TUESDAY, 4 NOVEMBER 2025

(Springdale, UT – Grand Junction, CO)

Today, I didn’t wake up until 6am. It’s entirely possible that I might need to use an alarm clock soon…maybe… As usual, I read my book for an hour, but then decided that I wanted to see the sunrise. I got up and fumbled around, which woke Andrew. I said I wanted to go out for sunrise and he offered wise advice to put some clothes on. I pointed out that I was trying, but I couldn’t find them in the dark, so he gallantly put the light on.

I headed outside and, although it was just after sunrise, the sunlight had yet to crest the canyon walls. When it did, it was spectacular. The light changed so much in less than ten minutes. I went back inside very excited and made coffee.

We showered, had breakfast and it didn’t take long to pack. We had checked out by 10am. After getting fuel we drove east through the park, with one last look at the canyon scenery.

After a brief stop at both Mt Carmel Junction and Panguitch, we continued north up the Sevier Valley, with its wide, high plateau meadows and mountains. Towards the northern end, the rocks turn every shade of red, orange, gold, grey, green and blue. From there it was just 20 miles or so on I-70 to reach Salina and our lunch stop at Denny’s. 

After lunch there was another 200 miles heading east on I-70, through the Fishlake National Forest (with smoke from a prescribed fire stretching many miles across Utah), across the San Rafael Swell, over the Green River and past Moab, past the Book Cliffs and finally paralleling the Colorado River, before turning off for the last 6 miles into Grand Junction. As we passed the familiar outline of the La Sal mountain range we could tell that there was no snow capping them, which is unusual for November, but goes with the higher than average temperatures we have at the moment. As we neared Grand Junction, with the sun sinking low behind us, the moon – a supermoon tonight- rose directly in front.

We had checked in via the app, and had a digital room key, so we were able to go straight to our room on the 5th floor. (We also picked the room on the app, so we knew we’d have a great view). After bringing our things in from the car, we soon headed out to Pablo’s for dinner, before having a relaxing evening in our room. Our mileage today was 376 miles, which is roughly Land’s End to Preston.