Four. Thirty. In. The. Morning. That’s what time John pulled my blanket off me to wake me up. Okay, I’m wah-ing. But then he had the audacity to pull the plug from my air mattress and I was flat on the ground in just a few seconds. Then I couldn’t get up! It was really funny.
In case you haven’t noticed, John gets away with saying and doing things to me that I would bite the head off any other person, but for some reason when he does it, it’s funny and I laugh.
Showers the night before made sure we were on the road by 4:59 a.m. We stopped at a gas station/Arby’s for gas and a sausage. I know John likes his coffee light roast, so I made a guess at the coffee. I chose the exotic medium roast over the dark roast and the high caffeine. New rule. If there is a high octane coffee, choose it. He was greatful for the coffee of any kind. He did really like the taste of the one I chose, but because we had so little sleep his second cup was the high caffeine one.
Driving conversation turned to tuhbs. He counted 13 tuhbs on this trip. I say I’m organized. Then we talked about how he has to learn a foreign language dating me. Texan. Okay - the word little in Texas can mean small or it can mean any nebulous thing you want it to. “That little boulder is huge!” There are apparently a lot of things I say that he has to wrap his head around. Not to mention the lack of difference in some words by the e sound and i sound like wren and rim. Okay, Bob Medina also says the word “ruin” the same way I do.
Our first stop was Capital Reef. I got my passport stamped, and we watched the movie about how the reef was formed. We saw a creek along the side of the road, and we got out and looked saw some lava stones that were perfectly oblong and very rounded. None of them were jagged - almost like they had been polished. We saw some cool formations, like Capital Dome. We saw a little one-room school house and the ruins of the town of Fruita.
We decided to take the longer drive and go through the Grand Escalante Staircase. Wow! Amazing views! We went in and out of Escalante and the Dixie Forest. There were Quaking Aspen trees that were happy to see us and clapped their leaves as we drove by. A part of the drive looked a lot like west Texas near Sanderson. John thinks it wasn’t that boring. I’m going to have to take him to Sanderson.
I did have to admit that the Utah sky is slightly deeper blue than the West Texas sky is in places. John wanted to record me saying that.
We arrived at Bryce Canyon about noon. Parking at the visitor’s center was at a premium! We just missed the video at the visitor center, but luckily for us there was an Astronomy Festival going on. While we waited for the video we looked at the sun through telescopes. I saw a Solar storm and solar flares. I was trying to tell John to just look for the sticky-outy-things and he asked the Ranger if that was a scientific term. She said it was. Ha! Then she said she just learned it today, at that moment. Oh well.
We took the shuttle to a couple of lookout points (Bryce Point and Inspiration Point where I made John kiss me) then went to Sunset Point, intending to come off our hike at Sunrise Point. We planned the Navajo loop/Queens Garden trail. That didn’t happen. There wasn’t a sign to get out at Sunrise point. We walked the extra half mile back to Sunset Point for a total of 3.5 miles and an altitude change of 900 feet. It was amazing! We saw hoodoos which are columns that get left when the rock erodes. They were unique in the world. There was one of Queen Victoria that looks just like a picture of her! I even had to call Victoria and tell her we saw it when we got back in the car. We walked down and in and among the hoodoos. Of course, what goes down must come up. We saw a bunch of chipmunks who let me get quite close. We also saw a snake napping against a tree. We smelled the ponderosa pines and decided that they smelled more like butterscotch than vanilla. We saw a trail ride going on and we saw a mule deer while on the shuttle.
Then, we headed toward Cedar Breaks. Moab was 100 degrees yesterday. Going from Bryce Canyon to Cedar Breaks, the temperature dropped from 86 to 62 in less than 15 minutes. Alpine views and John singing “up, up, up - down, down, down” to the tune of Spider Man made the drive very entertaining.
Our camp site is somewhat primitive but beautiful, just the way I like it. Tall pine trees, beautiful wildflowers, and we are at the top of a hill looking on a pastoral scene right from our tent. John is laughing that I think the trees are tall. We set up camp. In the process of pulling out the cooler I dropped it on my big toe. Yes the one I broke a few years ago. OW! To add insult to injury, later while we were setting up, I tripped on a rock and wiped out. Big rock, hard to miss, but I did. Scraped my hands and knees. OW! John was instantly concerned but as soon as he knew I was okay he laughed and helped me up. He said I made him feel a lot less like a klutz. True. We had brats and salad, then went to the visitor center to watch the sunset. It was pretty, but not spectacular. While we were waiting for it to happen though, I saw a creature on a ledge - one I hadn’t seen before. I pointed it out to John and he said it was a marmot. Wow. By the time I got his picture, he turned his head and the picture is from a less becoming angle. He scampered into his hole in the rock.
We built a fire and both of us were mesmerized by the flame. There were three poking sticks left by the last group so naturally we poked the fire and made glowy circles with the tips of the sticks in the night sky. As we played, every so often I would look up at the sky. First star came out and I made a wish! Every time I looked up there were more stars. This campground is known for it’s dark night sky and soon we could see millions of stars. I saw two shooting stars and when the fire died down we walked down the road to a clear spot where we had an uninterrupted view and picked out a few constellations, and saw the milky way. I don’t get to see that much. It was breathtaking.
Sleep is in sleeping bags covered with a comforter for me. John had his mummy bag. It will get down to the 40’s.
Altitude here is close to 10,400 feet. I’m feeling it. My fingertips tingle from time to time and I just have to breathe deeper for a while.
Some of you may wonder about the potty issue. Everywhere we have camped so far has had restrooms and showers, Cedar Breaks included. It is just a bit of a hike that’s all.
The other issue for me is my wild, wild hair. My hair is wild on the best of days, no matter what I do to it. John likes it which is beyond me. Camping is a whole new level of wild hair. I took a selfie of it before I brushed it just so (eventually) you can see it.
Tomorrow, a relaxing day in Cedar Breaks, with a “strenuous” hike at 2! I can't wait!
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