Day 14: 6/15/24 From: Crater Lake, OR To: Boise, ID Distance: 418 miles (+ some)
Um, it’s snowing. In mid-June. We’re out the door by 8 am and the cloud cover above us is thick. But snow? I guess it *is* 32 degrees, so it’s not unprecedented. But also not exactly expected either. We’re east-coasters. June means warmth.
After a small snafu where we leave the park in the wrong direction thanks to zero reception, we head north through the Umpqua National Forest and Fremont-Winema National Forest where we continue to be snowed on for the next hour. This is surreal. When we have reception again, the Maps app turns us around again and we’ve basically taken a very roundabout way to get out of the park, but we didn’t add any time to today’s drive. Thankfully. 7 hours is 7 hours.
One thing I notice about Oregon is the purple wildflowers along the roadside. Some are close to the ground, and some grow a foot high or more. But purple seems to be the color here. As opposed to the white, pink, and red flower bushes (roses?) growing along California roads.
The surroundings quickly change as we drive back into the desert — still Oregon, but no longer woodsy and pine-filled. Sun, scrub brush, and dry hills. But it’s not hot here! It may look a bit like Arizona, but it’s definitely not. Still only 54 degrees at 11 am.
In this strange terrain we see two antelope — the first of the trip! And they dart when they see us, leaping across the desert scrub, their fluffy white butts to us.
After some time, Husband grows bored of this drive and begins to make up his own song.
“There’s nothing out here Nothing at all I can’t even Make a call
I’m just driving In my car I can see So damn far”
I take over driving for the last two hours or so and we get stuck behind an enormous line of traffic for miles upon miles because of an oversized load that refuses to pull off the highway to let the mile backup pass him… Does Oregon not believe in 4-lane highways? What’s with all the secondary highways? I guess not enough people live here to make it worth it? Still, it was maddening to drive 35-45 miles an hour in a 65 mph zone for a good 15-20 minutes.
We arrive at our hotel in Boise at 5 pm, sad because we’re officially back on Mountain Time and out of Pacific, officially on our return trip. Husband and Older Child go out for dinner while Younger Child and I stay in and catch a nap. I tweaked something in my neck today (yay), so I’m trying to give it a little bit of a rest. And a rest usually ends up meaning sleep, so… Husband comes back at 9:30 with dinner for me and Younger Child — the problem with going for dinner late on a Saturday evening is anything brought back will be brought back even later.
I check the weather forecast for the next few days and am a bit gutted to find it’s going to be very, very cold at night for the next few nights. And we’re in a tent. So while most of my friends back home are headed into a dangerous heat wave, I hope they all think of us, shivering in our tent over the next few days.
Do I place an order for blankets at a Target in Jackson, Wyoming so we can pick them up tomorrow on our way to our next campground? Yes, I do. Because modern problems call for modern solutions and the internet is our friend.
Day 11: 6/12/24 From: Las Vegas, NV To: Sequoia National Park (Potwisha Campground) Distance: 391 miles
We leave Las Vegas by 8:30 and head to Goodsprings, NV to see The Pioneer Saloon. Last time Nate and I were here, we captured a video we weren’t expecting. That video is what made the kids want to come.
We reach the place an hour before they open and almost decide to skip it and just get on the road. But we’re hungry and there’s a new(er) enormous gas station/convenience store/beer distributor/casino with a White Castle where we can get breakfast.
By the time we finish with breakfast and restock our cooler with ice, the saloon is open and we can go back. 6 miles down the road again, we reach The Pioneer Saloon and the kids finally get to see the bullet holes in the wall. We show the bartender the creepy video and she says there’s still lots of recorded paranormal activity in the saloon including the presence of miners. She tells us about how Goodsprings was Vegas before Las Vegas was Vegas. It was the “it” destination. Which we knew since a plane carrying Carole Lombard and some crew members crashed into the mountains and Clark Gable drank at that very bar, hoping to hear better news than that of her death. A recovered piece of the plane is mounted to the dining room wall, but the majority of it remains in the hills, unrecoverable due to the difficult terrain.
But wait, there’s so much more than bullet holes! We didn’t know The Pioneer Saloon was featured in Fallout, and that Easy Pete from the game was inspired by a real person. We get the chance to meet Pete and he tells us all about the saloon, showing us the cool features of the saloon we knew nothing about. The original bar from 1860 is still in use and if you run your hand along the underside of the bar, you’ll feel a large hole where one could stash a gun if one were so inclined.
