National Parks - USA

We took a 19-day holiday that included Japanese Golden Week and we started our holiday in San Francisco.  We rented a car and went on a trip the national parks in three states.  We made hotel reservations only for the arrival date and before returning home.

 

Yosemite National Park was quite crowded, so we had to go back about 20 kilometers because we could not find a place to stay. Nevertheless, the weather was fine the next day and we enjoyed the magnificent view.

 

It was my second time to visit Grand Canyon, but it was great.  We got up early in the morning and took some pictures of sunrise, and also sunset photos in the evening.

 

The highlight of this trip was Antelope Canyon. There are two Antelope Canyons,  an upper and a lower, but the upper could only be visited with a tour so it was hard to take photos without someone's head in the picture. The lower one also had a guided tour, but when I said "I want to take my time and take photos", I was told "Please feel free."

 

We walked slowly through a narrow and winding path and took many photos.  The problem was when we climbed up the last ladder and got out of the Canyon ... without a guide, we couldn't find our way back to the starting point.  We had no choice but to go back down into the canyon and follow it back.  We now saw everything from the opposite side, so I took a lot of photos again.

 

At an artificial lake called Lake Powell, we took a boat tour and went to Rainbow Bridge.  It’s a big rock that looks like a dinosaur pushing its head into the ground.  We had to walk about 2km from the boat to the bridge under the hot sun. It was recommended that we carry a bottle of water.

 

Death Valley was really hot, but it was a beautiful place. Right next to that is Mt. Whitney, which still had some snow on it.  We had not brought trecking equipment and had not allowed enough time in any case, so we climbed as far as possible by car.

 

Our plan was to go back to San Francisco from the other side of the Yosemite National Park, but the road was not open yet.  We went by a roundabout way, but were able to return to San Francisco on time.

 

We drove 3000 km all together.