meghan's fall-iday birthday trip...

For the past month and half or so I have been planning a birthday trip for Meghan. She loves the fall and in Southern Utah there is Highway 12, a scenic byway. She thought we were going on a date, but Emory and I had it all schemed out. And along the way she was clued in that we were going a bit further than our nearest canyon for this date! (this photo is Emory's first time in a hotel!)

Some Daddy time...

some days Emory's hair is REALLY red!

Day 1 of our drive, leaving Panguitch, Utah for Red Canyon and Bryce Canyon National Park.


It is amazing how much the landscape changed. This was formally a sea that divided our current continent, and then was a lake, now it is a desert!


Tunnels over the roadway in Red Canyon...

Along our drive, we went through two national parks and multiple state parks.

This route if driven straight through without stopping takes about 3 hours, but stopping for the incredible sights and scenery extends the trip to multiple days!

Coming into Bryce Canyon National Park

Emory enjoying the hoodoos of Bryce Canyon...


We stopped to put air in the stroller tires.


Opposite view of the hoodoos

Continuing on our drive the scenery continued to change, and we experienced serious elevation climbs.

The road was gorgeous and fun to drive, carving around throughout the landscape.


This was a pretty serious drop down to the beautiful fall foliage...

Of course I had to climb up to the top and look off the edge...

while Meghan got nervous.

Afterward I had to tell her all about the adventure!



There are three main lumps in the center of this photo, the center lump is the one I stood at the top of looking over the edge to where this photo was taken.

Around dusk, these horses were frisky and running around since there were deer in their pasture.


Meghan calls this one the "tree of life."


We love this one.

And we also loved our "cowboy chocolate bar" from Bryce Canyon! That night we stayed at the end of scenic byway 12 in Torrey, Utah.

We had no idea this was our view to wake up to!

This is Capitol Reef National park, one of our favorite parts of the trip.




After touring Capitol Reef, we drove back down Hwy 12 to view and stop at places we missed the day before.

This is the higher elevation (nearly 10k feet) and unfortunately due to strong winds the week before, there was not many leaves left on the trees!



We did find some gorgeous Aspens to stop and photograph!








Near Boulder, Utah we literally ran into good ol' fashion cowboys! We must have really been in the West. Ironically enough, Boulder was a very hippie-ish area, with a lot of the farms growing natural and organic products. We had an excellent lunch at a tiny café, one of three within about two hours either direction.



After leaving our new favorite Boulder café, we made sure to grab one of their monstrous chocolate chip cookies!

This is just outside Kodachrome Basin State Park, we had stopped to feed Emory and listen to Simon and Garfunkel's "Kodachrome!"




I had this one printed out and framed for Meghan on her actual birthday, our first family photo.




We went "off-roading" in our Mercedes, and were followed by a BMW who was ironically doing the same thing. After we got to our destination we started on a hike, talking with the BMW driver. Turns out he was a professional photographer (Nikon certified) and was in the process of publishing a book (his tenth in fact) on the colors of Utah. He helped us out with a few camera tricks, and we also made a new friend and scored a free copy of his new book when it is published (and ironically enough I took this picture and he climbed down to where I was and loved the angle and is planning on using his own shot very similar to this in the book!




THEN... the camera battery died and it was late so we made the 4-5 hour trek back home. A nice date... and Meghan really enjoyed her birthday present of a "Fall-iday" trip!