The breakfast room was only half full this morning! And the traffic into Zion, after we checked out of the Bumbleberry Inn, was reasonable. Not being parents, we aren’t tuned into school holidays, but perhaps yesterday’s chaos was partially the result of extended Columbus Day vacations? We exited the park on Beehive 9 and all evidence of the soaring red walls disappeared as we drove through juniper forest and ranch land until tuning north on US 89 at Mt Carmel Junction. Hilary drove us through small neat villages with green lawns and flowers, along the east fork of the Virgin River that winds through green meadows with happy cows and horse and apple orchards. Coming from the desert of Santa Barbara, all this water is amazing!
Aspens
Bryce overview After 20 miles we turned east on Beehive 12 and on into Bryce Canyon National Park. If it turned out to be crowded we were going to just drive through, but there was no problem! I had forgotten how colorful Bryce is and how the light plays off the pink, yellow, and white hoodoos creating a fairy land of spikes and spires, so I was really glad not to miss it and to show Hilary this unique place! (Hoodoos are delicate rocky spires carved by water that exist in various places in Utah, but are most amazing in Bryce).
Hoodoos
We drove to the end of Beehive 63 that runs the 20 mile length of Bryce, along a steep ridge from which we could see dense green conifer forests with occasional flashes of bright gold of a changing aspen to the west.
We turned around at Rainbow Point at the end of the highway and returned stopping at various overlooks to admire the huge valley of rock formations on the eastern side of the ridge. There is a classic old National Park hotel, and a market where we got ice cream to fortify us until this evening. On the way out of the park we stopped at some mounds of dirt and saw about 8 rare Utah Prairie Dogs munching grass and getting quite fat for the winter.
We returned to 12 and continued east through juniper and piñon pine forests for 60 miles with the occasional huge slab of pink rock emerging from the ground! Suddenly we crested a ridge and saw an enormous expanse of smooth rolling sandstone, or slick rock, in front of us! Part of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, that Clinton created, Trump partially destroyed, and Biden reinstated! We’ll explore this tomorrow and so drove through, past river-running outfits and hiking trails, finally coming to the tiny town of Boulder, pop 260, and found Annie’s Place, a charming B’n’B, run by Jared who hales from Newbury Park, CA, and whose Mormon family has lived in the area for 70 years. His aunt owns this two-year old business, a very comfortable house overlooking farmland. Our room is right next to a pig pen with two very furry, friendly pigs, Gus and Call, whose ears I scratched!
We got ready for dinner at Hell’s Backbone Grill, an award-winning restaurant (James Beard, among others!) run by two women, Blake and Jen, located in this tiny remote village! We arrived at six and walked around the area a bit and checked in on our reservation. We were seated inside the small homey restaurant where most of the food is locally sourced and much of it grown on their own farm. I got a Utah Negroni cocktail and a cup of pozole , Hil got apple/squash soup and Bob got spicy meatballs.
Bob and I then had terrific enchiladas filled with meat and squash sitting in a sweet corn sauce, and Hil had pasta with veggies, and we finished with chocolate custard with a bit of chili and Hil and I split an almond bread pudding. We drove home and checked out the dark sky where we could easily see the bright Milky Way!
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