Good bye, Arizona, and hello, Utah! On our way to Bryce Canyon, we stopped at The Belly of the Dragon outside Kanab, Utah. It had been recommended to us by our hotel clerk in Page, who'd shown us some neat pictures. I thought it would be a hike to a cool tunnel in the mountains. But it turns out it was just the drainage culvert that runs underneath the highway!
It's all right, it was still a fun detour. We could have used a few flashlights, though, because the light on my phone was definitely not enough for us in the middle of it.
Then we continued to Bryce Canyon. The route between Page and Bryce Canyon National Park is probably the most gorgeous drive I've ever taken. Around every turn were cliffs from the Grand Staircase, incredible rock formations, beautiful patterns of sunlight on the mountains. I kept exclaiming about all the amazing things we could see, and finally Sweet Pea said, "To be fair, Mom, everything is beautiful here." She's right!
We arrived at Bryce and went straight to the Amphitheater, the main basin of the park. It's full of the world's largest concentration of hoodoos, which are naturally formed rock spires. The word comes from a Paiute word for "scary," because the tribe believed that the spires were Legend People who had been turned into stone for bad deeds.
At first, the kids were excited that there was several feet of hard-packed snow on the ground. But a freezing wind was whipping around, which zapped their enthusiasm pretty quickly. Shortly after we got out of the car it started hailing on us, so we threw in the towel and headed to our hotel. We went to dinner at an all-you-can-eat buffet, which the kids thought was the greatest thing in the world. I think they ate their body weight in soft-serve ice cream! Back in the room, I taught them High Low Jack, which was one of my favorite card games when I was a kid. They caught on to it pretty quickly, and we played it almost every night for the rest of the trip.
That night, Sweet Pea took a turn for the worse. She had a fever, and was shaking and crying all night. No one slept well, and she was pretty miserable, poor thing.
The next morning dawned much more clear, and the forecast looked good. We kicked off the day with a 2-hour "Queens Garden Loop" that brought us down into the Amphitheater and gave us up close and personal views of the hoodoos. It was much warmer once we got down into the Amphitheater, but that meant there was a ton of mud from the melted snow. But we hopped and skipped our way around it, trying not to let it suck the shoes right off our feet.
It was really fascinating. The hoodoos are in all kinds of shapes, and we especially liked Thor's Hammer and Little Man was especially excited: "This place has everything Grand Canyon does, and then some!" He carried my big camera most of the time, and took quite a few good pictures of the scenery.
After the hike, we ate a picnic lunch and reconsidered our afternoon. We decided that instead of any more long hikes, we would drive to all the scenic overlooks in the park. That way, Sweet Pea could stay in the car, and the rest of us could still see the park.
Our favorite overlooks were Bryce Point and Natural Bridge. Bryce Point was particularly amazing, with views of the tall arches that had formed in the cliffs on one side, and hoodoos as far as you could see.
I gave the kids the choice of either watching the sun set that evening, or coming back after dark to stargaze. They chose stargazing, so around 8 pm we drove back to Bryce Point. It was phenomenally clear, and once our eyes adjusted, we could see thousands of stars. It's a certified International Dark Sky Park, so I'm sure it's the darkest, clearest night I've ever seen. I pointed out a few constallations I recognized, but I really wish there'd been someone there to explain things and point out a few more. After we were chilled all the way through, we headed back to our warm beds.
Next stop: Zion National Park!
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