KANAB, UTAH and CORAL PINK SAND DUNES

Just when I think that we have seen all the variations of mountains, we come upon something new! This is awesome country.  If given a choice, I think that I could settle here rather than Arizona. Before it was a toss-up between Arizona and Florida.  Of course, Florida is closer to family and old friends.  But we make new friends where ever we go!

On Wednesday, May 6th, we started out for Kanab, Utah where we were told there were several good museums, one was movie sets.  On the drive, more mountains to take pictures of also.  We began to think that this was painted desert!  Notice how the colors seem to run?? Also notice the natural caves. We wondered if they were Indian dwellings at one time.

The rocks look more like molten lava or maybe soft pouring taffy.

It was a good drive on to Kanab, going through northern Arizona and back into Utah.  Now on to the museums. There were more than 112 movies made in this location, such as; Deadwood Coach, Lone Ranger, Fort Yuma, Dunes Along the Mohawk, Billy the Kid, Buffalo Bill, to name a few.

We were not impressed with the museum of the movie sets, but the local history museum was good.

When leaving the second museum, we decided that it was time to stop for lunch.  We failed to find the restaurant that we were told about for the good down home cooking, but found ourselves in one that had more gourmet style food.  It really was not to our liking, but we shared and then Gary got to go upstairs and see their art gallery.

From there we went on to the Heritage House that we had seen a picture of in the museum.  It was nice and the second floor was just an attic, but was large enough for a couple rooms.  The basement sandstone walls reminded us of our basement when we lived on W. School St. It was built by Mormons way back when.

We drove about town and then on out of town to head back home. 

We passed a sign that said Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park. So we decided that it might be worth following the signs. We drove for about 20 miles and all we saw was rolling hills and mountains and what we thought was red clay.

We finally found them and a good pull-off.  Gary then climbed the dune to take pictures, while I took one of him from the car.

Notice the mountains in the distance.

They were quite awesome and we were glad that we ran upon them!  Like I said, just when you think that you have seen it all.
We continued on back to Hurricane over roads that we had traveled before.  So we went through the tunnel again and this time traffic had to stop after us because a camper was following us.  A camper or RV has to take their half out of the middle of the road because of their height.  So we took advantage of it and stopped quickly to take a picture out of one of the window openings along the tunnel.

It was sure a play on colors because of the sun.  When it is too light, the sun can darken the shadows too much or lighten them depending on the sun's direction.  Sorry if they look washed out. From there we had very curvy road with many very sharp long switch-backs.   The scenery was awesome!

After passing behind the car in the next picture, I took this picture of the kids who were standing on a rock on the edge of the cliff.  I took it from the next switchback below which does not show the height accurately..  It was much steeper than it looks here!  We thought the kids were nuts to say the least!.

On the home stretch now.

All in a day's drive.  We were gone about 7 to 8 hours.  Gary was glad to be home to rest.
Tomorrow we will go to the Senior Center for lunch to see the friends that we made there.  Not sure if we will get there any more after that. But check back in with us.