The parking lot? Well, people find gold there. Easy Pete dumped a few tiny nuggets from a shot glass into Younger Child’s hand, and proclaimed, “A gift, from me to you!” The kids stood in disbelief and thanked him. So we snap a few pictures and thank Pete again for sharing his experiences and knowledge of the saloon with us.
By the way, the 3rd Annual Fallout fest is coming up in November. The first year brought about 3,000 people to the town of 176 people. The second year? 7,000. And the reason they moved it to November? People couldn’t take the heat and were passing out left and right. So anyway, it shouldn’t be 110 degrees if you want to visit in November and Easy Pete will be there to greet you.
We prepare for a long drive through the Mojave National Preserve and onward into California. Joshua trees stand out amongst the scrub and sand, like bizarre sentries from the pages of a Dr. Seuss book. And then we hit full-on “you will die if you try to cross me” desert. It’s 108 degrees and not even noon. The desolation here is intense, the mountainous terrain in the distance mean and angry-looking. The last time we drove through, these mirror solar farms didn’t exist. There’s something very creepy about glowing towers in the middle of the desert.
Most of our drive through California is much the same. But the mountains slowly change to golden hills that look like they’ve been covered in a velvet blanket. When we’re about an hour from Sequoia National Park, the family begins to wonder if I put the correct destination into the GPS. How can we be close to Sequoia when it’s still 104 degrees outside with citrus groves and vineyards on either side of us?
But the directions are correct. Our campground is at the base of the park, before the Giant Forest. After seeing our military park pass, the park ranger at the entrance salutes Husband and thanks him for his service, almost bringing Husband to tears. Once again, we arrive when the sun is directly on our campsite. So instead of setting up in 95 degrees (it’s dropped a little), we opt to take a drive to see General Sherman. It’s 13 miles up the General’s Highway, a windy road that’s almost as bad as Independence Pass in Colorado.
But when we finally start to see the Sequoias, the kids are astonished. They almost don’t believe us when we tell them the trees they’re looking at are small compared to some of the others. So when they finally see General Sherman, their mouths drop. A walk through the Giant Forest gives us all an appreciation for the massive towering trees and how many hundreds to thousands of years they took to reach that size.
Unfortunately, we’ve also finally hit the part of the trip where mosquitoes abound. Meh. Back to the campsite by 8, we set up our tent just in time for dusk to the sound of chirping crickets and distant fellow campers. Remember those cooler temps AccuWeather told me we’d have? Lies. These temps were for the Giant Forest about 4500 ft above where we are. Instead, it’s 88 degrees with zero wind. It’s going to be a long, hot night.
Day 10: 6/11/24 From: Grand Canyon National Park, AZ To: Las Vegas, NV Distance: 272 miles
It worked! Husband sleeping in car and rest of family sleeping in tent resulted in sleep for everyone. Husband has some DayQuil and has been feeling significantly better even before taking it, but now even more so.
We spend a lazy morning making eggs and pancakes and doing dishes before breaking down camp and heading out a little after 9 am. We reach Las Vegas around 2 p.m. and the heat and crowds are both insane. It’s 111 degrees when we pull in, but people are everywhere. Since we have an hour to kill before checking in, we hit up the one place we missed the last time we came to this city. Husband is a happy camper. We get to visit the shop from History Channel’s Pawn Stars. Husband buys a few “souvenirs,” and then we head to the Luxor to check in.
I booked this hotel because I thought the kids would get a kick out of staying in a pyramid. I’m not wrong. They love it. Of course, they love almost everything here. It’s insane. We get to the hotel at 3 and figure we’re perfectly on time, not realizing the check-in process would take almost an hour since the line is so long, it looks like an airport ticket counter. While waiting, we discuss plans for the evening. Since it’s so hot, we scrap the idea of walking the strip, and on a whim, we buy Blue Man tickets while standing in line for check-in.
The Luxor from outsideThe inside view from our floor looking down.The inside view from below, looking to our floor. That tiny light on the 27th floor is Husband waving his cell phone at us.
When we finally get to the rooms, we collapse into beds, nap, take showers, watch tv, and generally exist before heading to the food court for dinner, which is a $50 extra-large pizza that would be $18 at home. Ah, Vegas prices. Finished with dinner, it’s time for the show, which is conveniently in the same hotel. (Why do you think we really booked it? I don’t want to go anywhere today. We’ve done enough.) We get to our seats about 15 minutes early, and are asked almost immediately if we want an upgrade. Free? Yes! Of course, yes! We’re led to seats 4 rows from the front and we marvel at our good luck. What a treat! So glad for the folks who work this show. These seats are incredible.
