Cedar Breaks

I did not post anything the last two days because I am in need of  new car. I have spent the better part of the last three days researching online. Quite honestly, it is very stressful to me. Weighing year, mileage, mpg, and cost has proven to be a bane to my existence. I am so picky, that nothing has made me happy. Also, I am finding very little in my price range that I consider a good deal. Since it is pouring outside, I am not going to attempt to look at any vehicles at the dealership today. Also, I just need a break from online research, so for the rest of the evening, I'm going to try not to think about cars.

Of the many places we went on the vacation, very, very few were disappointments. On the other hand, we had some wonderful surprises. Towards the end of the trip, I picked my friend Laurie up in Vegas. From there we went to Utah national parks. However, we had a couple days to kill before I got her after Flaming Gorge. We decided to drive towards southern Utah to get closer to Vegas. I knew I had a couple options of places I wanted to go, but could only choose one. They were:

1. Fish Lake Basin- a national forest area in the mountains that has a lot of wildlife

2. Big Flat- an area loaded with mule deer, where getting good photos is easy.

3.Cedar Breaks National Monument

I didn't choose option #1 because we only had one afternoon, so who knows if we would actually see a moose. I didn't choose option #2 because I had seen hundreds of mule deer. Although I never tired of seeing them, I did realize they are in all national parks Since hunting isn't allowed in national parks, they have very little fear of people and got many pictures.

So I chose Cedar Breaks. We had to climb from a valley in St George Utah to about 10,000 feet. My car did not like the climb. The terrain went from southwest dryness, to ponderosa pine forest. There is a campground at Cedar Breaks that we stayed at. I thought it was a nice campground. Being so high in the sky, it was a chilly 45 degrees when we woke up.
                                                 
                                               Arch in the canyon

The two pictures below are bristloecone pines. Bristlecone pines are the oldest living thing on the planet. The oldest known bristlecone is over 5000 years old. These ones are not that old. But they probably were breathing the same air as Jesus. I was in awe of their age.

On the top of the canyon were a lot of wildflowers

This was our first experience seeing red rock . It is way cooler/prettier/ more amazing in person than in photographs.

It turned out we saw more mule deer after all.

Our campsite just a short distance from the top of the canyon and the amazing scenery.

During our visit, we went to a ranger program about the sun. There was a telescope set up to look at the sun in the way that doesn't burn out your eye. There was a massive solar storm going on that we got to see. All in all, Cedar Breaks, even though we were only there about twelve hours was one of my favorite places.