Bryce Canyon National Park and Zion National Park

We started off our day in the tiny house with pancakes for breakfast.  Yum!

First on the agenda was visiting Bryce Canyon National Park.  We continued down Scenic Byway SR-12 and soon arrived at a very busy national park.  No camera post here either, but I managed to prop it on the hood of the car.

We stopped at the visitor center to get info and a junior ranger book for Morgan.  Caleb did not want to participate this time.  We watched the park movie and planned out what we wanted to do.  We decided not to ride the park shuttle so we hopped in the car and drove all the way to the end of the scenic drive.  All the viewpoints are on the same side of the road so it is best to drive to the end and then all the viewpoints are on the right hand side coming back.  The first spot was Rainbow Point.  This is also the highest point in the park.

Bryce Canyon National Park's claim to fame is the hoodoos.  A hoodoo is a column of rock and there are tons of them here.  It takes just the right conditions to create hoodoos and this area has just what it takes.

Many bristlecone pine trees live here among the hoodoos.

We made our way back toward the visitor center, stopping at several more viewpoints.

We met a very large, friendly raven at one of the viewpoints.

This is called Natural Bridge, but its name is a misnomer because it is actually an arch.  It was once solid rock and will eventually become two hoodoos.

On our way back to the Bryce Amphitheater (they call the areas of hoodoos amphitheaters), we stopped for a picnic lunch.  The shaded tables were all taken and we were being attacked by large black flying bugs so we ate quick and got out of there.

We wanted to get down with the hoodoos so we picked the Navajo Loop trail for a short hike.  This hike is a small section of the most popular trail in the park - the Queens/Navajo Loop.  We thought it would be just enough to give us a taste of the hoodoos from a new perspective.  This hike was advertised as a "short, but steep" hike.  After taking a few hikes on this trip with similar descriptions, we now know that this means "Don't let the actual distance fool you.  This hike will feel twice as long and take forever because you are climbing straight up."

The main attraction of this hike is seeing the hoodoo known as Thor's Hammer (seen in the center of the photo below).

After hiking a short distance below the rim of the Grand Canyon 2 years ago, we are strong believers in going below the rim.  It is an entirely different experience to be down in the canyon than it is to look down from the top.  Both are amazing in their own way and if you never take the hike, you are missing half the fun.

Thor's Hammer

Caleb holding Thor's Hammer!

These hoodoos are huge!!

It's difficult to see, but this is our trail zig zagging down through the hoodoos.  Little did we know that we would soon be repeating a similar (but longer) version of this in reverse.

As I researched Bryce Canyon before this trip, I was surprised to read that the average high temp in June is only 76.  I actually thought we might even need jackets if we were out early in the day.  Um, no.  Our car thermostat was already reading 79 and it felt much hotter than that.  Once we began our ascent, Caleb started saying that he could not go on.

We managed to drag him along and soon we passed a small slot canyon.  Suddenly, he had plenty of energy to climb up into the steep canyon.  Funny how that works.

One section of the hike had this warning sign to watch for falling rock.  We hurried through this section.

The hike ended with the long zig zag back up to the rim.  This picture doesn't even show the whole thing.  We were happy to finally finish this long, hot, steep hike.  I'm glad we didn't attempt the entire Queens/Navajo loop!

We stopped back at the visitor center to see if they were having a ranger program because it was required for Morgan's junior ranger badge.  Unfortunately, there was not one happening and we needed to move on so she had to forgo the badge this time.  Some parks really ask a lot of these kids and Bryce Canyon is one of them.  It just wasn't possible to finish in one morning.

The reason we were in a hurry to leave was because our next stop was Zion National Park!!  We drove through a portion of this park on our vacation 2 years ago and vowed we must return.  Today we will be driving back through that same portion of the park on the Zion-Mt. Carmel Highway and staying the night in Springdale, Utah.

This road takes you through the east side of the park that is only accessible by private car.  The park shuttle does not go this way.  Part of the drive involves a tunnel that is over one mile long.  This tunnel may be long, but it is not tall so vehicles over a certain height must drive down the center of the 2 way tunnel.  When this happens, they turn the tunnel into a one-way road by closing it to traffic on the opposite end.  We happened to be following one of these oversized vehicles today so we got to drive down the middle of the tunnel.

I had planned that we might take a short hike to a scenic view on our way through the park today, but we were all tired and hot and the kids voted for hotel swimming instead.  We did enjoy the scenic drive, though.

Our room had a view of the pool and the mountains.  The town of Springdale is basically one adorable street surrounded by Zion National Park on 3 sides.  There is a great view everywhere.

We chose to go to the Zion Canyon Brew Pub for dinner.  It is located right next to the footbridge entrance to Zion.  Rodney and I shared the Buffalo Meatloaf Burger and it was amazing!

Next it was off to bed because we have a full day of enjoying Zion planned for tomorrow!