RHH's photos

Yesterday we did the 17 mile drive through Monument Valley. This is the view from the North Window. We also visited Sand Island to see the petroglyphs there and Navaho National Monument to see the Betatakin cliff dwelling there. Today we go to Antelope Canyon and then to Las Vegas to pick up our oldest daughter at the airport before driving on to Death Valley.

We are at a guest house in Blanding, Utah, and here is a photo from our trip. We spent yesterday morning in Canyonlands and did the short hike to Mesa Arch at sunrise. It was spectacular with the La Sal Mountains in the distance and the canyon of the Colorado River below. We've been in Goblin Valley State Park, to Moonscape Overlook and Factory Butte, Arches National Park and the Island in the Sky district of Canyonlands National Park. We are headed for Monument Valley today and Antelope Canyon tomorrow and then to Death Valley for a week.

Please note that these are the last photos I'll be posting for several weeks. We will be away to Utah and southern California, visiting some of the Utah parks and Death Valley. I'll not be on Ipernity at all during that time. I've posted these photos from a 2021 trip to Death Valley with my wife, as a reminder of where we'll be. The photo was taken at Dante's View in the Amargosa Range on the east side of Death Valley. The view is to the northwest over Badwater and up the valley. We'll be there again if all goes as planned the last week in February with our oldest daughter whom we will be picking up in Las Vegas before going on to Death Valley.

I am posting two photos of Death Valley because we are headed there very early Monday morning. We'll go first to the Moab area of Utah and visit some of the parks there, Goblin Valley, Blue Valley, Arches and Canyonlands, and then go on to pick up our oldest daughter in Las Vegas and from there to Death Valley where we'll spend a week. The photo is from a loop hike up through Golden Canyon and back through Gower Gulch and shows the end of the trail as we exited Gower Gulch back into the valley. The Sierra Nevada is in the background across the valley. The hike is spectacular and goes to Zabriskie Point in the mountains on the east, if a side trail is followed from the top of the loop.

This is the interior of the Church of Saint John the Baptist in Chester. It was built in the 11th Century amid the remains of an older 7th Century church and rebuilt in the 1800's. It was originally Chester's cathedral but was replaced as the cathedral by Chester Abbey.

Our hour-long walking tour of the city of Chester was led by this man, dressed as a 15th Century Shropshire archer. He gave some of the history of the city and also of the Battle of Shrewsbury, fought in 1403 between Henry IV and Henry Percy in which the Shropshire archers played a major part. The story of the battle and the events leading up to it is told in Shakespeare's Henry IV, Parts I and II.

When in Chester we not only walked the city walls but walked along the Shropshire Canal outside the walls. We walked to the locks that connect the canal to the River Dee. The canal runs for 66 miles through the counties of Staffordhire, Shropshire and Cheshire.

When in Chester in Shropshire as part of a tour arranged by the conference we were attending, we walk a good part of the city walls, the oldest and most complete city walls in Britain. The walk is about two miles and the walls were begun by the Romans between 70 and 80 A.D to protect the fortress of Deva Victrix.

While attending a conference in Shropshire, we went on an arranged tour to the city of Chester where we walked the walls, had a guided tour, led by a man dressed as a 16th Century Shropshire archer and spent a pleasant though rainy day.