Road Trip: Southwest

Day 9: Wednesday, April 30, 2025 - Bryce Canyon NP, and Capitol Reef NP, UT

Day's statistics:
Weather: mid 70s
Steps: Steve 11,914; Linda 8,287
Travel: 310 miles

Breakfast was actually not included with the room (the only hotel this trip to do that), so we returned to the restaurant where we were one of three pairs eating.



We didn't notice this the previous night.
Linda had a bagel and I had a couple pastries (not pictured).
Then we returned to the room to brush, pack up, and head out.

This morning we headed out to Bryce Canyon NP, about a half hour away from the hotel.







As previously mentioned, the NPs are in more remote areas. While the Grand Canyon had an internal village that wound up having a restaurant, most do not, and most don't even have towns too near by either (that being a couple dozen miles).
So one sort of has to plan for their meals ahead of time. Which is what we did by stopping at Subway® sort of near the park so we could have a picnic in the park.
After acquiring our foot long, we made the first right in the traffic circle and headed closer to the park.

As we got closer to the park, we encountered some roadside deer.

We arrived at the entrance.

The VC wasn't too much further down the road. We parked, and went inside.

On the wall opposite the entrances to the rest rooms was this large banner.

A hoodoos is a tall, thin rock formation due to the result of erosion.

Next up was getting our stamp - the 5^th NP stamp on this trip - at the VC.

We also picked up a map to decide where we wanted to go and what we wanted to see.
The first stop after the VC was at Sunset Point. We parked in one of the last spots available. We took the short walk to the rim, and then, first up, we took our selfie.

The views were spectacular, and rather unique.







After starting at Sunset Point, we eventually hiked / walked to Sunrise Point.




I was specifically asked to take this fashion photo.

In some of these images, there are hikers visible on within the canyons. There were trails accessible in a number of different places. There was one that recommended "hiking boots". We had decent footware, but not hiking boots.
There was a paved walkway between the two points, but there were still people that insisted on going up to the edge to take pictures. Sorry, no.
The path to the car was in between the two Sun_____ Points, though slightly closer to Sunset. I told Linda that I wanted to walk back to Sunset Point so that I could say I walked from Sunrise to Sunset... I did, so I can say that now.
I also saw this perspective when I returned to Sunset Point.

After returning to the car, we headed to the next stop - Inspiration Point.
We heard on the news at the hotel this morning that two tourists had ignored (?) / bypassed the security of the park, and fell to their deaths at Inspiration Point, though there cat survive and was adopted by someone on the park staff. When we were visiting, the park area was operating normally and all areas (that we saw) were open.



After viewing from the first level, Linda, reeling a little from the altitude, returned to the car. I, on the other hand, chose to go to the next level up.


After this overlook, I noticed another overlook even higher up. Silly me, I decided to go to that one too.
At this spot there was a trailhead that encircled the top of the rim. I chose not to hike that.
And there was a viewpoint.

I returned to the car, and we headed to the next stop / overlook: Natural Bridge.


We took a selfie.

The next stop / overlook, further on, was Agua Canyon.




Still further on was our last stop / overlook, Rainbow Point.



This stop has a small pavilion with some placards.



A landscape pan of this park is included in this video

Our time at this NP was over and we had to continue on.

When planning this trip, I saw a post on Facebook® from the National Park Service (NPS) about this same road trip we are doing, visiting the five parks of southern Utah we are on this trip (I saw that post after I was done). One of the commenters suggested taking Route 12 to Capital Reef rather than Route 24 - even though 12 was a few minutes longer, the views were supposed to be better, as well as providing the opportunity to stop at the Escalante Grand Staircase National Monument.
The Visitor's Information Center for the NM was immediately off Route 12 in Escalante.
Unfortunately, likely due to cuts by the current administration in conjunction with DOGE, the center was closed. (If you disagree with this assessment, you are welcome to try to prove to me otherwise.)

Unfortunately, we couldn't get a stamp.
And at this point, we realized that the staircase was not as easily accessible as we had hoped. Meaning, we would have had to hike quite a distance (or if Google Maps® was wrong) to see the staircase. Knowing that we needed and wanted to get to Capitol Reef today, we just didn't have the time to go that far out of the way for this site. So we decided to just continue on the the next NP. Maybe never next time.
Before the Escalante VC and after (on the way to Capitol Reef), we had some interesting environmental sights.

























At one point, through the mountains, the road we were on had what we thought were road side markers for snow plows. The forest on both sides was a huge grove of what looked like birch trees. Lots and lots of birch trees.

What was particularly ironic at this moment, was the fact that it was snowing. It was flurries, but it was still snowing none the less. The second time we saw the white stuff. Plus there was left-over accumulation on the road sides too.

For some reason, other than how fascinating the topography was, we took an inordinate amount of pictures between the two parks - especially when considering that it was only a two hour drive. I mean, between the two phones and the camera, we took... <drum roll> over 800. Yea. It was a lot, like I said.


It was about a two hour drive from Bryce to Capitol Reef NP, including the pause in Escalante. We finally arrived at the park. Entrance. We still had to drive to the VC.

But we still had to drive to the VC.



After arriving, We went inside, and acquired our 6^th NP stamp on this trip - at the VC.

This formation was right outside the VC.

On the way into the park, we passed by the Gooseneck Panorama Point.
Before going into the park past the VC, we drove the mile or so back to Gooseneck because I thought that would be the prudent thing to do because I thought after touring the park, we possibly / probably would have forgotten to stop by on the way out because the route to the next stop was in the other direction.



