Are we on Mars?

James and I went on a six mile hike of Bryce Canyon today. It is absolutely unlike anything I have ever seen. The park is comprised of a canyon with all of these rock formations called "hoodoos." They are formed when erosion occurs and the stack of rocks is left behind. We took a trail down to the bottom of the canyon, then proceeded to climb back up and take a trail along the rim back to where we had originally parked. The air is so clear and the sky so blue! They are doing a controlled burn not far from the park, so that made the air a little less clear and smoky. I did not realize that we would be passing through Zion National Park yesterday on our drive to Bryce. Mapquest was somewhat misleading in that way, but the views were amazing! The only downside is that we had to pay 25 dollars just to pass through, but the pictures that we were able to take made the fee worthwhile. The picture above is along the side of the road in Zion!

When we arrived in Bryce yesterday, we checked into our hotel which is about three miles from the entrance to the park. Since we knew we were hiking today, we drove to a couple of the vista points and explored. We had a celebrity sighting too! Well, a local Bay Area celebrity anyway. We saw Doug McConnell from "Bay Area Backroads" walking out of the lodge! James managed to say hi, but he was in a hurry and walked past us. I thought it was funny that I kept saying before our trip how I wanted to see someone famous in Vegas, and it took coming to Bryce Canyon to make that happen! Yeah, he is not "Hollywood" famous, but still! :)

Tonight is our last night here in Utah--tomorrow we will be making the long trek to Albuquerque, New Mexico, which is about a 9 hour drive. We are leaving Bryce bright and early, stopping in Flagstaff for breakfast, and then making the rest of the drive along Interstate 40. Hopefully I will be awake enough to post something about our drive tomorrow!