Southwest National Parks Part 2

One of the only pictures of both of us at the same time so far.

Hi again family and friends. Writing from lovely Los Angeles lamenting how despairingly far behind we are falling on our blogging but otherwise having a wonderful time. In the spirit of getting ourselves caught up to a more reasonable amount of dereliction we are gonna make this quick.

Bryce Canyon Madness

            When we left you we were just leaving Zion National Park and heading for Bryce Canyon. Bryce Canyon is a much smaller place than the parks we had been to up to this point but what it lacks in square mileage it make up for in sheer topographical insanity. Myk and I hiked down into the canyon and then back up taking in the scenery of the “hoodoos.” The hike through the canyon was only a little over three miles but was consistently simultaneously breathtaking and bewildering. A funny anecdote from our canyon walk was that during a photo op I attempted, and did not fail, to moon Myk just as she was letting an elderly lady walk past her. Myk shouted subtly, “ARE YOU MOONING ME?!” Naturally this led to an older woman seeing my behind for the barest of moments.

More Bryce Canyon Madness

            After making it back up to the rim of the canyon we trekked up to Observation point to get a full panorama of the canyon. We took the rest of the evening off to play some games and plan our trip to Arches. We drove to Moab the next day and took that day off of to do some laundry and get some food that didn’t fall into the category of glump.

            It was during this day off that we fell victim to one of the classic blunders: “Don’t get caught in Utah without buying booze first.” For those that don’t know the “value”-centric voters of the great state of Utah have enacted some pretty stringent laws regarding the sale and distribution of alcohol. Let me sum up: liquor available only in state run liquor stores; beer can only be 3.2% or less; and NO SALES ON SUNDAY. These were facts that had been shared with us repeatedly by several of our friends before and during the trip. We had not been drinking since leaving Texas so we had not thought about when we might decided we wanted to have a drink, such as during a day off. Jacob had provided us with the coordinates for a great campsite just outside of Moab (which is just outside of Arches) and informed us that Moab did have one of the few state run liquor stores. So, once our laundry was done and we had grabbed some dinner we decided to see if we couldn’t get a cheap bottle of whiskey. As I pulled into the parking lot the realization came out of my mouth as soon as it came into my head, “its fucking Sunday.” This led to us purchasing a six pack of Budweiser that was instead of it usual 5% ABV only 3.2%ABV. I thought the irony would improve the taste, it did not.

           

Grrr...

            Luckily when we found the campsite that had been recommended we were more than pleased. Despite the intense heat the campsite was right down on the Colorado River as it ran through a beautiful canyon. That evening we were treated to the sounds of some hippies beating drums nearby and a flurry of bats hunting all the bugs that might have been hunting us. It was a great night and a great campsite.

The next day Myk and I went into Arches and spent the day hiking and driving around the park. We hiked about 7 miles round trip and saw a ton of huge natural arches and amazing overlooks. We took a ton of pictures but about 2/3rds of the way into the hike we realized that the exposure had been wrong for the mega-brightness of the noon-time desert sun so most of those were washed out unfortunately. We returned to our beautiful campsite and rested our bones for the night and in the morning headed out pointing ourselves vaguely in the direction of Colorado.

Yup