DOWN HILL FROM HERE

Today we drove from Cedar City to Las Vegas.  I guess we really are on the way home now.  As we drove downhill through the Paiute Wilderness Pass in Arizona.  I tried to take a couple of pictures to show you how steep the walls of the canyon were, but it's so hard to take a picture of these massive rocks with a cell phone while leaning on the dashboard.

We are staying tonight at the Las Vegas Motorcoach Resort, it's a beautiful resort with palm trees and three pools.  A far cry from the place we stayed last night.  There is just one little problem.  It's 112 degrees outside.  Too hot for my little paws. Kathe had to carry me to the grass and carry me home this afternoon.  I''d really like to stay here again when it's not so hot.

All three of us are a little sad to be going home.  I know it won't be long before we set out on another adventure, Kathe and Jim are always going somewhere.  I'm just happy that I get to come along and share the fun.

I know I shouldn't be sad.  It's been a great trip. We've been gone over 50 days and traveled almost 3000 miles. We've been in Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah. We've stayed overnight in 25 different campsites. In our travels, we've visited six National Parks, six National Monuments, five State Parks, and one State Landmark, it's been a great ride.

Thanks for coming along!

A BREAK IN CEDAR CITY

It's official.  We really are on the way home. Tonight we are staying in Cedar City and tomorrow we will head for Nevada and then back into California. I'm sad to be leaving the cooler temperatures we had in Bryce. It's over ninety here tonight and it's 109 in Las Vegas.

We had an easy drive from Bryce to Cedar City because we took the Interstate most of the way. Jim could have driven the scenic way, but that would have meant driving up and down two mountain passes.  We only had one pass on the un-scenic way and even it was almost 8000 feet high.

Our RV Park here might be the worst one of the whole trip.  I'm glad we will only be here over night. Someone at Trip-Adviser is on the take.  The dog park has a hole in the fence big enough to drive a truck through and there are a dozen chickens running around loose making it very hard for me to concentrate on the business at hand.  I wish Kathe would let me catch one, I 'm very fond of chicken tenders.

Kathe and Jim took a drive this afternoon to Cedar Breaks National Monument. The rocks there are shaped like a huge coliseum which is over 2000 feet deep and over three miles in diameter.  This picture doesn't begin to show the size and the beautiful colors and rock formations.

An interesting fact: Cedar Breaks got it's name from the settlers who misidentified the trees. What they thought were cedars were actually junipers.  So we are really staying in Juniper City tonight!

I'M SO COOL

Jim went for a nice bike ride this morning from the campground all the way to Inspiration Point. They just finished a paved bike trail in Bryce that runs all through the park and connects to the Dixie National Forrest bike trail to Red Canyon. He could ride for miles and miles, but he only rode for about 12 miles because of the altitude and the heat.  He still had a lot of fun.

I took a little field trip this afternoon.  Jim and Kathe sneaked me into the park and I went for a little hike into the National Park Entrance to snap this picture. I'm so cool!

Kathe and Jim decided to take a drive out highway 12 into Red Canyon and then on to Panguitch Lake this afternoon.   We were supposed to stay in Panguitch tomorrow night but we have been thinking about changing our plans and driving straight to Cedar City instead. The drive today was really fun through the Dixie National Forest.  There were lots of pine and cedar trees along the road, but Panguitch wasn't as we remembered.  After cruising through the campgrounds at the Lake we headed back to Bryce. The drive through Red Canyon was a bonus,.  We saw some really cool formations that looked like they were about to collapse onto the road.


Tomorrow we turn the coach west and then south to start back home where all the rocks are brown.

HOODOO WE DO

Kathe woke me up this morning.  Now that's a change.  I'm the one that's supposed to get everyone up at dawn. Well, not so this morning.  They were booked on a Park tour and had to be up and out waiting for the bus at 9 AM.

Ruby's Campground offers a free 3 1/2 hour bus tour to all of the campers and hotel guests.  Not very many people take advantage of it but it was great. They went all the way up to Rainbow Point and then after a short nature hike stopped at Yovimpa Point, Agua Canyon, Natural Bridge, and Farview Point.  All of these stops and vistas are at the southern end of the canyon and are less popular with tourists. They had a great guide who talked about how the spires and hoodoos are formed. He also pointed out a lot of native trees and plants along the hike making it very interesting and informative. He knew the names of some of the more popular hoodoo formations and had the group guess that they were which was really fun.

