When our close friends decided to get married in Vegas, they wanted us to come to the ceremony… well what to do? We had to go!It was a perfect opportunity to revisit Utah- my favourite place in USA with red mountains and wide roads. 20 years older and with a sketchbook instead of camera, I was ready to create some Utah art.My first and last visit to Utah was 20 years ago and my husband was always jealous of it. So we somehow knew we would go one day, but honestly we didn’t expect it this year!Arches, Monument Valley and Zion during 4 days and then partying in Vegas to celebrate our friends. Amazing memories that will surely warm us up during the upcoming winter.And as usual, I brought back a sketchbook full of drawings… so here you go

Utah art from Monument Valley

Chasing Forest Gump before the sunrise

‘I am going home now’ – with this simple sentence Forest ended his crazy run through the whole America. It was in the middle of the road in Navajo Tribal Park with iconic view of Monument Valley in the background. An absolute must see for a fan of movie locations when visiting Utah.

Just for the purpose of recreating this single scene, this year for my husband’s birthday, I gave him an artificial beard, red cap and a set of running clothes Forest Gump style.

We hit the famous spot just before sunrise and oh well…there was already a few other movie fans waiting for the perfect light to take their photos and videos.

Meeting Forest Gump 😉

Visiting Monument Valley with a Navajo guide

Monument Valley’s roads are far from being smoothly paved place. To avoid breaking our rental car, we booked one of the guides from the Navajo Tribe, which currently owns and manages the Monument Valley.

The guide took us around the valley in a van with a completely open back for tourists – no roof, no side walls just a metal frame without any cover on it. It must be great in the summer, but not for an early morning in October… Oh gosh it was cold on the back of that van. We didn’t anticipate spiky breeze and clearly underdressed ourselves. In the meanwhile our guide was sitting in her warm cockpit with her thermos and nice warm gloves.

From time to time, we would stop to take a picture. Surprisingly our guide wasn’t interested in telling us any stories about the visited places. This unusual situation put us in a funny mood and we started to ask her questions and tried really hard to squeeze out a bit of information. As our guide started to warm up to us, we learned that the beautiful terrain of Monument Valley was a witness to a lot of suffering among the indigenous people of America.