Bryce Canyon

July 11, 2008

“The air is precious to the red man, for all things share the same breath- the beast, the tree, the man. The white man does not seem to notice the air he breathes. If we sell you our land, you must keep it apart, and sacred, where even the white man can go to taste the wind that is sweetened by the meadow’s flowers.” Chief Seattle, 1854

Today we headed out for Bryce Canyon. It was about an hour's trip to the Visitor's Center where we stopped to see the introductory movie and visit the gift shop. We have had no Verizon service for several days and I took this opportunity to call the office and to try to help with issues that had arisen. Afterward we headed out to see the Canyon.

Bryce is very different from Zion. At Zion you are on he bottom of the Canyon looking up. At Bryce, you are on the top looking down. We drove all the way to the top at Rainbow Point. It was 9,115 feet high. We hiked around here and took a goodly number of pictures. The rock formations were unique in many ways. There were peaks and hoodoos and lava structures that resembled little castles. There was one peak that was named Molly's nipple. You can infer what that shape was, I'm sure :) We chatted with two couples from Phoenix at Rainbow Point overlook and as we were all getting ready to depart the Point, one of the gentlement said that this view makes you feel like you've been to church. It is a very reverent atmosphere. We certainly agreed.

According to the movie at the Visitor's Center, the Canyon is named after an early Mormon family "Bryce" who owned the property when the Mormon's settled in Utah. It is reported that when asked what he thought of his back yard James Bryce said the area was a "hell of a place to loose a cow."

On the way back down, we stopped at most of the overlooks, admired the formations and the sky and took lots more pictures. At the bottom of the Canyon, we stopped at Ruby's restaurant for a late lunch. This restaurant is owned by the same family that first started servicing tourists in the late 1920's. Attached to the restauant was a motel, gift shop and lots of other areas in which to spend you money. It was a very interesting place, if you like trinkets, especially. We didn't purchase anything except a great lunch at the Cowpoke's buffet.

Returning to the coach, we walked Pooh Bear and then took a short nap. We opted for ice cream for dinner (Ben and Jerry's of course). Sue did a load of laundry while we worked on the Blog, completing one of the updates and drafting several others. That completed, it was off to bed to be fresh for a day of traveling to Durango, Colorado.