Arches and Canyonlands are close together and offer a lot of great photo opportunities; Capitol Reef is another good one -- don't miss Grand Wash and Capitol Gorge (easy hikes through spectacular rock formations), and driving Burr Trail through Long Canyon and the Switchbacks in the southern part of the park. Layered clothing, as it can be warm, cool or rainy. I've been there in September and camping would be reasonable then; campgrounds could be pretty full now before school starts. If your route includes Zion and you like spectacular views, do the Angel's Landing hike. Enjoy -- the whole southern half of Utah is like a national park.

Between Dell and HP, I prefer Dell, for both reliability and stability. I've had excellent luck with Dell's refurbished systems. If you use one of the many independent refurbishing companies, you can usually specify what hard drive you want, how much memory, sometimes even graphics card options, etc. Just check reviews on the company before buying from them.
Same advice for AndyH, who posted a similar question in a different thread.

The link is actually
www.gimp.org

Thanks again, Hoggers -- you came through in spades. I've ordered a couple of the less expensive ones, and have more options if neither of them work out.

Great suggestions, Hoggers -- thanks a million to all! I have looked at all of them and can definitely find what I need there.
Jay Pat, I will post some 3D's after i get the setup working well.

Does anybody know of a sturdy mounting bar that would allow me to mount two large DSLRs side by side? It would be fairly simple -- a bar I could mount to a tripod that would have two camera mounts built-in, one on each side. Preferably, the mounts would be somewhat adjustable for width, so I could move the cameras further apart or closer together. This would be used for both 3D photography and camera comparisons, and I might think of some other uses.
I've searched using every search term I could think of, even sent a question to the B&H staff (no response.) I found some things for GoPro cameras, but they wouldn't work for large cameras.
Any help or suggestions appreciated.

I've had good luck with most of my Western Digital drives, but the one that I had back luck with convinced me to switch to Seagate.
I bought a 4GB WD internal HDD 2 or 3 years ago, and it quit working after about a week. I'm pretty sure it was one of their enterprise line of drives, because that's what I usually get, but don't remember for sure. Anyway, I contacted WD and they said they'd replace it with a refurbished unit. I said, "Why not a new unit, since it's only a week old?" All they said was, "That's our policy."
A refurb would probably have worked OK, but I didn't care for their policy, so sent it back to the store I bought it from for a full refund and got a Seagate enterprise drive, which has been running flawlessly ever since.
So, you'll probably be OK with WD, they're a reputable manufacturer, but be aware of their replacement policy. And, as TriX said, I'd put together my own external setup using an enterprise drive; there's a reason that they cost more.
Gary

Panasonic Lumix (multiple models): Wasabi batteries: Positive, but about 10% less capacity than OEM (tested by doing long time-lapse videos and seeing how many pictures it took before shutting off)
Nikon P900: Wasabi: Positive (have not tested capacity compared to OEM battery)
Nikon D810: Watson: Positive (no capacity test here either)
I don't know if the following battery brands are available for cameras, but will include, just in case:
Canon HV20 (camcorder): Maximal Power: Positive, but somewhat lower capacity than OEM
Accessory Power: Positive, but somewhat lower capacity than OEM

I don't have experience with the Sony, but here are a few pros/cons of the P900:

Pros: I like the long zoom of the P900 and the image stabilization works pretty well even at full zoom; and I'm old and a bit shaky. The quick "unzoom-rezoom" button is nice if you're having trouble finding your subject when zoomed in.

Cons: In general, autofocus seems a bit slow. And very slow (sometimes nonexistent) when taking videos and zooming in (and I do have continuous autofocus turned on in the menu). If I zoom in on a subject while taking a video, it takes several seconds to refocus, and sometimes just refuses to.

[quote=jeep_daddy]... I believe the Xeon's aren't as robust as the Core i7....

jeep_daddy: Good info except for the above -- Xeon's are designed as server/ workstation CPU's, and if anything, more robust than Intel's consumer line (i7's, etc.)

-- a retired Intel engineer

David, I strongly agree with the guys who recommended system #2, for a lot of the reasons already mentioned by irishrover61; it's an overall more robust machine than #1, for only $150 more, a no-brainer IMHO. Both Dell and Lenovo have been reliable brands, so either should be fine in that regard, although the quality of the components added by your local dealer might be a factor -- you might want to verify with him about that.
The Quadro graphics card is the only thing that you might wish was different. I have an 8 GB one in my current system, and have been a bit disappointed in its performance for photo/video editing. Those are professional-level cards meant more for CAD work, and not optimized for dealing with bitmaps, so it will be slower for photo editing than a cheaper gaming-type card. However, it will work; and you can always change it out later if you want.
Good luck!

The national parks in southern Utah. In fact, the whole southern half of the state -- even drives between the national parks are spectacular. Impressive rock formations, mountain scenery, wildflowers, wildlife, great hiking trails...

Here are a few shots.

Sunset, Capitol Reef


Fall colors, Boulder Mountain


Deer, Capitol Reef


Bighorn sheep, Zion

My desktop also has ports in back that are a pain to access. I have a couple of USB extension cables (male on one end and female on the other) plugged into the USB ports and extended out to where they're easily accessible. That allows easy access to external drives, etc. If you do that, also plug in an ethernet cable and run it out to where it's easily accessed. If you use a crossover cable, you can connect to one other computer; if you use a standard cable, you can get a small hub and network all your computers.

Funny! Thanks for the warning -- I haven't opted to have any photos shared to Google, and now I certainly won't!

When we were in Key West, we took a tour on a small boat that said we would probably see dolphins, and we did. We were alongside a group of them for several minutes and got some good photos. Sorry I don't remember the name of the boat, but a concierge in one of the hotels should be able to give you some suggestions.