Sorry for the delay. I had planned on continuing my trip log last weekend, but the Bryce photos were overwhelming me, so I put it aside. There were so many pictures to go through and prep, so I think I will have to divide this day into more than one post.
Here are some helpful links, if you haven't seen them yet:
Day 1: Vegas
Day 2: Zion
Gallery with more photos than I'm putting in my posts
Okay! After a quick hotel breakfast, Dania and I left Springdale to head to Bryce Canyon. To get there, you drive through Zion National Park for awhile. This was really fun and scenic. There are some tunnels through the rocks, including one that is over a mile long.
We stopped at a few outlook points to take pictures, and at one of them we saw several bighorn sheep! They were all likely female, so they just looked like deer with horns to me, but my Instagram and Twitter friends helped set me straight.
These photos are way out of order in terms of our drive. I messed up, but I'm not going to fix it. :) Just know that the Brycey ones are from later in the drive, and the non-Brycey ones are from earlier in our drive! I'm sure you'll need to mark your journal with this important info.
The scenery between Zion and Bryce varied from the orangey mountain walls to valleys with cattle grazing between curvy rivers. As I always do when I travel, I thought about what life is like for people living there, and how it would be to grow up in that area. I wondered about how much snow they got, and how the landscape changed with the seasons. It was very pretty, though I wouldn't want to live so far from major cities, myself. We passed through a couple of small towns, but things were quiet. I wanted to find a store and/or some food, but without options we just continued on until we reached Bryce.
It was too early to check into the hotel, so Dania and I got some mediocre lunch next door and then went into the park. BC--I'm going to just call it that now--is a very user-friendly park. There is a lodge and camping within the park, but then the city just a few miles outside has hotels as well. So it's easy access, and you can enter the park at any hour. The roads throughout the park are smooth and safe-feeling even as you're driving up to the highest point. There are some creepy drop-offs, but overall it felt much safer than some roads I've been on. There is decent parking at most of the lookout points.
It was too early to check into the hotel, so Dania and I got some mediocre lunch next door and then went into the park. BC--I'm going to just call it that now--is a very user-friendly park. There is a lodge and camping within the park, but then the city just a few miles outside has hotels as well. So it's easy access, and you can enter the park at any hour. The roads throughout the park are smooth and safe-feeling even as you're driving up to the highest point. There are some creepy drop-offs, but overall it felt much safer than some roads I've been on. There is decent parking at most of the lookout points.
The main road takes you past several viewpoints. It's a nice driving tour of BC. The highest/furthest stop is Rainbow Point. There's plenty of parking, bathrooms and amazing views here. I took a bunch of pictures, but it's very difficult to capture the scene in photos. When I look at them, they are underwhelming, but in person it's much more awesome.
I made a couple of panoramas that are lame (and one of them didn't even stitch correctly!), but they kind of give a better idea of the view. Click on these for a larger version.
After some time at Rainbow, we headed back, stopping at a few locations along the way. There was a bit of fall color, but not a ton yet.
Finally we checked into our hotel, changed and then headed back into the park for a hike. And that hike--one of the highlights of the trip for me--will be in the next post. :)
See more photos up to this point over in my gallery!
Such a neat trip, glad you got the chance to take it!
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