road tripping: day 2

In the morning, H went for a run under a gorgeous pink and orange sunrise before we all had a tailgate breakfast of fruit and bagels, accompanied by pretty good coffee from the motel's breakfast room.  We got ourselves organized and were on the road back to Bryce by 8:15 a.m.  Once at the park, we checked out the awesome views at Sunrise Point and recycled a used propane cylinder (Bryce seems to be the only Utah national park that collects those cylinders for recycling).

The Amphitheater in the morning

We then headed out, stopping at Kodachrome State Park, and then continuing along scenic Route 12 through Henrieville.  H and I had only traveled short pieces of Route 12 before - from Bryce to Kodachrome; and then on the other end from Torrey up to our campsite at Single Tree - so this portion of the road trip was new to us.  Scenic Byway 12 is said to be one of the most gorgeous roads in the country and I can believe it.  We followed the river for a while, past high, pale cliffs, and stopped to check out a Native American granary high in the rock above us.

H's folks

The road passes through the funky little town of Escalante (population around 800, with the Shooting Star RV Resort, where you can rent vintage Airstreams, and a wonderful visitors' center).  After Escalante, we came around a corner and the vistas just opened opened up in front of us.  We could see forever, it seemed, and we could also see our road twisting and turning below us, winding in and out of the colorful rock formations.  We continued down past those rock walls and then up and over the Hogsback - a high and very narrow stretch where there were impressive drop-offs on both sides, and no guardrails - before descending into little Boulder (population: approximately 200).

Road trip!

Ancient granaries

We paused for a snack on the picnic tables in front of the Anasazi State Park Museum, then kept going, up and over Boulder Mountain.  For a while, our surroundings were green and forested, and we passed by our former campground, then it turned back to red desert as we descended to Torrey and Capitol Reef National Park.  Capitol Reef is more of a hikers' park as most of the park is only accessible on foot or rough 4WD roads.  To enable H's folks to see as much as possible, we did the paved part of the scenic drive, stopping at the picnic area under the red cliffs when the road changed to dirt to continue through Capitol Gorge.

Scenic Byway 12

After retracing the route through the desert and then the old Mormon pioneer-planted orchards, we returned to Torrey, checked into our motel and then figured out what to do for dinner.  We checked out a couple places before deciding on Red Cliff Pizza (yes, pizza for two nights in a row) at Red Cliffs Pizza which a work friend had recommended.  As we filled our bellies, the restaurant filled up around us with both tourists and local cowboys.  When we were done, we headed back to the room for an evening in.

Scenic Capitol Reef