Red Canyon, Bryce Canyon and the most amazing of all, Zion

What a day we have had!  We left our campsite this morning at about 0745 and headed down Highway 15 to a turn off that would take us through some of the most amazing and colourful landscape yet.  I had already said that I really liked Utah, having been driving for a day in Wyoming which was flat at times and other times rolling hills.  Lots of ranches and lots of wind!  Snow fences along the highways had indicated a great amount of snow that could and would, blow in drifts onto the highway.  So coming into Utah and seeing the terrain change so quickly to mountains, was absolutely a relief for my eyeballs!  As we were heading south, we skirted Salt Lake City and continued down to a beautiful city called Provo.  Beautifully kept homes against the rugged multi coloured mountains.  Gorgeous!  You could see the ski hills in the distance.  We drove to our campsite of the day.  We stayed in a KOA campground in Fillmore.  I have to say KOA campgrounds are excellent campgrounds.  They are reliable like an old shoe.  Offering all sorts of service you need when travelling.  Good clean showers (if you don't want to use the one in your trailer), laundry and decent (although slow) wifi, the sites are all very well kept.  You can rent Kabins if you do not have a trailer.  Anyway it was so hot last night when we parked, we put on the air-conditioning in the trailer and went for a walk about.  We ran into a guy who was travelling with his wife and kids.  They were from Alaska and were travelling in a renovated school bus that he had renovated himself.  We didn't go into it, but did have a great chat with him.  As I said in the last blog entry, I have had to use my oxygen as Utah is quite high.  I slept with it last night and had a great sleep!

Getting back to our drive today, we took Highway 20 which took us right into Red Canyon.  Red Canyon is a strip of highway on the way to Bryce.  The colors are magnificent and my photos do not do it justice at all.

The colours are so much more vibrant in real life.  We continued on towards Bryce Canyon and noticing dark black clouds in the distance, we were hoping to get to Bryce before the rains came.  Highway 20 is a winding road through the mountains and finally coming into a valley where it hooks up with Highway 89.  Driving through the valley the sky was getting blacker by the minute.  We took Highway 12 into Bryce Canyon City.  It is not really a "city" but more like a few blocks of motels, campgrounds, restaurants, gas stations and of course the usual tourist stores where you can buy native art work (they call it "indian art"not "native",,,but being politically correct we Canadians would not say that).  We finally enter the Bryce Canyon National Park and after paying our $25 entry fee we start the very long drive u to the canyon.  You are actually driving along side the canyon but cannot see it for a couple of miles.  The road in for the public is about 18 miles and throughout that there are many very tight curves and many observation points, all of which have a few RV spots.  Here are some of the pictures we took along the way at different look outs.

You can clearly see the storm brewing behind Ray!

 The rains they are are coming!!!

It was truly beautiful.  Some have said it is better than the Grand Canyon, but it wasn't.  It is different and beautiful in its own way.  It did not make me cry when I saw it, as the Grand Canyon did.  There I was so overwhelmed with the immensity that I started to cry.


Zion National Park.  It is very hard for me to describe this place.  It is a canyon you are driving through not looking down into.  It is like you are in the bowels of the earth as in spots the road is so narrow and you are winding through the canyon.  We had entered the park from the east side.  It cost $25 to enter the park and another $15 for the "escort" through the tunnel.  There are two tunnels to go through.  The first is just a very short one but the 2nd one is one mile long and as the road is so narrow inside, they need to shut down the traffic so larger vehicles such as an RV can go through.  You are escorted into the tunnel and out the other end.  It is pitch black inside!

After entering the park gates you immediately come around a corner and into the canyon.  It is surreal and looks like you are on a different planet. Very weird feeling!  Flat rocks and bare rocky mountains together.  There are a number of pull out areas to park, get out and take photos, but of course as we went through all of these pull outs were full so we weren't able to stop to get good photos. All of the below are taken from the window of the truck as we are moving and certainly do not do any justice at all to the scenery.

 This particular photo was taken in a wider part of the canyon.

 Entrance to the first tunnel.

Driving through the one mile long tunnel, there are two areas where they have blasted right through the mountain to let the light in and give you a view point of the above mountain.  I am surprised this photo turned out as we came upon the opening quite suddenly.  Once you exit the long tunnel you then proceed at 20 MPH down a long and winding road to the bottom.  You cannot possibly go more than 20 MPH as the corners are so tight.  I would love to return to Utah again to explore this area maybe by car so it is easier to pull over to take better pictures.  I suggest you google Zion National Park for some better photos!