We headed out bright and early today for Bryce Canyon. We wanted to get there right when they opened at 8am. I drove behind the RV so that we could leave it at the visitor’s center and take the Honda through the park. Leaving the RV in the park allowed us to hook up and continue on to Zion without returning to the KOA. This saved us about an hour.
Bryce is a very beautiful park! It feels sort of like the Sierra’s because it has lots of trees, campgrounds and a lodge almost like Yosemite. There are hundreds of miles of horse trails, bike trails, and hiking trails. From the second look out we watched people zigzagging all through the canyon like ants! There were hikers on rims, in crevasses, and on the flat trails. After quite a hike in, Barb stayed to take lots of pictures, and Rich and I climbed down the Navajo Loop Trail. It was straight down into the bottom of the canyon! It was Awesome! It was so beautiful that we just kept going down and down, climbing over boulders and under tunnels. We stopped every once in a while to look up and see the canyon walls towering above us. Now that the pictures were all taken and my legs were like noodles, it was time to climb back up J Stopping every chance we could helped get my heart rate back on track, and after about a half an hour of climbing out, we were back up to the trail. Barb and I drove to the next look out while Rich walked on the Rim Trail, almost 2 miles, and met us. The three of us walked and climbed for over 4 hours!! We went to the Bryce Canyon Lodge for lunch, and did some shopping at the gift shop. We hooked up the car, and headed off for Zion National Park.
On the way we passed through yet another National Park – Capital Reefs National Park. Yes, this is beautiful country out here in Utah! We arrived in Zion at 4:15. Barb and I checked out the gift shop while Rich parked the RV and unhooked the car. He picked us up outside the store and we drove all the way through the park to the East entrance, stopping at all of the lookouts along the way. We drove through a 1.3 mile tunnel that was built in 1930. At three places along the way, there were huge windows carved out of the walls of the tunnel, offering you a picture framed view of the mountains! It was slow going because they stopped the traffic to only a few cars at a time, going one way. The Ranger gave a baton to the last car they let through. On the other end, that car surrendered the baton, and cars were then sent through, a few at a time, in the other direction – the last car carrying the baton. We left the park at sunset which was a beautiful sight behind the mountains. We went just outside of the park to the town of Springdale where we stopped at an award winning restaurant called “Parallel Eighty Eight” in Driftwood Lodge. It was a VERY fancy dinner, and YUMMY!!! Barb had fillet medallions surrounding a grilled Portobello mushroom, with a sun dried tomato aioli, and a drizzle of Dijon mustard sauce, all on a bed of baby spinach. Rich and I had a roasted garlic appetizer and pan seared pork over a sun dried tomato polenta, with a goat cheese, apple and fennel sauce. SO GOOD! We didn’t plan on such an extravagant meal. We were just trying to find a place with a big enough parking spot and this was it. Lucky for us J
We left Zion at 6:45 and headed to Las Vegas. This was a big day! 3 National Parks, 3 States (Utah, Arizona and Nevada) and a killer meal! We arrived in Vegas at a little past 10pm.
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