The show? Even more incredible. The kids were smiling from ear to ear for the entire hour and a half. I swear I’ve never heard such laughter in my life. But Husband and I were doing the same. It’s impossible not to. We always knew the kids would love this show. They haven’t stopped talking about it since we left the theater. The Blue Man Group is the perfect mix of art, music, athleticism, and comedy. So much talent, it’s insane.
Afterwards, we figure we’ll walk the strip for a bit, but it’s still 99 degrees out. The breeze makes it bearable, but not by much. We get about a mile down the road when Younger Child and I call it quits and head back to the hotel so they can text with friends and I can catch up on the blog I haven’t been able to post because we’ve had no reception for days. Older Child and Husband decide they need to ride The Big Apple rollercoaster. That’s a hard pass from me, so an escape to the room is perfect. They come back proclaiming the ride more “intense” than they expected.
We each claim a bed of our own and for one night, everyone enjoys the comfort of a queen-sized bed.
Day 9: 6/10/24 From: Bryce Canyon, UT To: Grand Canyon National Park, AZ Distance: 158 miles
I wake at 5:30, very glad I took my sky photos last night because this morning is all cloud cover. The clouds that have rolled in end up preventing us from seeing sunrise over the hoodoos as we had hoped. We still take a 2 mile hike along the rim regardless, just taking in the scenery. On the way back to our campsite, we spot a raven who decides to have a conversation with us, clacking his beak, cawing, and cooing. Older child caws back. They go on like this for a few minutes in an unexpected interaction that put smiles on all of our faces.
Back to the tent for a nap before we leave Bryce. Later? A short trip to the Grand Canyon. (Short = 3 hours in the car) The naps only last about an hour before we get up and break down camp. And because the sun is now shining (where was it before?!) we take a walk to Sunrise Point again. But Husband wants to visit the lookout point we saw last time we were here, so we head to Sunset Point, where the kids enjoy the same view and become as entranced with the canyon as we are. It takes effort to pull them away and get on the road. How to leave behind those towering orange spires and the ravens that soar among them… it’s oh-so-difficult.
We stop to buy car stickers from a souvenir shop nearby and say hello to the saddled up horses waiting for riders to show up for their trail rides. It takes everything in me not to hop out of the car and pet them.
We make one more stop at a rock shop and an antique place in Orderville, UT before we get into the heavy driving for the day. And we still manage to reach the Grand Canyon by 1 pm because time change. Again. Arizona doesn’t do daylight savings time. Bison greet us shortly after we enter the park. And something we didn’t realize last time (because we’d never seen wild bison before) — these bison are MUCH smaller than the bison in Yellowstone.
We get to our campsite and set up, but since the tent is in direct sun and will be for hours, we head out to the closest lookout point to take in the view, and get a family photo taken by a French-Canadian from Montreal who just finished hiking 400 miles from Phoenix to the Grand Canyon. My aching joints can’t even comprehend that this is possible.
Kids marvel at how wonderful most fellow campers are/have been over the last few days. Everyone leaves their stuff their campsites and trusts that no one will “mess with it.” In fact, along one hike, we end up talking with other hikers at the lookout point and everyone chimes in on their favorite national parks. The kids agree that the kind of person who camps the National Parks is generally a kindred spirit and we relish that we’ve had pleasant conversations with so many people we’ll never meet again, but who kind-of-sort-of make us like humanity again.
After a stop by the local store to pick up lunch and taking much needed showers, we play a game of Oregon Trail, where 2/4 of us make it to the end this time. Then we head to the lookout points at the lodge. We opt to take the Angel Point trail, which is generally paved, but is also a very steep grade downward which is tough on my joints, so I bail about halfway to the end, sit on a rock, and take a selfie. Because why not?
The Grand Canyon is as it ever was — large and impressive, its distance almost incomprehensible. I’ve hiked 5 miles today on mostly dirt trails, something I haven’t done in several years, something I haven’t been *able* to do. I am elated. Exhausted, but elated. Having a dynamic disability makes it difficult to plan ahead. Sure, I planned to stop in all these different locations over the course of three weeks, but I had no idea whether or not I’d be able to full enjoy them the way I wanted to. Even now, I still have no idea what the next two weeks will bring. But I am grateful, so, so grateful right now that I have been able to get out and immerse myself in these oh-so-miraculous places that exist on this planet we call home. 5 miles may not be much for most people, but for me? It’s worth celebrating like it’s 500.
