20 years older and with a sketchbook instead of camera, I was ready to create some Utah art. 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.
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.Â
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. Â
What a view! Mixed emotions about it's beauty and infamous past
Monument Valley - where the western movies usually begin...
Monument Valley - our shadows
Monument Valley - on the bumpy loop road
Looking at the sky through the hole in the rocky wall
Monument Valley is a desert
Arches National Park
Amazing red arches. It was good to see you again. Unfortunately there was not enough to trek to the Delicate Arch… again… Another reason to come back.
Horseshoe Bend to Glen Canyon
Park Avenue in Arches National Park
Scenes from the 3rd Indiana Jones movie
Arches National Park
Arches National Park
Double Arch
Zion
During my last visit, I didn’t appreciate Zion as much. However my trip 20 years ago was a bit of a crazy drive through. We drove from Chicago to San Diego, through Yellowstone, Salt Lake City, Utah, Nevada, California and back during only two weeks. How did we make it? Simple, we drove during the night and visited during the day. Our car was big enough for 6 people to sleep, one driving and one making sure the driver doesn’t sleep. This way, every day we were waking up in a new National Park and usually during sunrise, so imagine the beauty that was welcoming us each morning!
When you are on a wild trip like this, at some point the level of appreciation reaches the maximum and you become picky. When me and my friends got to Zion, we were still under strong impression of Bryce and Arches, which was something completely unbelievable for us and unlike anything we knew back then. Zion was a bit more European… I guess.
This time, I looked at Zion with fresh eyes and appreciated its beauty much more than 20 years ago. So I take everything back! Forgive me Zion for my previous statement.
Angel's Landing in Zion
At the Scout Lookout in Zion
Thank you for staying with me till the end and hope you enjoyed my visual travel blog. If you would like to see more of my travel sketches, check my other blog posts. I used to take a lot of photos, but now this is my favourite way of storing my memories. If you are interested in behind the scenes and want to see occasional sketches that I don’t post on social media, subscribe to my newsletter with the link at the bottom of the page.