Our Honeymoon
After getting married ourselves in the middle of the summer last year, we got back to shooting weddings just a day or so after we got back to the UK. This was a small price to pay for being able to have a wedding in June (not easy if you're both photographers!), and delaying the honeymoon gave us something wonderful to look forward to! We booked our honeymoon for October, the time of year where the main wedding season starts to slow down. This adventure has been on our travel list for a LONG time, and we were over the moon to finally have an excuse to book it! :)
For the best part of three weeks we went on a road trip from San Francisco to Salt Lake City, taking in all the natural wonders en route. We landed in San Francisco late at night, and turned straight in once we got to the hotel, but enjoyed a few hours in the city the following morning for breakfast and some sight-seeing! The roads all live up to their reputation of being impossibly steep, so we definitely burned our breakfast off!
Next we made our way to Yosemite & Sequoia National Park. It was an extremely humbling experience to walk amongst the giant redwood trees - this was one of the real highlights of the trip for us. We found we took to speaking in hushed tones as we explored here, as if we were walking in a cathedral - these vast, ancient trees are so majestic. The light here also had a magical quality, with golden beams piercing through the forest.
From mountains and giant forests, next we descended into the desert of Death Valley. A truly spectacular place - so quiet, and the longest, straightest roads we have ever laid eyes on! After watching the sunset in the silence of Death Valley, the approach to Las Vegas was just mind-boggling. As people who usually travel in wild, remote places, this certainly provided a contrast for us!
We spent one night in Vegas before heading out to to the wilderness again, in Zion National Park & Bryce Canyon! After a long day hiking in Zion, we booked a suite in an out-of-season ski lodge for a night. We drove up to the hotel in the dark, and realised we were climbing in altitude significantly when our ears started popping, followed by bags of snacks we had in the car starting to burst! As we drew close to the hotel everything grew eerily light, and were surprised to see that there was already a good covering of snow on the ground! Waking up surrounded by snowy peaks was quite a shock having been in the desert shortly before :)
En route to Utah, we made a short hop into Arizona to take in the amazing slot canyons of Page, see the mighty Colorado River as it surged through Horseshoe Bend, and have pizza at the rim of the Grand Canyon! Thunderstorms accompanied us on our drive through Monument Valley, but it was an other-worldly experience to see these alien formations peering through the black clouds.
As we continued on our drive we could slowly see autumn approaching - the aspen trees in Canyonlands, Moab and Arches National Park had turned beautiful shades of amber and yellow. It was a treat to see them in their full glory!
The last stop in our trip was the salt flats outside Salt Lake City - somewhere we have wanted to visit for so long, and time here was the perfect way to end our experience in the USA. Shortly after we arrived the few other people who were there left, and we had the whole place to ourselves. The sun set, painting the sky in pastel shades, and because the salt flats were under a couple of inches of water the reflection was breathtaking. It looked like we were standing in the sky - a very surreal and special experience. The portrait of us here is one of our favourite shots from the trip, and we now have a huge print of this hanging at home! A gorgeous reminder of our adventure :)
