Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Arizona, Utah, Arizona and Nevada

Saturday, July 19th, 2014 at 03:23pm

Five days ago I picked up a rental car, and then proceeded to drive over a thousand miles on the wrong (not to the locals though) side of the road.

My first stop was to the Hoover Dam where I walked around, took a tour and overall marvelled at the engineering involved:

Not full Penstock Generating To the vent Fancy Powerhouses below

The next day it was time to head west from Las Vegas, after leaving Nevada I would cross back and forth between Utah and Arizona a couple of times before ending up at Page. There are a few national parks that I would have loved to detour to, but I didn’t have the time, I did fit in a tour of the Glen Canyon Dam and stopped by the well-photographed Horseshoe Bend:

Highway through the canyon Arching over General Electric Horseshoe Sandstone and concrete

My main reason for visiting Page was for the nearby slot canyons. These are well known – one appears in the default Windows wallpapers – and I found that there was one group that has a dedicated photography tour. I opted for the half day tour which included three canyons, only one of those being the popular Antelope Canyon:

In the canyon Narrowing Flowing Strong beam

After spending the morning in slot canyons, the remainder of the day was spent driving down to and then along the rim of the Grand Canyon before trying to capture the sunset:

Stump on the edge Mostly dead Into the distance Afternoon rain A sunset

Heading south I stopped briefly at an aircraft museum and passed through Flagstaff on my way to a big hole in the ground, Meteor Crater:

An old angel Deep impact

It was now time to head west along parts of the old Route 66 before stopping at another dam and then back to Las Vegas:

Winding down The thimble On Historic Route 66 More power

Tomorrow I fly up to Portland, Oregon for a couple of days sightseeing and then OSCON, a huge open source conference.

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