Started our day as we headed out to Bryce by stopping at the River Rock Roasting Company in La Verkin, Utah for coffee, smoothies, and quiche, everything was so good! It’s a cool place with big outdoor deck overlooking an awesome view of the Virgin River.
Heading out to Bryce Canyon we climbed to 8,000 to 9,000 feet. This will be the highest elevation on our trip to date. Steep 8% grade descents and sharp curves opened up to expansive vistas with more trees and more alpine-like landscapes. I was inspired during this drive to come up with as many adjectives as I could to describe the beauty of the country we are traveling across. Here are just a few to illuminate the majesty of America (see how I snuck a couple in right there): exquisite, dazzling and transcendent!
A little warning to anyone planning to stay in or near Bryce – there are several lodges with similar sounding names, including one that is located in the National Park. After realizing that our reservations were not in the aforementioned lodge (our only planned hotel stay during our six-week trip) we settled in at Ruby’s RV Park in their overflow lot. Ruby’s seems to own Bryce Canyon City with a hotel, RV park, several restaurants, and multiple outfitting businesses i.e. horseback riding and kayaking.
The next morning, by 8:30 am we were saddled up for a three-hour horseback ride through the Red Canyon in the Dixie National Forest. Our personable and knowledgeable guide and well-trained horses made this a delightful, but cold ride. I wore my winter gloves, and wool headband with a fleece jacket and snow was intermittently spitting during the ride. Our small group consisted of me and Steve and five visiting Germans.
After warming up and grabbing a quick lunch we took the 18-mile scenic drive through Bryce Canyon National Park. We drove to the end and then re-traced our drive, stopping at multiple overlooks to enjoy the views and take photos.
Steve napped after the drive, while I took a walk and visited Ruby’s General Store, which is huge, includes a large grocery section and serves every need that a visitor could have. There is also an adjacent Native American Art Gallery with a large selection of quality (although pricey) native art.
As mentioned before, Ruby’s has the entire town wrapped up with the hotel – a Best Western – with a rustic lodge-like lobby and an expensive, but very efficient restaurant designed to handle crowds of visitors. This is a manufactured town which serves as the gateway to Bryce Canyon, and offers lots of amenities but is not a charming as Springdale (Zion National Park) and Estes Park (Rocky Mountain National Park) which we were to visit later in the trip.
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