All that Zion National Park in Utah is not, Great Basin in Nevada is. Of course, the degree of liking or disliking a place is, in a great part, a matter of timing and weather. If the weather is lousy, little fun is had. If there are too many people to make driving and parking and viewing difficult, it takes away from the experience. While my visit to Zion was totally unpleasant on Sunday, Great Basin was incredible on Monday.

Geographically, Nevada is a big state. But it is mostly desert. It has the Lake Tahoe area and this one national park to break up the landscape. However, this park is beautiful.

I spent Sunday night in Utah since hotels around Great Basin are hard to find. I also knew that Great Basin is in a different time zone. I checked the forecast for Monday and saw partly cloudy. Perfect for getting colorful clouds with a sunrise.

I planned to arrive at Great Basin a half hour before sunrise. That way, I could be up the mountain drive while the sunrise occurs. My early arrival made dozens of rabbits scurry as I drove towards them) a well as deer slowly crossing the road.

As I kept zig zagging while going up (eventually to 10,000 feet of elevation), I kept stopping to take photos. I shot them at various angles and zooms to get trees and mountains into the edges of the photos. And all of this was easy since I was the only person in the park at that time. So the experience was incredibly fun. And, that sunrise was probably the most awesome one I have EVER seen. Definitely memorable. I took several dozen photos of the sunrise. Oh, and I also took a few of the park itself (in fact more than of the sunrise).

The park itself is mostly trees and mountains and wildlife. I did hear a rushing stream behind a large setting of trees. I saw more deer later as well as wild turkeys. I took their photos although the deer were less coorperative about being photographed.

My drive down the mountain was in plenty of daylight. I saw some deer crossing the road to feed on some trees. One let me take his photo. A bit later there were some wild turkeys who decided to block the road. I photographed them too, of course. It was on the way down the mountain when I finally saw another vehicle, two, in fact.

Just after I left the park on the five mile trek back east to Baker NV, it was mostly a flat straight stretch. Mountains were ahead of me with the sun a bit higher in the sky. Then, two deer decided to dart across the road just in front of me. I slammed on the brakes and had 6 - 8 feet to spare. Whew!

While the drive to the park was in the dark (thus, invisible scenery), the drive going east of host town Baker NV was also enjoyable. All in all, a great and memorable experience.