As it gets dark, our family heads back to camp. Sadly, Husband is coming down with a cold. At least I know it wasn’t the same one I had right before we left, so I can avoid feeling guilty. But I still feel bad. Maybe this is the real reason behind the terrible snoring?!? One can hope.
Even if it didn’t stop him from hiking Bryce Canyon this morning and the Grand Canyon this evening. Husband even ventures out with me before bed to take a few night sky photos (See? Even sick, he’s still my hero.) and then it’s time for bed.
Day 8: 6/9/24 From: Mesa Verde National Park, CO To: Bryce Canyon, UT by way of Four Corners National Monument and Antelope Canyon, AZ Distance: 382 miles
7 a.m. seems to be our regular wake up time. We break down camp and head to The Knife’s Edge Cafe down by the camp office to order breakfast we don’t have to prepare ourselves. Then we’re on the road by 9. Without any reception, we can’t map out our destination, so we head west and figure the phone’s GPS will eventually kick in.
It’s only an hour before we reach Four Corners to take cheesy family photos of the four of us standing in four different states at once. Then we do a little shopping from the Navajo sellers and as much as we’d like to buy lots from every vendor, we have to keep in mind the fact that we have no place to put it in the car.
Older Child wants to know what happens if you’re murdered in 4 states at once. Which authorities get called?
Back on the road to our second stop at Antelope Canyon. Arizona doesn’t do daylight savings time, but this time, I was prepared. We end up arriving two hours early for our tour of Upper Antelope Canyon, which gives us time to grab lunch, frozen yogurt for dessert, and gluten-free cereal for one kid for tomorrow morning.
Then, we’re off on bouncy vans through the desert to the mouth of the canyon with our tour guide Amar. Amar is a wealth of knowledge, funny, and personable, and the kids are as intrigued as the adults on this venture. I am surprised to see much has changed in the canyon since we were last here nine years ago. I shouldn’t be. The canyon floods 9-12 times a year on average from flash floods that occur after major storms. In fact, the entire canyon is about 3 ft deeper than it was a decade ago.
After the tour, we head back to Page, AZ to pick up a few Antelope Canyon stickers for the car and Older Child’s sketchbook. After 3,000+ miles, I *finally* get to take the wheel as Husband is still battling that same lingering headache. It’s 2 1/2 hours to Bryce Canyon and the driving isn’t complicated. The roads are wide open and by the time we’re an hour out from Bryce, there’s almost no one on the road. After all, who drives into a campground at 8 p.m.? Us. Apparently.
We’re set up by 8:30 and then take a quick walk to the rim of the canyon just in time to catch the sun on some of the desert features in the distance, though not on the hoodoos themselves. Dinner is mostly scavenged, but we do get to have a small fire while we eat, which is nice. The last time Husband and I went cross-country, we just didn’t have much time for fires.
We’re ready to collapse into sleeping bags by 10 p.m., but the stars are very tempting and I wonder if I can catch starlight or the Milky Way over the hoodoos. I’m not sure it’s possible, but it’s worth a try, so Husband and I trek to the rim to try. Kids opt to stay put, and I can’t really blame them. A week into our trip and everyone is a bit exhausted.
Husband and I don’t see the Milky Way (mostly obscured by cloud cover), but the view is spectacular nonetheless. Stars and clouds over the hoodoos make for some beautiful night sky photography.
I look forward to sharing the images when I get home and have time to process them! For now, settle for a few daytime shots from our day.
Day 5: 6/6/24 From: Aspen, Colorado (Difficult Campground) To: Santa Fe, NM Distance: 300 miles
I’m up at 4 am. Why am I up at 4 am? Because my body is not used to camping. I made the executive decision somewhere in the blackness of night that I would flip my sleeping position so I could try to escape Husband’s snores, my head now at everyone else’s feet. It worked for the most part, but I’m generally a light sleeper and so I still wake with every shift of sleeping bags. The cold forest air has my head stuffy this morning, so allergy meds were my first go-to. (I thought about taking a Sudafed, but as we’re camping at an elevation of 8,000 ft, I’d rather not make my heart explode. It’s already working double time to keep up as it is.)
Up and out of the campground by 8 am, but not before first admiring a mule deer at a camp site next to us. It turns out Independence Pass isn’t as bad when driving the other direction. Or maybe it’s that we’re fresh off a night of sleep and haven’t been driving for 6 hours before getting to it this time. Who can say?
We make a quick stop in the teeny “town” of Twin Peaks so Husband can grab a coffee from a van and get to see an awesome magpie who lives nearby. They are big, gorgeous, incredibly smart birds in the raven family and I’m so glad I had the chance to see one live!
