee ($10 in October 2024) as they do not take the America the Beautiful National Park pass. It is hard to tell the scale but those tiny dots in the river were actually two fishermen and a couple of kayakers!
Utah: Zion, Bryce Canyon, Capitol Reef, Arches, and Moonscape Overlook
Utah was honestly a whirlwind! I'm not sure what exactly I was expecting, but I did not expect how desert-like the landscape was! It honestly felt just like Arizona to me! I'm thinking Utah in the winter, covered in snow, is much more like what I have pictured.
Our plan in Utah was to try and visit all 5 national parks, plus Kyle had found a few other cool spots to visit. A tall order! My favorite part about Utah was how many amazing campsites there were. We had probably our favorite campsite on the entire trip on BLM (Bureau of Land Management) land outside of Zion National Park watching the stars. There is no light pollution and you can see SO MANY STARS.
Zion National Park
Zion National Park was probably my favorite park in Utah. It has the most crazy rock patterns. Many of the mountains are made from these extremely thin layers of rock all pressed together in weird curves and swirls. It actually felt a lot like Yosemite Valley, but with red rock instead of grey.
Do research before visiting Zion. The main road though the park (Zion Canyon Road) is closed most of the year to private vehicles and you can only take a shuttle in. Since dogs weren't allowed, we skipped it, which meant we sadly missed most of the park. Zion has the very famous "Angel's Landing" hike, which is notorious for being very sheer. We did not do this!
Bryce Canyon National Park
Bryce Canyon is the next park we visited and it has these insane rock formations called "Hoodoos" which are created by erosion due to water freezing and cracking the rock. Bryce experiences around 200 days per year where the temperature goes both above and below freezing, and this fluctuation causes these formations.
If you visit, I highly recommend hiking into one of the canyons or amphitheaters, as you can't see much of the rock formations from the road.
Most of Bryce is not dog friendly, but there is a paved half-mile hike at sunset point you can take your dog to! It was insanely windy at this viewpoint!
Capitol Reef National Park
I, unfortunately, had to work this entire day, so Kyle took off on a solo hike of Hickman Bridge Trail to catch some views of Capitol Reef!
Arches National Park
Arches is probably the most recognizable park because Delicate Arch is on the Utah license plate, as well as stickers, signs, and national park paraphernalia. We didn't do the hike to Delicate Arch because it was quite long (and not dog-friendly) but we did the loop trail which takes you by Double Arch, Windows and Turret Arch.
Arches has a staggering 2,000+ naturally occuring arches throughout the park. There are also hoodoos here as well (hoodoos are the tall things rock spires). It does get quite busy, and there is only one entrance in and out, so make sure to plan your trip, especially if you go in March- October.
Moonscape Overlook & Factory Butte
Factory Butte is a little more off the beaten path. In fact, it was one of the worst roads we drove on, but it took us to this absolutely otherworldly landscape of sand dunes. Towering over the desert is Factory Butte, an almost cathedral-like formation that is eroded on the sides.
You don't necessarily need FWD, but you will need a vehicle with high clearance. I also recommend downloading offline maps because there is no cell service here. We ended up running into a couple who had gotten lost in the desert and found our van with their drone before asking for help back to the main road.
Next, we went to Moonscape Overlook. There are various viewpoints here, so i recommend finding exact GPS coordinates before traveling there. The road here is also REALLY very uneven, you will need high clearance here as well.
Colorado: Mesa Verde
Colorado has four national parks. We had plans to visit all four, but unfortunately, we ran into a giant freak November blizzard that ended up derailing our Colorado plans. We did manage to visit Mesa Verde before the snowstorm hit.
Mesa Verde is unlike any national park I have visited in the US because it has over 600 preserved dwellings of an ancient civilization, preserved in the cliff caves. I highly recommend researching Mesa Verde and the ancient Pueblo Cliff Dwellings, because it is quite fascinating. The Pueblo people lived in these cliff dwellings for a couple hundred years until around 1300 AD. Cliff Palace, depicted above, is the largest dwelling, which housed around 100 people. It is unknown why the Pueblo people left, but it is thought that drought forced them to find a better area to live.
Mesa Verde only has one road, but there are a couple of scenic loops (Mesa Top Ruins Rd, Mesa Top Loop) that you can take that will go past these dwellings. You can also get reservations for guided hikes that visit some of the more delicate dwellings up close. Look into that when planning your trip!
Well, friends, that concludes the National Park portion of our road trip. At this point, we realized that all the roads from Colorado down into New Mexico were closing due to this blizzard. We slept in a Home Depot parking lot in Durango (which is a lovely city!) and drive south through New Mexico the next day. We drove past the longest traffic jam I have ever seen, going the other way luckily. The trucks were not moving at all and people were out on the median making snowman. The full story will be detailed on our YouTube channel, so make sure to subscribe there.
Signing off until next time,
xoxo,
Melissa
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