Pictures taken on our Southwest tour, 2025. We set up our base in Page, Arizona, and then took day trips to scenic locations nearby.

Our first stop was the conservatory at the Bellagio casino in Las Vegas. They change the display for every season.

Our first tour was at White Pocket, a two hour offroad trip within the Vermillion Cliffs national monument. There is a tremendous variety of weird rock formations.

At White Pocket, Jen learned how to free-climb from a cliff! (Not really. It is a flat incline of 30 degrees or so, but the guides know how to make a visual illusion shot.)

Our second tour was to one of the newer sections of Antelope Canyon. There is a long wash called Antelope Wash; along it, there are multiple side slot canyons, each accessed by a different tour. Upper and Lower canyons are very crowded, but the canyon called "X" is less heavily travelled.

Not far from Page, there is a short trail leading to a set of unusual rock formations. Because the upper rock is more dense, formations like toadstools occur where the lower layer erodes faster than the upper layer.

Pretty much everywhere you turn in this region, there is a vista containing different layers of red and white rock. Dave waves hello at the right.

We took an overnight visit to Monument Valley. This is a classic shot showing the East and West Mittens, late in the day with long shadows.

In the off-road section of Monument Valley, there is a high spire at the right called the Totem Pole. To the left, there is a set of spires called Yei Bi Chei, with religious significance to the Navajo.

Deeper in the off-road section of Monument Valley, you can lean back on a rock formation and look upwards. The view is of an eagle, looking to the left, where its eye is a hole in the rock formations.

Dave was willing to set his alarm for 5:45 AM in order to see the view of sunrise over the valley from our hotel room. Next time, he will try to use a tripod, so that the shots are less blurry.

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Back at Antelope Wash, Rattlesnake Canyon is another less traveled slot canyon. Jen, Dave and our guide were the only people there. We drove past the entrance to Upper Antelope, where we could see at least a hundred people lining up to walk through the canyon. Our pictures are better, because there was no need to wait for all the other tourists to exit the shot.

Rattlesnake Canyon is very narrow. We had to zig-zag and scrape our backpacks against the narrow passages. Here, Jen is a few zig-zags ahead of Dave.

A view from the top of the slot canyon as we walked back to our vehicle. It's amazing to see how narrow the canyon appears from here.

Back in Las Vegas for one night. We went to an art installation called Omega Mart, run by a collective called Meow Wolf, at an arcade called Area 15. It was fantastic! There is a complex story behind the installation, but once you enter past the supermarket facade, there are many rooms with unusual displays and controls. You can easily spend an hour walking around, without being sure you have seen everything. More details here

After Omega Mart, we went with our hosts Bob and Lisa to dinner at a restaurant called Brewdog, overlooking the Strip.

On our final morning in Las Vegas, we visited an art installation called Museum of Arte, outside the Cosmopolitan casino. It is an incredible video experience! There are about 15 rooms, each with huge video screens (30 feet tall by 150 feet long) showing a number of unique experiences. The next link shows one room showing four different seasonal spirits: this is the summer, with a fire dragon; the other seasons include a snow tiger, spring deer, and autumn spirit. Highly recommended!