Into Utah - the home of polygamist Latter Day Saints and weird and wonderful red rocks.Luckily we didn't stay long enough in the Mormon areas for Ant to get any ideas but we did stay long enough in the red rock areas to explore and see why so many films have been made there.It's like nowhere else I've ever seen before - just crazy red raw panoramas.

We started with a day hike up the Virgin River through the narrow slot canyons of Zion National Park.It was a bit like walking on slimy bowling balls as we made our way up the river valley, at times wading through waist and chest high water.The route had only been open a week due to heavier than usual snowmelt and rains and when we got to parts upstream normally passable in summer that were now more suited to Bear Grylls and not a girl from Guildford, well let's just say Ant managed to capture some embarrassing moments on video that forced me to cry out in despair that we go back.

The next day we decided to stay dry and visit the bright orange pinnacles of Bryce Canyon National Park (the photos are very National Geographic-esque me thinks) before making our way over to Arches National Park to climb amongst, you guessed it, lots of red rock arches.We set up camp in Moab, a mountain biking and extreme sports mecca, and spent a morning being driven up, down, forwards and backwards over the slickrock in a Humvee.Totally awesome duuuude.We were also in town for the July 4th celebrations which were about as small town local as you could get - flags flying everywhere, the national anthem sung by a local school kid, the high school cheer team, kiddie beauty pageant dancers, a banjo family quartet, prayers being said for the military, snow cones and a load of songs about being proud to be an American that reduced Ant to tears (but then he does cry every time he watches 'Enchanted').