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Southern Utah may be the prettiest part of the country that we've driven through so far. The area is mountainous, ranging in altitudes from four thousand to eleven thousand feet. The views portray rock formation after rock formation, each different from the one before. Much of the rock is sandstone of various colors. Sandstone looks basically white but changes colors based upon the minerals that it contacts.
We visited two parks today: Bryce Canyon National Park and Capitol Reef National Park. We decided not to drive to the north rim of the Grand Canyon when my sister called and postponed by one day her trip into San Antonio. Carol is flying to San Antonio to meet us for the weekend of November 5th. This gives us an additional day in our schedule which we will likely use to visit both rims of the Grand Canyon.
Bryce features a plethora of hoodoos. Did you like that last line? A hoodoo is a column of rock formed by erosion. Unlike Zion Canyon where the road winds through the canyon floor, the view at Bryce is from the canyon rim. The road climbs to a height of over nine thousand feet and culminates in a panoramic view where the mesa on the far horizon is thirty miles away. The view is not unlike that at the Grand Canyon. The air at Bryce and Capitol Reef is clear and unpolluted. Capitol Reef claims that the maximum visibility is one hundred forty-five miles.
The most famous picture of Bryce Canyon features an amphitheater full of hoodoos. The optimal view of this amphitheater, a horizontal one, required a hike along a dirt trail that zigzagged up and down several hills. We wimped out again. There's not a whole lot more that can be described about Bryce. Pardon me if I put way too many pictures in the photo gallery. We visited the park at the wrong time to see wildlife though Ann did get a picture of a prairie dog on the side of the road.
The drive to Capitol Reef National Park from Bryce took longer than expected and we missed getting Ann's passport stamped at the Visitor's Center. But the vistas along the way from one park to the other were spectacular and frightening. At one point we found ourselves driving along a mountain peak with deadly drop-offs on either side just inches from the white line. I got the heebie-jeebies again. (I've had several people confirm that "heebie-jeebies" perfectly describes the feeling of possible doom to which I'm referring.) I straddled the double-yellow line in the center of the road to minimize our chances of an unfortunate plunge off the side.
Capitol Reef featured red sandstone everywhere (almost) and more rock formations, though not as impressive as Bryce's. The late afternoon sun turned the rocks bright red. We saw lots of mule deer in Capitol Reef but no bucks.
The sun set on us while we dallied at Capitol Reef and then we had to drive seventy or eighty miles to civilization through barren land. I had Ann pull over the van while we were driving after dark and she turned out the lights. The Milky Way stretched from one end of the sky to the other. The stars filled the sky. A few minutes later after we had continued our journey, an orange glow appeared in the eastern sky. We pulled over again and watched a huge orange moon rise over the horizon. Stunning! As we drive through the night the hills produce perfect silhouettes between the moon and us.
We spoke with numerous people today while looking over the formations at Bryce Canyon. One Oregon couple had just returned from Maryland after visiting their son (Continued on page 2)
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