Sand Hollow S.P. - Hurricane, UT - Apr 2009

We fell in love with Sand Hollow State Park near Hurricane, Utah. It's our kind of place -- a new park with large, roomy sites, a spectacular setting, great views of sculpted mountains and all of this overlooking a pretty blue lake that stands out in colorful contrast with surrounding red cliffs and sand dunes.

The campground winds its way up a small knoll and all of the sites have great views of the surrounding mountains. Looking towards Zion National Park, we could see the red towers. On this day, it had just snowed and the higher up mountains were blanketed in white.

Several of the sites, at the top of the knoll, have outstanding views of the lake. We got lucky and got one of the best sites at the top of the hill -- #28 -- and ended up staying there for a week. This was our view to the lake.

Looking up from the lake to our spot at the crest of the hill -- with the mountains in the background.

It wasn't just the views that were great, it was the vibrant contrast of colors that enchanted me. The sky was deep blue next to the white clouds, the cliffs were sculpted in shades in red, orange, black, brown and gold. The lake was a turquoise jewel and the coral sand dunes set off the green plants and gray sagebrush. My visual sensors were on overload.

On one day the wind was blowing so hard that it whipped the lake into a frenzy of white caps and made the shoreline look like a tropical beach -- complete with waves. The dune flowers were beginning to blossom in a sea of white.

Some of the flowers looked almost tropical -- these white ones unfurled their petals during the day and closed up at night - kind of like buttercups, but I'm not sure that's what they were.

An exotic looking plant with red "petals" -- actually more like bracts, but again, not something I recognized and it wasn't listed in my wildflowers book.

One morning a huge flock of pelicans (yes pelicans!) flew over the park and circled and banked and flew in unison with the wind -- it was a beautiful aerial ballet. I stood outside and watched in wonder for a good 15 minutes until they rose up too high to see.

Not a park picture, but colorful nonetheless. This is our neighbor's daughter and her dog. She was so cute and loved her doggie so much I just had to take a picture of her and her buddy.