Before we head to Santa Fe, we need to find a Cabela’s. Husband cannot sleep on this creaky air mat again. It kept everyone waking every time he moved last night. A quick trip to Albuquerque tomorrow on our way to Mesa Verde National Park only adds 20 minutes to our drive, and there, we’ll find an air mat like mine waiting at curbside pickup at Cabela’s because the internet is a wonderful thing and I ordered one as soon as I had reception again.
On the way to New Mexico, we encounter a dust devil in southern Colorado. Fun! (And much better than encountering a tornado.)
We arrive in Santa Fe at a lovely inn in the middle of town around 2:30 pm, but check in isn’t until 4, so we walk the street and peruse the shops until our room is ready. There are so many vendors both outdoors and in with an array of beautiful artwork, pottery, jewelry, clothing, and so much more. You could easily spend a week shopping and half a year’s salary here.
We stop by the Loretto Chapel, but don’t go in since we’ve already gotten a call that our room is ready. But locals tell us about the “miraculous staircase,” so I make a point to find out more online. Neat? Yes. But we’re not terribly sad we missed viewing the inside in person. It’s plenty gorgeous from the outside.
Our room at the inn is lovely and inviting with a fireplace we almost certainly won’t use, and a walled porch with a gate that leads to a courtyard garden that separates the guest rooms from each other.
After hot showers and a rest, Husband and Older Child go out for dinner with promises to bring back food for me and Younger Child, who are just too beat to keep going today. I update the blog with all of yesterday’s activity, since we had zero reception for much of our adventures in the Rocky Mountains.
Aaaaand, by 9 pm we realize our air conditioning is broken. I figured we’d be sweltering during this trip. I just didn’t figure it would be while in an adorable inn in the middle of Santa Fe. I kind of figured it would be later when we were camping and hiking in the desert. Maintenance leaves at 8, so a poor security guard who doesn’t know anything about A/C repair is sent to our room. He does his very best to make it manageable. (It was getting rough when outside seemed cool at 80 degrees…) A few minutes later, he returns with a standing fan to help move the air in the room. We are very grateful.
Within a half hour, the room is tolerable and we are finally ready to get to bed. It’s been a low key night watching television after so much activity over the last few days.
Tomorrow, we head *back* to Colorado. But nowhere near Aspen this time, so we will NOT be heading over Independence Pass. Whew!
The title of this post might be slightly misleading. The drive from Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness to Arches National Park was hardly the longest drive. Not even close, in fact, but there’s something about the Utah scenery (or lack thereof) that makes the drive exceptionally monotonous. The desert is initially amazing and we were instantly in love with the color and the scrub, but as hour upon hour passed, we were over it. It went something like this: mountain, rock, scrub brush, mountain, rock, scrub brush, rock, rock, scrub, scrub, rock, scrub, and so on and so forth…for four hours.
As a bonus, we reached Arches National Park about an hour earlier than expected. Suffice it to say that Arches is one park that I couldn’t possibly have realized the immensity of when I booked our stop. It was once again 100 degrees, though the sky was relatively overcast, which worked to our benefit in that we could walk without being in direct sun, but I was still disappointed that I wouldn’t get the chance to capture any amazing photos of arches with that incredible blue, blue Utah sky behind them.
If you ever have the urge to see Arches (and who doesn’t?), my recommendation is to take a few days to see the park. There are a ton of different arches to view and many of them can only be seen by hiking. That means lots of time, which we just didn’t have. The road through the park is well laid out and it’s a good substitute to actually hiking the park (especially in 100 degrees), but don’t expect to get close to some of the more well-known arches like Landscape Arch and Delicate Arch.
We were rewarded after a few hours with some bluer skies and we managed to get a few photos of brilliant orange-hued rocks against a more interesting background than cloud cover. If nothing else, it was nice to see the sun…especially since we were returning to our air-conditioned car after a short hike fighting through the crowded walkways filled with people of questionable intelligence. No, truly, we really encountered some true nuts. One such nut comes to mind instantly. We dubbed him goat-boy. (Though, believe me when I say that his act was not nearly as hilarious as that SNL skit years ago…) Crazy goat-boy jumped from rock to rock, running at full speed, and urged his parents to hurry because “this is the fastest way down.” (He was close to being correct. Had he stumbled, we would have seen him go down…really fast.) As it was, he ended his hike directly in front of us – by about two whole feet – on the walkway despite his ridiculous “Look at me!” antics. But we all know that teens are immortal, so I guess I should keep my stodgy old-lady opinions to myself.
