This morning Chris just had a few hours of work, and then it was time to pack up and leave our little mini-apartment hotel room. We left just in time for our check out, and decided on Bruges and Frites for our last meal in Utah. We arrived, parked, ordered, went in search of a bathroom (they are all kept under lock and key, I'm guessing because of the number of homeless people in the park across the street), and then it started to pour rain. This massive unloading of the clouds made the water rise almost over the curbs as it ran to the drains. The people outside the little restaurant squeezed inside to take cover. We had our food already at a counter along the wall under a big picture of medieval Bruges. Under the pictures was a numbered outline that also told what different proverbs went along with the scenarios - over 150 of them. I read a few while enjoying my Flemish stew and frites. The frites (fries) were very good - mostly fried just enough to make it nice and crispy, but not too much or overly greasy. The stew was good, but I didn't realize at first when I took the picture what the stew looked like. It wasn't so well liked on Instagram. I could definitely see the resemblance to dog food, but others thought even more disgustingly. All I can say is that it tasted much better than it looked. Chris and I shared one last Monster waffle. By the end of this, the rain had pretty much stopped and we could walk to our car without being drenched.
We headed southward on the interstate 15 and our first stop was the doTerra building. I was picking up an order from their headquarters so I wouldn't have to pay shipping and handling. The headquarters were huge and modern and impressive. Chris was impressed by them. The waiting room was also nicely furnished and I watched a few of their videos while I waited. There were a lot of women in there, mothers with several children. I picked up my bag and left in about ten minutes.
Pretty much the whole drive south on the 15 was lined by mountains both in the east and west. It is really such a pretty state. The valley is a little dry, I think as the summer wears on it will just get drier. We turned off toward Bryce and began to get a little concerned about the next gas station. We still had a lot of gas left, but I really didn't know what we were going through and we didn't have great cell service to check the internet. We drove up through these wide sweeping valleys that looked mostly like ranch land. I could tell we were steadily going uphill though. There was a fairly large town we stopped in for gas. While there, we tried to use the internet to look for a place to stay. We hadn't booked a room for the night. I was concerned about driving too far out of Bryce Canyon area in order to use our last night of free hotel room. We weren't sure what hotels there were, how good they were, and how much they cost. The internet didn't work, so we just kept driving.
We reached Red Canyon, which is this beautiful area of red rock with interesting shapes. It's like a little foretaste of the beauty we will see at Bryce. I really wanted to stop and hike, but we just didn't have time. I noticed a bike path stretching along the road quite a ways. I want to come back with our electric bikes and do that, and camp at one of the sites off the road.
We neared Bryce and I recognized the hotel my parents and I stayed at last time. We could always stay there. We kept going and saw there were several options just outside the gates of Bryce. We arrived at the booth and spoke with the ranger, but turned around because we couldn't decide if we were going to buy the annual pass for $80 or the one park entrance fee of $30. We were going to Zion, so that would already then be $60. Would we use it again in the next year? Too hard to decide right then, and we wanted to get our accommodations settled for the night. We were also presented with the option of camping in Bryce for $20. That was certainly tempting because the nearby Best Western was $220, and we only had a $70 credit for the hotel room...if this hotel even counted. We had passed some tipis at another campground and thought we would see if there was any chance those were available. The problem with camping was that we didn't have a tent. We had sleeping mats so the tipi would solve that problem.
We pulled up to Ruby's RV and Campground, the office was quite busy. I realized when we entered into the area that there was a half marathon Saturday morning. The lady in the office confirmed there were no tipis available, but there were tent sites. We weren't sure, so we returned to Bryce Canyon ready to buy the annual pass, but while the gate was up, the booth was closed. We drove to the visitor's center in case there was someone there, but they were also closed. We had wanted to see what the amenities were in their campsites because they were a little cheaper. Since they were closed, we drove back to Ruby's and went to the general store to look at what they had. They did have some camping stuff, but nothing was a great deal except to camp seats.
We paid for a campsite at Ruby's and they told us we could drive into the park and just pay for the pass tomorrow in the morning. We decided to do that because we wanted to catch the canyon before sunset. First we had to find our campsite. It was a not so easy to drive through the campground and understand where the tent sites were. The RV spaces were marked, but the tent sites were not marked and it was first come first serve on the location. We saw nothing available but they had opened up a group camping area. We found a spot just on the edge of a meadow and not far from a lake. It was a nice view. We threw down our sleeping mats and set our food on the picnic table to mark our spot. After all, we had no tent, and we needed to car to drive back into Bryce, so we needed to make sure it was clear that our spot was taken.
We returned to Bryce Canyon saw several deer grazing near the side of the road. We slowed down and Chris took some pictures, especially of the fawns there with the white spots on them. Deer remind us of our dogs back at home, Nova particularly because of the skinny long legs, and Hannah because of the her little tail bob. We found the parking lot of Sunset Point. Clearly this was the place to be because most of the parking spaces were taken up and the viewing decks were pretty crowded. We arrived just as the sun began to turn the clouds pinkish golden. It wasn't the most spectacular sunset, but it still had a glow about it. The canyons were already so red, pink, brown, and beige, so it just sort of blended well together. This was Chris' first time seeing Bryce Canyon and he looked below onto the hiking trails and pointed out that was where he wanted to go. That's a big reason we decided to stay nearby and get up early to hike.
We drove back to this 'diner', which was really nothing more than fast food with a western name on it. Not much was appetizing, so I ordered the pizza, which turned out to be alight. We ate our dinner, by now almost 10pm, and returned to our campsite. It was expected to be 42 degrees low that night, so I knew sleeping under the stars was not an option. We had blasted the heater on the way back to get the car as warm as possible. We found our campsite (luckily Chris had paid attention, or I might have been driving all night to find it), and parked the car so we were looking out over the meadow. We grabbed our stuff and headed to the bathrooms to change and get ready for bed.
I put on my black workout pants with my blue plaid pajama bottoms over that. I had on a long sleeve black shirt with my grey polka dot zipper hoodie, and my jean jacket. I wanted to stay warm. Back in the car, I had Chris help me get into the fleece sleeping bag my mom had made me years ago to take on my backpacking trip in Europe. That bag has come in so handy. It has a little half circle pillow that fits into the pouch at the top of the bag. I laid my seat back and then put another fleece blanket over me. This blanket was one my mom made for my train trip three summers ago. Chris was in his hoodie and shorts. I don't know how he stayed warm. I was okay, my face a little cold int the middle of the night, but nothing too bad.
We had tried to join the RV park's wifi, but mostly we couldn't get on - Chris thought it was too many people and they had warned us it was not good. We wanted to get to bed early and be up around 6 am to hike in Bryce. The car was great for looking outside at the star filled sky. It was such a clear night. The problem was that I wasn't that tired since I had slept in so much at the hotel, and my seat really wasn't too comfortable. I think I woke up about every hour, and probably more frequently than that. At least we were cozy tucked away in our car on the campsite. We laughed we looked like the homeless people at the campground, but I was willing to make this sacrifice of forgoing a hotel and staying close to the canyon.
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