Aug. 25, 2014 --- Snow Canyon:
After 2 days of traveling, today we decided to stay close to "home".   We also hoped to sleep in, but that still didn't happen.  We also let them sign us up for the "owner's update" sales pitch for this morning.  I was expecting we would go, tell them, "no" like we usually do, take our gifted award and leave.  To my surprise, they convinced my husband that we should upgrade our membership.  Who am I to disagree!?  Just means more vacation for me!  We actually left that morning telling the salesman (who was not the usual hard sales type) that we needed to talk about it and would get back to him----which we did a couple days later.
Only about 7 or 8 miles from where we were staying was Snow Canyon State Park.  At about 11.5 sq. miles large, it's about a forth the size of Bryce, but seemed considerably smaller.  The road through it is only about 3 miles long, but there are lots of hiking paths here, too.  Again, we didn't do much hiking, but the views were outstanding.  Very different from Bryce, but still amazing.  Even the ride to the park through the outskirts of ST. George were interesting.  I loved all the different styles of houses and landscaping.

 Just to the west of St. George is the entrance we came upon. 
There's a $6/car self pay day use fee.  Being a state park, our National Parks pass wasn't good here.

A pan shortly after entering the park.

This area of Utah was covered with sand dunes up to 2,500' deep millions of years ago. 

There are plants and wildlife here that aren't found any where else in the state.  22 sensitive species protected by state laws are found within the park, including desert tortoises and gila monsters.

 The park only averages 7.6" of rain each year.

Eventually the dunes turned into sandstone.  Over time, water cut and shaped canyons in the stone.   Cinder cones also erupted in the area causing lava flows filling the canyons with basalt. 

 Eventually more canyons were carved. 

 Here's a good view of some of the petrified sand at the foot of the red rock layer.

Another wildlife sign.

 There were even a few wanna be hoodoos here.

A very colorful park with the white and orange sandstone and the black cinder cones amongst the green foliage.

There was even an interesting camp ground here.  I loved that each site had it's own covered pic nic area and a grill.  As I recall there was a water pump between sites.

 We even headed back there in the evening to see it in a different light.

 Loved the different clouds, too.

 Even saw a bridal couple getting pictures taken.

Even though it gets so little rain, there was lots of plant life throughout the park.

 We did attempt a short hike, but my knee wasn't cooperating too well.

 back to our ride for the week.

Loved seeing all the really wierd looking plants.

Ken made it farther then me.  Hopefully we'll get back there and we'll be able to do some of the hikes.

 Just past the park, we found a viewpoint overlooking St. George and Snow Canyon park.  Watched a pretty sunset from there.  This is looking towards St. George.

 From the viewpoint looking over Snow Canyon.

 After sunset we went back to our resort for some pool and jacuzzi time.