Day 13 - Escalante/Grand Staircase National Monument, Bryce Canyon, Zion National Park

Capitol Reef in the daytime

Day 13 (June 7) -- Today we ran back to the Capitol Reef Visitor Center to get our passports stamped and take a few pictures in the daytime.  But, we didn't have enough time to actually drive up the scenic drive where the "best" parts of the park are (partly because we had a "quick lunch" at a restaurant that took forever because we arrived not long after a Korean tour bus.  We were already behind because we had driven 2 hours less the day before, so we had to make up time and get through Bryce Canyon much faster than we anticipated.

Picture of the "Dirt Clods" from the day before

So, we continued to drive along the "Dirt Clod State Park" road toward Bryce.  I must say that I'm happy to report that the road did get much more scenic.  First we went over a mountain range that had a forest growing out of very rocky soil.  Then we went through the Escalante/Grand Staircase National Monument which was incredibly scenic.  They had steep canyons and rock mountains.  We really liked driving through it (David had more "road thrills" driving on the edge of steep cliffs again).

Bow needed to stand on a rock!

View from the summit of the scenic road to Bryce

Interesting rock formations

Escalante/Grand Staircase Canyon

Escalante

Escalante

Escalante (driving right against the canyon)

Hoodoos in Bryce

Hoodoos in Bryce

After that we arrived in Bryce Canyon.  We didn't have time to explore the full park -- only to go to the main amphitheater of hoodoos (the name of the tall spires of rock).  Then we had to drive on to Zion National Park to try to set up our tent before dark.

Red Rocks (another park-like area between Bryce and Zion)

Arriving at Zion we came in the east entrance, rather than the main entrance (based on our route), so we had to drive through the whole park in order to get to the camp site (which was right next to the main entrance).  We arrived with about 20 minutes of daylight left and managed to get our tent set up.  The campsite was a bit odd because the tents were supposed to be staked into a bed of rocks (round pebbles, but still rock).  I'm glad that we had air mattresses to sleep on!

We went out for a late dinner at a restaurant in Springdale (the town right next to the park) called Pizza and Noodles.  The boys had pizza (David had calzone, but it's basically the same thing) and the girls had Italian noodles.

We were tired and ready to sleep, but there were some guys in the campsite across from us who talked loud and fast and used the f-word a lot.  They talked until midnight.  I finally fell asleep using a combination of earplugs and imaging that I was listening to the Spanish channel on TV (they mixed English and Spanish a lot).

At Bryce

At least we were staying in the same camp for two days so we'd have a chance to catch our breath!  But, the bad side of this was that (1) they didn't have showers at this campsite, so we'd have to skip bathing for two days, and (2) we had to change campsites to the one right next to the loud guys for the second night (I couldn't get the same campsite two days in a row).