Day 9: Sept 3rd- Utah (Zion & Bryce)

Day 9: Zion National Park

From Vegas, we drove northeast to Utah and found Zion National Park on the way to Bryce Canyon National Park. Zion is beautiful even though we only drove through it. We bought a $50 National Park annual pass, anticipating that we would use it quickly. We ended up saving about $35 on park fees with it.



The drive through Zion was beautiful, and when we arrived at Bryce we had about an hour of sunlight left. We had wanted to camp and brought our gear, and decided that this would be the time. We checked the board at the entrance and saw that there were some empty spaces, but when we drove through the camp site, we didn't see anything that wasn't taken or reserved.


We ended up camping at a private campground (Ruby's). The fee was $20 instead of the $10 you pay in the national park, but we got a hot shower and heated pool. We bought a cord of wood at the General Store, found a spot and set up in the dark (of course). If you've been camping, you know how much fun that is. Fernando had never been camping or set up a tent before, so by the time we were done I had probably gone into bitch-mode on him a couple of times, barking orders: "Hold this." "Put it there." "No, there!". It was a good thing our neighbors were already sleeping.

Anyway, Fernando has more patience than anyone I've ever met, and it has a nice soothing effect. We ate at a buffet restaurant with hordes of Japanese and German tourists but by the time we finished eating there was no one left and they were vacuuming the floor. We had to switch gears form the previous tourist crowd we were hanging amongst in Vegas. We walked back to the camp site and got the fire started without much trouble. We huddled by it until the whole cord was a pile of embers and went to bed.

Day 10- Bryce Canyon National Park



Bryce Canyon has got to be one of the most beautiful and geologically nifty places I've seen. We found several spots to take pics and bascially breezed through it. We both got tired with the routine of 'drive to a new vantage point, take some pics, drive to the next'.