Utah Day 5 - Bryce Canyon

This entry is a day late in coming, but yesterday was really busy. There was a bit of a snafu with my training grant funding, so I spent much of yesterday putting together data to discuss with she-who-is-powerful-and-in-charge-of-doling-out-the-grant-money. We met this morning and it went well, my funding was renewed and all is right with the world. Plus Dave was out of town and he came back yesterday, so we went out for Indian (and he came to three yarn shops - the boy is a trooper!). He took the camera away with him, but now that he's back I can take photos of what I've been knitting as well as the yarn that was acquired yesterday. Some of it is for a secret project, but I'll post it in my Ravelry stash page because it's pretty. Might I say, before I get to talking about Bryce Canyon, that Ravelry is a plague upon my life. And I mean that in the best possible way. I love it. But, it's a curse for me, because I keep seeing more and more things I want to knit! And more and more yarns I want to try! And that was enough, really, but then I discovered the forums, and now I'm spending loads of time reading those! It's tragic really. And perfect, all at the same time!

Thursday found us at Bryce Canyon National Park, which is truly spectacular. Of all the parks we visited I think it is the most awe-inspiring, which is really saying something. I have so many nice Bryce photos, but I'll try to pick the best few to post so this doesn't get overly long. The rim of Bryce Canyon is at a relatively high elevation (8000-9100 ft), so it was a bit cooler there, which was such a relief after the constant heat we had been dealing with the previous few days. We only did one real hike, and it was the Queen's Garden/Navajo Loop. The Queen's Garden Trail leads to a hoodoo with a likeness to Queen Victoria: Do you see her there, standing up and facing to the left? It's clear in the photo, but there are a lot of other rock formations around so when you're there it's difficult to tell what you're supposed to be looking for.

I discovered that if you pose with orange rocks you turn orange yourself:

We had lunch at Rainbow Point, which is the end of the road, and then stopped at all the overlooks on the way back. Most of them were quite lovely. The thing about Bryce is that the canyon itself, and all the hoodoos, is really overwhelming, so it's difficult to get photos that really represent how pretty it is. And it was cloudy, which didn't help from a photography perspective (but was nice for us!). One of the nicest viewpoints is Bryce Point, where you can get a lovely canyon view (long-sleeve shirt!!!), complete with more hoodoos than you would ever want to count:And you can also see the grottos:Inspiration Point is also lovely, and where you get the best views of Bryce Amphitheatre: My parents were inspired to have a bit of a rest:

We left Bryce relatively early for our drive to Zion. Zion is completely different from anwhere else we had been, and not just because they have trees there (there are also trees at Bryce, but they have more sizable trees at Zion). The geology is different and there is no more red rock. Which was a relief really, since I think I had seen enough red rock for quite some time. Plus, at Zion you're in the bottom of the canyon, instead of being on top, as we had been at all the other parks. This was the view from our campsite: Lovely, eh?