Day 9: Monday May 11 Bryce Canyon National Park

The drive from Grand Canyon to Bryce was scenic.

The terrain changed from whitish rocks and mountains, to reddish mesas.

We saw another r-Pod on the rod and they pulled off for gas at the same stop we did. Snapped this photo and found out they have had their r-Pod for two years and they love it, and they made this spiffy trailer addition to hold their generators and gas because they do a lot of dry camping.





We stopped to get our "Welcome to the state sign" and used the self timer and our tripod (Thanks Elena!) As you can see, we had to take it twice to get us both in the picture.

We stayed at the Cannonville KOA Just outside Bryce National Park. Maybe 20 minutes. THIS was the best place ever. So so Clean, with beautiful showers and laundry facilities as well as very clean bathrooms. We had a spot backed up onto a hill so we looked at nature and the stars at night, and this was our view from our campsite!

We Planned our day to go out and hike everywhere we could, made sandwiches, mine was a peanut butter, banana and honey sandwich. Check out our toaster!




 When we went to clean up, we realized we had a slight mishap the night before. The Dishwashing soap had tipped upside down. The mishap was that not only was the bottle not closed all the way, the ziplock bag that it is stored in was not closed all the way. So overnight it had slowly leaked out of the bottle and out of the bag. Fortunately our neighbor  back home, Carm, had warned us about things and said to make sure everything is in bins, it will save time and effort down the road. She was right. We pulled the bin out and the spill was contained to just that bin. Here is a picture of cleaning the soap off of all the items in the bin. Note the green dishwashing soap; that used to be 3/4 full! haha.

On our way into Bryce National Park we saw a sign that said parking was limited, use the free shuttle here (at Ruby's). So we did. The shuttles run every 10 minutes and turns out is a way to get into the park for free. We had our Natural Parks Pass but no one needed to show anything to go through the park entrance, the shuttle just gets waived through. So there you go, a free tip for you if you are planning on going to Bryce. No hassles at all. It takes you right to the visitor center and/or you can stay on the bus and it takes you in a small loop around the lower Bryce Canyon.

We happened to strike up a conversation with a couple on the bus who had just come back from that mornings Rainbow Tour which takes people out to the farthest point in the park and stops at several overlooks on the way back down. We had been debating the night before wether to take this tour, or to just head out on our own and start hiking somewhere. But this couple really sold us on the trip. They had been here for a few days and they ended with this tour and they said it was the best of their whole stay. So we opted to go on the tour. It's free but you have to reserve a spot. Really glad we listened to them. We got to see the best of the hoodoos and several sites as apposed to just one section that we were going to hike. So although we only hiked around a little bit at each stop, we got to see such amazing sights! And our bus driver was so full of information and funny.

Here is a sample of Byrce Canyon. We took so many more pictures. It would be easy to stay several days here. My recommendation is to allow two full days.

Daryl smelling sap

Turns out our bus driver, Jay, just happens to also be a guitar player and singer in a band called Bar G, down at Ruby's.  Every night there is a dinner/show at 7:30. How could we pass that up? That's Jay second from the right

Next up, Colorado!