Parks 2 - Bryce Canyon National Park

We arrived at Bryce on Tuesday morning, found a campsite in the Sunset Camp ground and set up camp first.  Then we immediately went and took showers.  Bryce has a small general store and public showers and after two+ hot and sweaty days in Zion, it's high on our list of things to start with at Bryce.  Then we did some shopping at Ruby's, ate lunch, and because it was rainy, we went to drive the scenic overlooks and do "rainbow hunting".   I've never actually seen a rainbow at Bryce, but since the rain storms are interspersed with sunlight, I figure I will one day so we keep looking.  Plus if it's raining, rainbow hunting is a nice way to stay in the car, driving from scenic point to scenic point.  

This particular day we drove through a pretty massive storm, including some nice hail.  Luckily it wasn't big enough hail to do any damage to the car, but it was a heavy storm.  Afterward we stopped at several overlooks, and at one point I said, "Get out and take a picture of some lightning."  The first picture in this post is the result of that.  My friend had some great luck with pictures on this trip and she snapped that one just at lightning struck.

The bad news about that particular storm is that it went through the campground while we were away and the rain must have been horizontal.   Everything under the canopy was completely saturated and muddy from the mud splashed up by the rain.  We have actually gotten spoiled by that canopy.  We've been leaving stuff out under it that we used to put away in the car or tent before the days of the canopy.  And apparently we've been lucky not to have any really heavy storms before this.  This storm taught us that the canopy is only so protective.  Lesson learned.

An interesting thing about the trip this year is that everywhere was swarming with people.  Last year when my sister and I went on this trip there were very few people everywhere we went.  This year there were masses.  Last year we went 10 days later, so I wonder if that made the difference, or it was just a heavy year this year.  It was very noticeable at Bryce because it took us four times going back to finally find a parking spot at the Visitor's Center to be able to get in.  Another interesting phenomenon was the number of non-English speaking people.  This is almost always true, but this year as we sat in the restaurant at Ruby's, we realized that EVERYONE around us was speaking French.  There were no other English-speaking customers in the restaurant besides us.  I was a little surprised by that.  I knew that that area of Utah is a favorite vacation spot for Europeans, but usually you hear some English as well.  And usually there's some German mixed in.  

After the rainy Tuesday afternoon, Wednesday turned out to be picture perfect.  We hiked our favorite route - park at Sunrise Point, walk the rim to Sunset Point, hike down part of the Navajo Loop, then hike the Peekaboo Loop, then come back through Queen's Garden and back up to Sunrise Point.    It was gorgeous.  The pictures of the hoodoos and the pine with the twisted trunk are from this hike.

Wednesday afternoon we shopped more and were lazy in the campsite.  We also took pictures and a small video of a small gray mole/gopher type critter who was clearing out a burrow entrance about 20 feet from the campsite.  The picture above is his head in the burrow entrance.

So Bryce was gorgeous as usual and the weather wasn't even too cold for me.  Last year it was about 42 when we got up in the morning.  This year it was only about 56, so not too bad.  We got up Thursday morning, broke camp and drove to Capital Reef National Park, which will be my next blog post.