The distant views of the canyon were not very clear today.  The smoke from the large fire in California has effected visibility. Normally you would be able to see mountains as far away as Colorado, but not this morning.

After the tour was over Jim and Kathe took a hike along the rim of the canyon from Sunset Point to Inspiration Point.  No guard rails, and right along the edge of the canyon for about about a mile. Glad I couldn't make it!

BRYCE IS NICE

I know Kathe and Jim think that the spires and sandstone formations are beautiful, but I want you to know that this place is crawling with chipmunks.  I've never seen so many in my whole life.  This place is the best ever! Chipmunks are running all over the campground, back and forth and up and down the street, it's hard for me to concentrate on anything else. I made Kathe take me out 4 times and all I could do was chase little furry rodents.  She wasn't too happy about that!

But I digress, we arrived here at Ruby's Campground at exactly noon.  We have a great site with lots of room to roam as the sites are spaced about 25 feet apart. The campground is a small city with a hotel, grocery store, and several restaurants.  And the best part it's just outside the entrance to Bryce National Park.

After lunch Jim and Kathe went to the Visitors Center to see the film and learn about the formation of the Park.  They spent some time with the Ranger trying to find a hike that isn't too strenuous.  I'm not sure there was one. The entrance fee to the Park was $30.00 per car!  My humans have the "geezer pass" so they didn't have to pay anything.  They've  been able to get into every National Park on this trip for free, just because they are old, that's pretty cool.

They took the car and went up to Sunset Point and Sunrise Point to take these pictures.

Tomorrow they are going on a guided tour of the park.  The tour starts at 9 AM so we are all going to bed early tonight.  We will spend three days here.
Plenty of time to chase chipmunks.

SAGEBRUSH AND LIZARDS

Another hot day in Utah.  On my walks around the park there is an occasional robin, but the best thing to chase here are the lizards.  They move kinda fast so I actually haven't caught one yet, but one can always hope.  They look sort of ugly and dry, so they blend into the scenery here.

Kathe and I spent most of our day indoors. Jim wasn't satisfied without some sort of activity so he decided to take a hike all by himself.  The Petrified Forest Trail takes off from the visitors center and climbs above the park about 200 feet straight up.  Once at the top, Jim could see lots of petrified logs and had a good view of the Lake below.  By the time he returned to the motor home it was over 100 degrees outside. Kathe and I were still very comfy inside!

The Internet has been on and off both days we have been here.  Some of our pictures never arrived to our email address and Verizon only works part of the time here. The park's hot spot only works if you sit on the ground in front of the restroom.  All the kids are there using their tablets and phones. It's been difficult to keep up the blog, but I'm using my cell phone's hot spot to get this out tonight.


After lunch today Kathe and Jim went down the highway to the Grand Staircase-Escalante Visitors Center. Grand Staircase is the only National Monument that is maintained by the Bureau of Land Management instead of the Park Service.  Jim and Kathe watched a film about all of the research that is being done in this vast 1,880,461 acres of wilderness.
While watching the film, the power went out in the entire town. They rushed home to make sure that I was okay without the air conditioning.  I was just fine!  It took about two hours before the power was restored. Ah, wilderness!

PETRIFIED

The road between Capitol Reef and Bryce Canyon is the scenic byway #12 which goes right through the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. The Escalante and the Paria rivers run through this area creating two canyons.  We drove this narrow highway between these two massive canyons with no guardrails up to an altitude 9000 feet and then back down a 14% grade.  A very nerve racking but beautiful drive.  I tried to take a picture looking down into the canyon to show how rugged and remote the area is.  One wrong turn and we would be over the edge.  And it was a really long way down!

If that wasn't enough of a challenge for Jim, the GPS took us off the highway and onto a dead end dirt road.  We stopped in the middle of a horse farm. The residents came out and told us how to get back on the correct road to our destination. We had to un-hook the car and make a u-turn but eventually found the Escalante-Petrified Wood State Park. Another adventure!

Once we found the State Park and got into our site along the Wide Hollow Reservoir we could finally breathe a sigh of relief. We have a great view of the water from our living room window.
This park is known for the many examples of petrified wood that can be found here.

Jim was ready to hike up the mountain and start exploring as soon as we arrived.  Kathe and I are still recovering from the drive so, after a short walk around the park we are content to sit inside and watch the sunset.