Canyon Lands

On Friday, May 14th, the two Jims, Mary Kay and Carol and I toured the Canyon Lands National Park.  There are several different areas you can visit (The Maze, The Needles and Island in the Sky).  We chose Island In The Sky.  In my humble opinion this display of nature is even better than the Grand Canyon, because it is not as crowded and the views are every bit as spectacular as the Grand Canyon.  Here are a couple of examples (for an enlarged view of the pictures below simply click or double click the image):

There is also a lot of beautiful wild flowers around the canyon rim.

This park also has some nice picnic areas that we took advantage of for lunch.  After lunch we hiked a short distance to "Upheaval Dome."  There are two theories on how this dome was formed.  One is that it is a meteor crater and the second is that it was formed by a salt deposits welling up from below.  Regardles it is a weird sight.

If your're interested, you can see all of the pictures of this area at the following link:  Island In The Sky

On Friday evening we all had dinner at the Desert Bistro which is an historic residence that has been turned into an excellent restaurant.  Sorry I didn't get any pictures of it, but here is their web site if you're interested.  Desert Bistro

We're all leaving for different locations tomorrow, Saturday, May 15th so we said our goodbyes after dinner and will meet again at home later this month.