If anyone’s interested in a little diversion, here’s my write up on the trip that I took through Arizona and southern Utah last week. It was good to get away and play with the camera again.

Enjoy!

October means it’s time for another one of my notorious planned impromptu road trips. “Planned impromptu? Huh?!?”

I planned on taking last week off quite some time ago, so I’ve had that on my schedule for a while. The impromptu part comes in when I didn’t make my first hotel reservation until 11:00 p.m. Saturday night for a Sunday morning departure.

The options under consideration for this trip were: 1. A run up north to the coastal redwoods again; 2. A return visit to Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks; or 3. A run to Sedona, Arizona, a place I’ve never been to before. Option 3 won out. I wanted to see something new.

Keep in mind, when I take a road trip like this, the primary purpose is almost always landscape photography, so I’m a little biased away from doing in-town kind of things.

Sedona

Arriving

The high Santa Ana winds that were setting California ablaze impacted the drive from San Diego to Sedona a bit. It was very windy most of the trip and I even had to swerve around a few tumbling tumbleweeds making their way across the Interstate highway.

My hotel was actually in Oak Creek, about six miles to the south of central Sedona, but I had an “Oh, wow!” moment as I drove in from the south. I arrived around 5:00 p.m., and the late afternoon sun was painting the red rock formations in a nice orange glow. The photographer in me became excited at the possibilities.

I also knew going into this trip that this was a reconnaissance trip, trying to figure out the best locations over the next two or so days (I made reservations for three nights at the hotel). I was okay if I didn’t come away with a ton of images this time around. You have to figure out where and when to take them, first.

This post originally appeared on Dan’s Journey through Prostate Cancer. It is republished with permission. To read the rest of this post, click here.