Day 1 - Staycation Saga - Mesa, AZ to St. George, UT

You are now about to embark on the reading of the Ultimate Staycation. 17 days of fun, happiness, sickness, sightseeing, driving, and copious amounts of God's beautiful creations. Thanks to relatives, and a wonderful belated wedding gift from other relatives, we did the Ultimate Staycation of 17 days and never once paid for room and board. I love my family and they have given us some very wonderful memories that we will carry and cherish for many, many years. A special thanks to Grandma and Grandpa Burtenshaw, Sean Woodland, Aunt Ivy, and Aunt Kaye and Uncle Jay for providing us with the opportunity for such a wonderful and awesome trip that we could not do on our own two full time college students income. Now, off to read about the staycation . . . . !

Day 1 – Monday May 25, 2009 - Driving from Phoenix, AZ to St George, UT by way of Lake Powell.

 

Today was an uneventful day. I drove from Phoenix, AZ to St George, UT in about 7½ hours. We left Phoenix about 9:30am or so, and arrived in UT about 5pm (6pm UT time). We stopped in Flagstaff for about 20 minutes to eat a sandwich for lunch and enjoy the nice cool breeze and a few sprinkles of a passing cloud.

After Flagstaff, we drove across the Reservation and into Page, AZ (Lake Powell and Glen Canyon Dam) where we topped off for gas. Just before getting to Page we drove along this big stretch of beautiful cliffs. (I am so used to driving this at 11pm at night that I forgot how beautiful this drive is! AZ is Gorgeous! I asked Shari to take some pictures.

Just as we come up the cliffs and are near the top there is a breathtaking view point that we stopped at to stretch our legs a bit (no cruise control on the car) and so I could take a few pictures. It was overcast most of our drive from Flagstaff to Page and the cliffs are so much prettier when under cloud cover then they are when direct bright sun hits them; as this tends to wash them out and make the colors look bland.

This is looking south-ish in the direction of Flagstaff.

This is looking out west from the cliff and the next two pictures are looking north-ish in the direction of Utah.

The zoom works amazingly well as far as clarity goes, but a picture never quite captures the richness of the colors that you see with the naked eye. This is beautiful countryside. So much better than staring into a computer 15 hours a day.

The drive from Page to Hurricane was not eventful at all and we had very little traffic so we made much better time than I had expected. As it was Memorial Day, all of the traffic from Phoenix to Page was all going back to Phoenix and we were really glad that we were not going back into Phoenix today because it would have been awful.

Anyway, we had a good time, Shari got to catch up on her sleep, and we made good time. Tomorrow it is off to Bryce Canyon National Park!

Thought I would share with you the view from my grandparents have from their home of the valley where the Saint George Temple is. Dixie College (or maybe university now that they are a 4 year school) is on the hill behind the temple, opposite the valley from Grandma and Grandpa Burtenshaw's home.