Spent 4-5 hours this morning heading to Bryce Canyon from Provo. Just before Bryce, however, we came across Red Canyon – amazing to see as well, more to follow on that.

In order to check into our room for the night, we had to drive past the exit to Bryce Canyon and head into a town called Tropic. This turned out to be about 30 minutes outside the park, which wasn’t too bad all things considered. So we checked into our room at “Bryce Canyon Country Cabins”, but our room wasn’t a cabin. It was in the “Nostalgic Building” i.e. old house on the property that was split up into 3 suites. Still, clean and cozy, and we didn’t have to share a bathroom – it was all good.

Went across the street for some food (the local and from what it looks like the only restaurant in Tropic) and then drove to Bryce Canyon. The park is about 18 miles top to bottom, so nowhere near Yellowstone sized. This was good, since we really only had about 3/4 of a day to see it (plus maybe something at sunrise tomorrow). We followed the brochure’s suggestion of starting at the bottom of the park (southernmost point) and then heading back. We took in every major point along the way with the exception of Bryce Point, Sunset Point and Sunrise Point which we decided to hit at sunrise tomorrow – that’ll be interesting.

The park/canyon is, in a word, spectacular. It’s everything we hoped it would be sights-wise, and more. For example, here is a shot from Inspiration Point:

And here’s another showing the Natural Bridge:

Many pictures taken, hopefully a lot of them will end up on Flickr.

After stopping at all the points we had planned to, we drove back to Red Canyon (remember above?) and had a small picnic at the Visitor Centre (peanut butter sandwiches, we spared no expense). We had heard that Red Canyon was great at sunset, so we hung out and waited for the magic light:

All in all an amazing experience for the day. Next we get up at 5:30am to be at Bryce Point for sunrise – hope that goes well. Afterwards, we drive to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon and check in sometime in the afternoon to head to the Canyon for some pics.

Greetings from the Beehive State (I kid you not). Mare and I saw the symbols on the highway signs and thought to ourselves “that can’t be a beehive, can it?”. Um, yup, it can be and it is. Learn something new every day.

Day was all about driving, about 450 miles (OK fine 725km). Went well, other than a small chip in the windshield (traumatic for someone in particular, but we got it mended so we’re all good). I will say this, Utah folks drive FAST. I mean we were on the highway doing 65-70mph, limit was 65mph and getting passed like I was the old guy from Alberta with his turn signal on. But on the bright side we got to Provo quicker ;).

Not a lot of picture taking in an all-driving day, other than a few “welcome to Utah”s and the like (will post when we return). But for those that expect a picture, here’s a mountain in Provo:

And here’s what is right across the street from where we are staying:

… can you feel the love?

I do know they were having some kind of rally and I took a pic just to test the camera and before you could say Brigham Young a way-too-energetic teenager ran over and asked me not to take pictures. I don’t even think the pic had written to the card yet ;). No worries, hadn’t planned on keeping it anyway…

Anyhow, off to Bryce Canyon in the a.m., we’re really looking forward to seeing that.

A full day at the park today, with lots to see. We tried to hit all of the major attractions, but the park is 2,219,789 acres in size, so let’s just say we maybe saw less than half of the park, and only the really important parts.

Started the day at Mammoth Hot Springs, which included a number of pools and springs throughout the area. Once of the more colourful was Minerva Terrace:

Water does actually flow over the terrace, but at a different time of year. Guess that gives us a reason to come back, huh.

Saw a lot of other areas as well, including Norris Springs (a large walkabout area with many small pools and springs throughout), Porcelain and Black Sand. Later in the day, however, we made it to Midway which was highly recommended and we saw why:

The next place to go was (of course) Old Faithful. Talk about a park built around a geyser. This area was definitely the most commercialized as well as the most crowded. Old Faithful erupts an average of every 97 minutes these days, but it varies between 30 and 120 minutes so it was anyone’s guess as to when it was going to go. We sat down and set up to watch and then proceeded to wait just over an hour until we saw some action. By that time there were hundreds of people sitting on the benches that circled Old Faithful. Away she went:

Now we can say we’ve done it…

On the way back through the park to our motel, however, was when we had some real fun. It was later in the day, so there were many more animals that decided to appear. We saw a Buffalo on the side of the road (complete with suicidal tourists stepping right up to it), along with about 50 deer that decided to cross the road as a group – safety in numbers. We were 3 cars back from the front of a line that had to wait at least 5 minutes for all of the deer to cross. Very cool, got a few shots of them too – but they were pretty fast.

Further along, I stopped on the side of the road to get some pictures of 8 deer that were grazing down at the bottom of a hill and was all proud of myself for catching some “in the wild”. Then we got back to Roosevelt Village and there were over 50 of them just hanging around town, pretty much running the show. Talk about taking the wind out of my sails ;). We even had a family of 3 deer try to use the crosswalk and get lost on the whole “get all the way across the street” concept. And then get testy with us, all of 6 feet away as we were the front car, waiting for them to move:

Pretty eventful, lots of miles on our feet so it’s going to be good to have a day “at sea” resting in Provo, UT on the way to Bryce Canyon on Thursday.