Kanab and Zion National Park, Utah

March 2015
I had read about a town called Kanab in southern Utah, just north of the Arizona State line.  Over 100 Western movies and TV shows were filmed there since 1924, as the local area is typical of the scenery you would see in old Westerns. It was only 2 hrs from where we were staying (Enoch) so we were able to take our time getting down there. We visited Little Hollywood Museum which has a gift shop you walk through first (as most places do) and then we went outside to check out the old Western sets which have been dismantled from the movie sites and reassembled by the owners of the museum.  It was a free museum which is always good and was well preserved. We watched a short film where they told us some of the tricks of the trade, and when we went for a walk and tapped on some of the "brick work" of the buildings, it was still surprising to find that they were made of foam! Very realistic.

On the way out of town we drove past this??? Shades of Ettamogah? But look at the beautiful backdrop in the photo...stunning mountains.  Everywhere!

Utah has so many amazing National Parks, so we were a little disappointed when we decided to visit Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park.  We had visited a couple of sand dunes NP's in Colorado and New Mexico, which were amazing, but this wasn't up to their lofty standards....and it was a fair way off the main highway.  Still, it was kind of weird seeing snow scattered amongst the sand dunes!

Heading back to Enoch, we drove through Zion National Park...which has been on my list of "must see" for the past 2 years.  It was really beautiful, but full to the brim of people and cars, which is something we try to avoid.

 And we have been really spoilt with visiting places that we have had pretty much to ourselves. There were so many cars in the park that we couldn't go to the Visitor's Centre, (no parking) or pull over onto the side of the road (too many cars) so I got a lot of photos from the car window as we were driving.

But it is beautiful.  We did manage to find a carpark at a Canyon, so went for a walk into the canyon, with hundreds of other people...and a few squirrels

Once we were out of the park the traffic decreased significantly and after taking a side road we came across this gorgeous fox, who was very, very suspicious of us.

and drove through some more fantastic country.

And that's another reason we love America so much...to be able to see this amazing, diverse, beautiful landscape by driving in a car for a few hours.  Utah Rocks!