We flew to Phoenix and first spent a week with our friends in Scottsdale before hitting the road.  Planning ahead, we had shipped Rich's telescope to them first, then rented an SUV in Scottsdale so that we could travel around with the telescope as well as our also luggage and camera equipment.  (With uncharacteristic foresight, we had timed the road trip to straddle the new moon so that we would have nice dark nights for some spectacular desert stargazing.) We spent two weeks on the road and covered 2200 miles.

The weather in Scottsdale was in the 90's but most of the trip was much cooler than that; most of the parks in this area are up at 6000'-7000' elevation, so daytime temperatures were cool and pleasant, mostly in the 60's, while nights were downright chilly, sometimes reaching down into the 30's.

Click either the links in the navigation panel at left or the orange location boxes in the map below to see our photos from that destination. (The blue line in the map of course shows our route, and the letters show the order in which we visited each stop.)