Hooray, only a 5 hour drive from Arches to Bryce Canyon National Park. That’s nothing, right? Wrong.
Oh, so wrong.
Both Nate and I were convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that we were being featured in an episode of The Twilight Zone in which a warped time-space continuum meant that we were actually stuck in an endless loop, forced to live out our remaining days in the Utah desert, never actually reaching our destination. My proof:
How long until we ran out of water? Haven’t we seen this landscape before? I swear it was an hour ago when I looked at the clock, but it’s only registered that three minutes have passed. What is going on? We were nearly delirious by the time we reached Bryce Canyon. (And we DID finally reach Bryce Canyon.)
Real men wear coral. (I’m sorry…Cabela’s calls it ‘citrus.’)
About an hour from Bryce, we decided to stop for gas and to pick up a few grocery essentials, paper plates, bread, etc. It was a tiny town called Marysvale and it is exactly what you would expect to encounter when you believe you’re traveling in The Twilight Zone. The locals were sitting on the front porch of the convenience store and gave us the hairy eyeball as we walked inside. I guessed they didn’t see many outsiders on a regular basis. Or it could have been because they’ve never seen a man wear a shirt this color.
I suppose we could have purchased a Marysvale sweatshirt (yep, they really were for sale at the gas station/grocery store/ice cream shop/souvenir shop) so that he fit in a little better, but somehow I doubted that would have been adequate camouflage.
The entrance to Bryce Canyon National Park was impressive. Upon entering, the first thing we noticed was the drive through a squat tunnel carved out of the red Utah Rock. It was akin to driving through a wall (only without the resistance of a wall, naturally…). All in all, it was pretty spectacular. When we finally reached the campground, we set up camp and looked forward to doing nothing but sleeping. It was already early evening and I, for one, was tired of walking after having taken lots of short hikes in the heat around Arches earlier that day. Plus, I’m pretty sure my retinas were slightly burned out after staring at the desert for hours on end. I’m pretty certain that I’ll see scrub brush in my sleep for years to come. Perhaps I’ll see a doctor about that…
And yet, once again, temptation was too great. It was sunset. And going to the canyon rim at this time meant that I wouldn’t have to get up at sunrise the next morning as originally planned. This plan had some merit. So, off we went, and as it turned out, the rim of the canyon was only a half mile or so from the camp.
The view was instantly revitalizing. Breathtaking. Bryce Canyon was one of the destinations I had most looked forward to on this trip. I had always admired those incredible spires (which I learned were actually called hoodoos….yeah, you can say it. I know you’re thinking it. Hoodoo that voodoo?) and thought that Bryce just seemed to have this indisputable energy.
I was 100% correct. Instant awe.
Of all of the places we visited, Bryce has definitely landed itself in my top three short list. Once the sun finally set low enough that it no longer illuminated the hoodoos, we headed for the campground and for the blissful oblivion known as sleep.
Bryce Canyon at sunset.
But guess what? We’re at an altitude not much different from our campground in Maroon Bells. And we’re still up several times a night to visit the bathroom. No one tells you about this part of traveling high altitudes. Drink, yes. Stay hydrated, yes. Pee a lot, funny, I read not a word about it. I suppose it should go without saying that one thing leads to another, but really…perhaps I just thought I’d sweat it off. I digress.
Despite the fact that we’d visited the canyon the night before, we greeted Day 6 at 5:30 and were at the rim of Bryce Canyon by 6 am for a stunning sunrise. Far more photographic than sunset the night before and I was grateful that sleeping in a tent was so revitalizing despite our wacky schedule.
After the sunrise, Nate turned to me with a question. “Hike?”
Well, heck, yeah! He didn’t have to ask me twice!
Off we went, into the canyon, amongst the hoodoos. We hiked for two hours, beating the heat of the day with the timing and enjoying some of the most indescribable scenery. Amazing in every way.
It should be illegal for someplace so striking to be located somewhere so desolate. Utah, of all places. But, I suppose that’s the biggest part of what makes it so amazing. If it were in Phillipsburg, NJ, I’m willing to bet the charm somehow just wouldn’t be there.
Just as the temps neared the 90s, we reached the top of the rim, took one last glance behind, and returned to camp to embark on the rest of Day 6, blissfully unaware that we were about to discover the true Utah desert in a way we hadn’t anticipated and couldn’t have imagined. Soon enough.
Artistic Earth Photography 