From Utah.com

‘Highway 12 is one of the most scenic highways in America, receiving the designation of “All American Road” in 2002. The highway has two National Parks, Bryce Canyon and Capitol Reef, at each end and many other scenic points in between.’

This is 124 miles two lane highway with no guard rails, no shoulders and 10% grades. The quality of the pavement is excellent. It ranges from 9,600 feet above sea level to 5,700 feet above sea level. The motorhome was doing 20 mph up some of the grades and 25mph down some of the grades (so the exhaust break could do most of the work). I enjoyed the day but the motorhome got a workout!

We started the day and Blue still does not understand why I am outside and Blue is NOT.

Kodachrome Basin State Park

Sixty-seven monolithic stone spires called sedimentary pipes accentuate multi-hued sandstone layers revealing 180 million years of geologic time. The color and beauty found here prompted a 1948 National Geographic Society expedition to name the area Kodachrome after the popular color film.

Blue going and going and going.

Box canyon

Close and personal with one of the monoliths.

Escalante Petrified Forest State Park

from Utah State Parks website

‘Escalante Petrified Forest State Park is located in beautiful southern Utah, just 44 miles east of Bryce Canyon National Park. Hike along park nature trails through a petrified forest, camp along the shores of Wide Hollow Reservoir, or rent a canoe and paddle on its clear waters. Anglers fish for rainbow trout. At the Visitor Center, view displays of plant and marine fossils, petrified wood and fossilized dinosaur bones over 100 million years old.’l

Teri played in the water with Blue and I went up the trail to see the Petrified Forest.

There is a 200 foot altitude change as well.

Flat Stanley sees lots of petrified wood.

I can be a hard life trying to live among the petrified wood.

Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument

from the Utah State Park website

‘The Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, at 1.7 million acres, dominates any map of southern Utah. It is unique in that it is the first monument to be administered by the Bureau of Land Management, rather than the National Park Service. The monument is a geologic sampler, with a huge variety of formations, features, and world-class paleontological sites. The Grand Staircase is a geological formation spanning eons of time and is a territory of multicolored cliffs, plateaus, mesas, buttes, pinnacles, and canyons. It is divided into three distinct sections: the Grand Staircase, the Kaiparowits Plateau, and the Canyons of the Escalante.

Despite their different topographies, these three sections share certain qualities: great distances, enormously difficult terrain, and a remoteness rarely equaled in the lower forty-eight states. Human endeavors have always been limited on these lands, yet their very remoteness and isolation have attracted seekers of adventure or solitude and those who hope to understand the natural world through the Monument's wealth of scientific information.’

Most of Highway 12 runs through this monument