On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
Is there interest in holiday-themed posts in the run-up to Christmas? I haven’t seen any new submissions since I mentioned it last week. I always think those posts are either beautiful (if lit trees or decorations) or sweet and memory-invoking if they are pictures from childhood. Is anybody game? If so, please send in your pics!
Albatrossity
After a night in Bryce Canyon Lodge, we headed out to our next destination, Zion National Park. We found breakfast in Panguitch at the Flying Goat Café (good food, odd décor, lots of Trumpy signs), and then headed via some blue highways to the Parowan Gap Petroglyph site west of the small town of Parowan UT.
And in other news, I have added one new 2026 calendar, so now there are three available on Lulu this year. In addition to my regular Flyover Country and Bird Butt calendars, you can get a “You looking at me?” edition with pictures of birds staring/glaring toward the photographer. So take your pick – Bird Butts or Bird Faces! Here are the links, and thanks to all the jackals who have ordered a calendar this year, or in past years.
Bird Butts 2026.
Birds of Flyover Country 2026.
The Gap is a canyon through a ridge in the middle of the high desert, carved by water and wind into the Navajo Sandstone. A road cuts through the gap, which must have been a trail long used by the indigenous inhabitants of the area, and allows access to viewing of an astonishing number of petroglyphs. One of the most famous ones, the “Zipper Glyph” was showcased in a previous post in this series. There are plenty more, like this one. Click here for larger image.
There are probably as many interpretations of these ancient artworks as there are petroglyphs at this site; here’s one attempt, from the signage at the site. They are interesting to speculate about, but in all honesty, we will never know exactly what the artist meant to convey. Sorta like modern art. Or any kind of art, for that matter. Click here for larger image.
From Parowan we headed down towards Zion National Park, with a side trip into the Kolob Canyons. A part of Zion National Park, these are a series of parallel canyons above a creek that eventually drains into the Virgin River, which is the river that carved Zion Canyon. There is no road through the park that connects these canyons with the more well-known section near the visitor center, but there is a 5-mile scenic drive. There are California Condors in this part of the park; we looked assiduously for them, but none were seen. Nevertheless, it was good to be in a part of the world which hosts that majestic species. Click here for larger image.
Here is another part of the scenic drive through these canyons, with Elizabeth in the picture for scale. Click here for larger image.
Our next destination was a B&B in Springdale, just outside the main entrance to the park. My sister-in-law was in charge of making reservations for this trip, and this place appealed to her for many reasons. But I suspect even she did not know that there would be a cougar taxidermy masterpiece above the shower in the bathroom in our suite. Click here for larger image.
The B&B also had two dogs who functioned as greeters for incoming guests. This is Coach, on the lookout for new arrivals. Click here for larger image.
We arrived in sunshine, but the next morning the clouds moved in again. Click here for larger image.
The clouds and mist only enhanced the majesty of the towering sandstone cliffs all around us. Click here for larger image.
And finally, a bird! Lesser Goldfinches (Spinus psaltria) were chittering and feeding on the last sunflowers of the season in the garden area of the B&B. Click here for larger image.
Late Night Open Thread: Not All Heroes
Baud
Wrong thread
Scout211
Right after we retired, we went on a two week camping trip through the same part of the country and the national parks on your journey through the Southwest.
We had visited and camped in most of the parks before but it was our first visit to Zion. The park is beautiful but so congested and crowded that we had a hard time enjoying the sites. The buses that are required for tourists to take to the sites were packed and lines were long to even get on the buses. The trails were congested with far too many people to be able to enjoy the scenery, so we gave up on the most famous sites and took some hikes on trails that were not very crowded. That gave us a better view of the canyon and a better experience.
We definitely favored Capitol Reef and Bryce Canyon over Zion but the whole area is beautiful. Your photos have brought back some good memories of that camping trip, which will be our last one after many decades of camping trips.
Betty
I appreciate seeing the contrast between the more typical clear blue sky of that part of the country and the cloudy, misty one. And a goldfinch for a bonus!
SteveinPHX
Tried to get in to Zion some years ago with my sons. Lack of parking & crowds scared us off. We wound up in Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park (think I have name right) and had a great time.
Gloria DryGarden
I remember Zion as a magical place; you captured it in these photos.
And your bird photo, you must have won a prize for it! Just amazing.
frosty
We saw Zion at the peak of the pandemic when they ran the buses at half capacity. Lucked into a parking space, unloaded our ebikes and rode up the road which was empty except for the buses.
No hiking because we didn’t want to lock them up and risk losing them.
stinger
Wonderful photos — especially the last! I enjoy seeing not only the great outdoors, but also the B&B shots.
I’ve ordered all three calendars — can’t wait! Thanks for making them available!
ETA: That petroglyph “interpreter” was smoking something.
MCat
Thank you for these great pictures. All of them are marvelous. I would never be able to start my week without your photos.
Albatrossity
@stinger: Thanks! I hope you enjoy the calendars year-round. I had a lot of fun picking out pics for the one with birds glaring at me. It turns out that I have a lot of pictures like that!
And yeah, that is one of the fanciful interpretations of petroglyphs that I have seen. But it certainly is a very complex petroglyph, and the sign also indicated that at least some of the interpretation came from conversations with local Paiute elders. So maybe they were having some fun with the interpretive banter. As I said, we’ll never really know that all those glyphs meant to the artist who created them!
Netto
My first trip to Zion was a family vacation in the mid 60s. My dad, who was not one to let the existence of three pre-teen sons deter him from adventurous indulgences, decided we needed to climb Lady Mountain. I was about seven; my twin brothers were four years older. The Lady Mountain trail was an amusement park construction of ladders, stairs, cliffs, and passages that led to the rim of the valley, then up bald sandstoneslopes to the summit of Lady Mountain. Our hike was brutally hot. As we gained views of the valley below, we spotted the swimming pool at the hotel and debated the feasibility of a 2000-foot leap into it from the trail. Eventually my mother had had enough and she and I found a shady spot to wait while my brothers and Dad went on to the summit. A few hours later, they returned from the summit, tired, sunburned and out of water. We descended the ladders and stairs and made our way back to our campsite among the cottonwoods in the valley. That evening my brothers were both sick from dehydration.
Some years later the park service decided that the Lady Mountain trail was dangerous and incompatible with the ethos of the park, and they removed the ladders and stairs. I understand it’s possible to follow the path of that trail today without all the aids, but it’s quite difficult and probably prohibited.
Aziz, light!
I suppose it’s a good thing the Anasazi and Pueblo and Fremont people didn’t have spray paint.
It’s way too much in demand these days by the masses, but our hike through the Narrows in Zion three decades ago was a memorable highlight of our lives as backcountry hikers.