You can view our Blennylips Desert Road Trip route in detail on Google Maps.

Youtube: Best of Blennylips 2010 Desert Road Trip

Blennylips 2010 Desert Road Trip

We flew into Las Vegas about sunset and rented a car to drive north to St. George Utah. Just before Mesquite Nevada (at the Arizona border; you cut through this corner before entering Utah), we hit a rather large lengthy traffic backup on I-15 due to a Rock Star Mishap.

There is always a first time for everything...

We departed on this trip just knowing that we were visiting family in St. George and friends in Albuquerque and that we would drive between the two.

We'd driven St. George to Zion's, Bryce's and beyond to Lake Powell many times in the past, so this time we elected to go through polygamy country (Colorado City, Fredonia, etc) on the way to Marble Canyon, where we'd never been before either.

The evening before we left St. George for Albuquerque, I did a bit of google sluething and somehow found out about Coal Mine Canyon--an unmarked and mostly unhearalded and unvisited scenic overview just outside of Tuba City. Wowie Kazowie! Who would have suspected! So glad we found out about this and stopped to see. It has all of the usual stuff you see in the Grand, Zion and Bryce Canyons but on a much more intimate scale...and you get no clue at all from the view from the road that it is even there!

You can only see that a canyon is there from within a hundred yards or so.

Coal Mine Canyon in all its glory.

With another stroke of serendipity, we realized that we would be in Aluquerque for the last weekend of the annual Balloon Fiesta. We got up one morning at five am to be at the event before dawn.This event has really gotten huge. The officals did a great job of organizing the crowds and providing busses into the venue. One problem getting more and more acute is that with the relentless development of the suburbs, the balloonists are running our of places to land!

The dawn weather was prefect and most of the large complicatred floats (stage coach, cow, Darth vader, etc) were able to take off--which they are not able to every year.

Lots of wacky balloons at the Fiesta.

Amazing number of hot air balloons at the Fiesta.

Interesting clouds over SunRiver

Marcia's sister recently moved to the St. George Utah area. She is in a very ameniable golf community, called SunRiver, set amid the red rock splendor.

It is a retirement community with lovely facilities and many outdoor activities nearby.

We went to a performance of Disney's "Tarzan" at the outdoor amphitheater Tuacahn.

This house is along our morning walk and in an adjacent community.