April 9 to 11. 2014; Vermillion Canyon, AZ and Bryce Canyon, Utah

APR  9, Wednesday; To Vermillion Canyon
9*C @ 7 am; 27*C in pm, cloudy most of the day

We were up early and on the road by 9:30 after doing my power walk and taking Tucker for his; he came with us.  We drove back on Hwy 20 to 89 and turned right towards 89A and drove 26 miles back towards Page.  Our first stop was the bridge crossing the Colorado River on 89A, the first to be built to connect both side of the Colorado.  We took a “few” pictures here and read the history then we drove to Lee’s Ferry, a Historic National Area.  There is a National Campground here which is very nice but no hook-up.  Unfortunately the interpretive Centre was closed so couldn’t read the history on it.  You can learn about the history of this famous landmark by visiting this link  http://www.nps.gov/glca/historyculture/leesferryhistory.htm  .  It was the only crossing for miles around and was an important service for the Mormons trying to settle Arizona.  From here, we continued on Hwy 89A and admired the Vermillion Mountains, a high wall of granite and sandstone created over million years ago.  We stopped for Lunch at a funky bar/restaurant nearby on 89A.  Needless to say, we took dozen of pictures, soon to be posted.  The drive was awesome and priceless!  It really brings you closer to nature and makes you pensive and leaves you in AWE about Mother Nature.  We also stopped at an area called “Cliff Dwellings” and again explored and took more pictures.  This area had dwellings built within the already huge boulders that were lying around.  After picking up two more geo-caches (8 in total), we decided to turn around and come home.  We put 300 KM round trip this day!  It is sunny and a balmy 27* C at 6 pm.

We had a light dinner then watched Survivor.  By the way, we do NOT have AT&T cell reception here so haven’t been able to make any calls

 

APR  10, Wednesday; To Bryce Canyon, Utah
10*C in am; 28*C in pm

We were on the road by 9:30 am on Hwy 89N.  The scenery was, once again, awesome and we reached Kabab around 11 am and went by Zion NP turn off by noon.  We stopped for lunch when we turned East on Hwy 12.  We soon reached Bryce Canyon City around 2 pm, which is actually 3 pm local time.  We are at Bryce Canyon Campground situated on Hwy 12 about 2 miles west of Canyon City on Hwy 63.  We paid $27/night X 2 with full hook-ups and Wi-Fi.  This was supposed to be a CAMP USA Member but they let it go 1 year ago so now they only honor Good Sam @ 10% discount.  After setting up, we went to Bryce National Park on Hwy 63, paid the entrance fee which is good for 7 days and went into the Visitor Centre to look around and watch the movie about the Canyon.  It is still very warm even though we are at over 7900 feet in altitude.  Canyon City, which is just before the Park entrance, is mainly a tourist town with two RV Parks, a lodge, souvenir shops and a small Western frontage village.  We took a drive to the town of “TROPIC” at 6000 feet, looked around then came back to our campground.  The Jeep is having a rough time at this altitude and it chokes at times.  The scenery around here is absolutely GORGIOUS and BREATH TAKING and totally different than what we have seen so far!!!  We are among pine and fir trees and, yes, there is even some spot of snow but not much.  It is presently 7 pm and 18*C and the sun has just gone down. 

Val cooked a great dinner of pork chops, vegetable and salad.  TV is on and we have WIFI but NO cell reception.  The forecast is for low 20’s F. overnight and sunny sky tomorrow

We travelled 148 miles in 3 hrs @ an average 47 MPH

N  37* 42.604
W 112* 12.993”
Alt: 7742 feet

 

APR  11, Thursday, Bryce Canyon
-4C @ 7am; 20* in pm

We had the furnace on overnight, good thing too.  I had also put water in our main tank and disconnected the water hose to prevent freezing.

WOW! WOW! WOW!!!  That is all I can say about BRYCE CANYON!  What an incredible and awesome place!  And we took hundreds of pictures!  We started the day by going to the Village and look around; we also found a couple caches here.  We entered the Park and explored every single stops and view point.  We went from 7500 feet to 9100 feet.  What an incredible place.  We had a slight problem with the jeep in that it overheated at the 9000 foot look-out and I had to wait for it to cool off before we headed down.  At the village, I stopped at a garage and they looked at it, added some anti-freeze but I need a part so will have to fix that in Cobourg, Oregon.  We checked a couple places to eat and decided on one so we headed home after finding two more Caches then we had HH at home.  The sky is clouding over; the forecast is for snow/rain tomorrow; time to head out!
We went out for dinner at a local restaurant and had a great steak dinner.  The waitress recommended we follow Hwy 12 back to I-15 and we may just do that!  I uploaded some pictures to our Picasa Web Link on my Blog.  They are spread between the last two folders; ENJOY!!!!