Day 8 ... Bryce Canyon National Park

Today was spent at Bryce Canyon National Park. As has become our standard operating procedure, we were up at 6:00 to eat breakfast and break down our camp. We've gotten to the point where the entire process, from waking up, eating breakfast, making lunch, packing all our gear and getting into the car takes about 90 minutes! I can't seem to figure out any way to get through it any faster, no matter what I try!

In any event, we headed out to the first view points at around 7:30. If you've never seen Bryce Canyon in person, or pictures of it, the only word(s) I can think of to describe it are "other worldly". The landscape is truly amazing. The term that has been given to these bizarre rock structures is "hoodoo"

At 8:30, we met up with one of the park rangers who was going to lead a morning hike along the rim of the canyon. Josh has been "earning" Junior Park Ranger badges at all of the parks we've gone to, and he needed to attend a ranger led program as one of the requirements. As luck would have it, we were the only ones to show up, so we had a personal tour of the canyon. I was really glad we did it. The ranger was originally from the Rochester, NY area and attended Paul Smiths College near Lake Placid, so we ended up having a lot to talk about on our hike!

After the hike with the ranger, we went off on our own to see some other parts of the canyon, and then ultimately took a hike down into the canyon to walk amongst the hoodoos! It was really cool being down on the canyon floor, walking through these rock formations.

The only problem with going down to the canyon floor can be summed up by saying ... "what goes down, must come up!" Believe me ... the picture doesn't begin to tell the story!!!

We finished up in the park at around 3:00 and headed to Zion Canyon National Park, where we'll be spending the next two nights. One of the biggest differences between Bryce and Zion is ... temperature!!! The weather was quite pleasant in Bryce, the same cannot be said of Zion ... it's HOT!!!

Tomorrow we'll be seeing the park and doing some hikes. The really good news is that we don't have to pack up our camp in the morning, and we'll be able to sleep a little later and make a "real" camping breakfast of pancakes or waffles ... Josh is really looking forward to that!

We're now a week plus one day into our trip with two weeks to go. With the exception of a few minor bumps in the road, things have gone really well, and we're still having a really good time. Josh is really enjoying pursuing the Junior Ranger badges at each park. The next six days should probably go by fairly fast, as we will be staying in only two places for these days, eliminating the daily pack up and set up routine. That part is definitely getting a bit tedious, but we're getting through it.

Lastly, if you're reading this, thanks to Steve Octaviano for loaning us and convincing me to take his rooftop carrier ... we'd be in big trouble without it!!!

That's it for tonight ... tomorrow tonight, a report on Zion National Park.

Good night all!