After our view, we returned to the road with the VC.
Past the VC and continuing into the park, we drove the twenty-plus miles to the Upheaval Dome (we think) trailhead.
Though we don't exactly remember why we didn't do any hiking, in reflection it was because we either A) didn't read the map right and thought it was a further hike than it really was; 2) was getting late and we didn't want to get caught on a trail when it started getting dark; or D) the weather was less than favorable.













The paved road section ended, and we continued on unpaved but well packed roadway named the Capitol Gorge Road, all the way to the Capital Gorge Trail trailhead.















After we got to the end, we turned around and headed back out. Some of the rock formations look completely different when they are viewed from the opposite direction.








We saw this on the way in, but didn't get a chance to get a photo of it. But we got it on the way out.
This sort of reminded us of Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors.

On the way back was a right turn onto Grand Wash Road just to see what "was down this way". We didn't proceed too far as we thought it might not be advisable for our rented Malibu, so we uturned and headed back out.


Not far from the VC was a campground area with a farm, blacksmith's shed, stream, and the Gifford House that contained a museum (that we did not visit).




A landscape pan of this park is included in this video

These parks are spectacular.
But alas, we had to head out. But we didn't have far to go.
Less than ten minutes down Route 24 was a stone cliffside that had petroglyphs on it.
There was placard pointing out where they were. While the pictures bring them up close and personal, they were [probably] fifty-plus feet away and a little difficult to initially see. The last shot is just another interesting view of the sheer rock face.

Our next stop was about 90 minutes away in Green River, UT, a town between Capitol Reef NP and Canyonlands NP.
Once again the drive provided some amazing views of the topography of the region. We also had another snow flurry.
In some instances, we'd just be driving along and all of a sudden <poof>, there's an interesting rock formation...

Eventually we arrived in Green River.
In Phoenix, we thought we saw gas for $3.99 per gallon. Rather expensive.
When I stopped to fill up in Green River, across the street from the hotel, I took a picture of the pump.
Not because of the price, exactly, but because of the variety of gas that was available. Where we live in the mid-Atlantic region, the gas octanes available are usually 87, 89, [usually] 91, and 93. When driving by a station, in order to get an idea of what the prices are, one looks at the sign out front. The odd thing with some of the stations out here is that when doing that, the cheapest gas is 85 octane. So when comparing that lower price to another station, one may think "hey, that station has cheap gas." when in reality, one station lists the 85 on their sign while another may start at 87. Hopefully that makes sense...
At this point, rather than go straight to the room like we usually do, we headed across the street to fill up the tank so we wouldn't have to worry about it in the morning.

We arrived at the hotel, Super 8, and I went in to check in.
As it was Wednesday night. And that means pizza night. This was our second (of three) Wednesday night of our trip too.
Conveniently, and purely out of convenience, the station where we filled up had a convenience store (I'll stop with the "convenient" derivatives now) as well as a Little Caesars. As said on other days, we usually try to avoid chain stores except for Subways® (we stop there out of convenience than anything else - oh, sorry about that) and Starbucks®. But at 7:00 in a fairly remote area in a quiet town, our options were limited. But we suffered through it none the less.
We drove back across the street, gathered our things, and headed to the room.

I try to document some of the quirky things in the rooms we get, and this was really the first odd thing in a room that we encountered on our trip. Who thought this was a good place to put a hanging rod? Or maybe the hanging rod came first - you know, wall studs and such - but then who thought this was a good place to put the dresser>

After getting situation enough, we had our pizza - a medium pepperoni. It was OK, but not nearly as good as the one from last week.

Due to a technical issue while at home, our audio book listening was hampered by a file naming issue.
The first book went off without a hitch. We finished book 28 and tried to start 29.
All the files for book 28 were named "28 - Disc # Track #" where the # matches either the source disc and or track. When sorted alphabetically, all the book 28 discs and tracks worked just fine.
Then we started book 29. For some reason, most of the tracks for books 29 and 30 were titled "Track #". That was it. No book name (##) followed by the disc number (disc #). So when played alphabetically, book 29, disc 1, track 1, was immediately followed by book 30, disc 1, track 1.
So the player was seemingly jumping around and it got frustrating.
At one point when we stopped for lunch, or dinner, or coffee, or whatever, I used the "My Files" app on the phone to try to fix the issue. I named all the files just fine. But it was the file meta tags that were wrong and those had to be adjusted via a computer.
But why is all this book related info relevant now? Because this hotel had a "business center" that had computers available for use by customers.
I grabbed a USB-to-C cable headed to the center and the door was locked. There was a scanner on the door to let me in. But the scanner wasn't letting me in. I returned to the front desk to ask the clerk about the BC, and he wound up just using a physical key to unlock the door and letting me in.
I tried to wake up the computer, but it wasn't responding. Or I was just too impatient (I later found out how slow this computer really is). I hard rebooted the computer and waited for it to start. But it had to install an update. So I had to wait for that too. Then it restarted again. Eventually the computer was done doing what it had to do and I could get started - this was probably 15 minutes already.
After connecting the phone to the computer via the cable, I started to update the file content. But it wasn't taking the updates. Hmm... Might the security on the PC be too good to allow an update like this? One way to fine out - I copied a file from the phone to a temporary directory on the computer and updated it there. Ah, that worked. So I copied all fifty-plus files from the phone to the computer. Which took ten minutes itself. After updating the forty-plus files I needed to, which didn't take that long, I had to copy the files back to the phone. Which took another ten minutes. Then I deleted the files and temporary directory from the PC and headed back to the room with my phone that now contained all the properly named and tagged files.
In all, it took about an hour to do all this.
In the room, I then created the playlists with all the tracks for book 29 and one for book 30. If I had tried to do that before we left, I might have been able to catch this issue at home. But there was enough other things to do that I didn't get to do that.

After relaxing a bit, taking care of the luggage, and brushing, we went to bed.

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