from sedona, we headed to the grand canyon – the south rim this time (we had seen the north rim the month before, also on our way home from arizona). as we approached the national park, it got snowier and snowier and pretty soon we were in a total winter wonderland. it was really, really gorgeous!

i was shocked by how many people were at the south rim, even on a bitter bitter cold day with low visibility. despite the crowds, we enjoyed the snow on the walk to the lookout points (and moses and gabriel became junior rangers!)…

and then we marveled at the vistas. the misty clouds gifted us a super unique view of the spectacular (aptly named) grand canyon.

we had to backtrack and do a lot more driving than expected because the other entrance to the national park was closed due to snow. our kids are so great in the car, though – i’m so grateful. we caught a beautiful sunset (so hard to capture on a phone camera!) en route to our motel.

first thing the next morning we visited horseshoe bend. ian had never been there and it had been many years for me. this spot on earth is so wildly gorgeous. as we were walking back to the car after taking it all in for a while, i was just so overwhelmed with the beauty of the earth – my eyes welled up with tears and my heart felt so swollen with gratitude to live on this planet.

then we were back on the road, this time en route to capitol reef national park. the scenery along the way, through grand staircase-escalante national monument, was stunning. it felt like we were on a different planet at times!

we gained some elevation and pretty soon were in a total white-out. it was pretty scary to drive through this but after some white-knuckling…

…we came back down in elevation and dropped right into capitol reef np!

we went to the visitors’ center to decide on a family-friendly hike and then hit the trail … coming up in the next post 🙂

i love this earth!!!!