Bryce Canyon National Park

Hi everyone! I'm glad to hear that so many people have been able to read our blog and hear about our trip. I hope that each of you are having as wonderful of a July as we are! Today I'm writing from an actual computer at the KOA. This is a big deal!!! Using my phone has been annoying, but has certainly strengthened my "texting" muscles. Here's something I've been meaning to mention but didn't feel like typing out on my phone: remember when I mentioned the rangers having to pull a dead body out of the Grand Canyon lookout right after we got to it. Well, a facebook friend from Salisbury saw where I was, and knew of the person who reportedly died in the canyon. She wrote to me to ask if I saw anything, which of course I did (weird!!) and sent me the link. Here it is if you are interested: http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww2.timesdispatch.com%2Fnews%2F2010%2Fjul%2F14%2Fkpob141-ar-291016%2F&h=9d980. Thanks Nicole!!!
Back to the blog...Yesterday we went to Bryce Canyon National Park which was AWESOME! It has these things called "Hoodoos," which are basically rocks that have been eroded into these weird spire shapes. Now we have done quite a bit of hiking on this trip so far, but almost all of it has been on trails marked as "easier" in the NP books. It has been hot, Joel has been sick, I didn't want to get too sweaty, the list of excuses goes on and on... In order to really get up close and personal with the Hoodoos, you had to go into the canyon..which meant you had to climb back out! Sooooo, we ventured on to the "strenuous" trails, and it was SO worth it. We took a relatively short 3 mile hike down into the canyon, walked along the bottom and climbed back out. It actually was better than I thought it would be..but it was strenuous. At one point, while looking up a steep mountain face covered in switch backs, I wondered if I would actually make it out of there! But, I took it one switch back at a time, and SURVIVED! It didn't hurt that a thunderstorm was rumbling above..kind of scaring me out of there! The temperature has been in the low 80's which is awesome! A full 35 degrees cooler than earlier in the week. Today we are heading on to Zion National Park for the day, and then driving into the night. We are going to try to make it to Salt Lake City by tonight so that tomorrow we can head to the Tetons!!!! I'm kind of sad though. As of today, we will have now gone as far west as we are going..time to head north and then east. :( At least I still am in the mode where I honestly could not tell you what the date is, what day of the week it is, and only be about 50% certain of what time zone I'm in!