April 3

SOLTESWEB.NET ALASKA TRIP 2005 - APRIL Page 3

Thursday, April 14 - Bryce Canyon NP

Had a wonderful breakfast buffet at the Zion lodge, then made it up to Bryce Canyon NP this afternoon. Much colder...they said it was 19° last night. Snow! And the park campground does not have utilities - hope we won't freeze tonight! Saw a Steller's Jay today.

Interesting story about our visit to Inspiration point (last photo above). One visitor was complaining to another because he was using a cell phone (good reception here, you can imagine) in a National Park. He felt that the Park should not be used for telephone calls.

Friday, April 15 - Bryce Canyon

Tax day today. Ed brought all of our paperwork with us, and was able to file by internet a few days ago. :-).
We didn't freeze last night. Actually, the camper did fairly well, and kept us warm; we probably used only about 1-1.5 gallons of propane.
We continued making all of the open stops along the park roads. Most of the walking trails were closed because of snow and the Park was offering snowshoes for rent...can you imagine? There was a little snow at the campground, but up to 3-5 feet at the higher elevations (9100 ft). Fortunately, as opposed to Zion where you had to hike to see many of the sights, here at Bryce, most of them were visible a short distance from pullovers. We did see two new birds: Stellar's jay and Townsend's solitaire. Here are some of the sights we saw:

Bryce has some interesting formations called hoodoos...tall spires of rock formed when surrounding layers are removed by weather action.

Sorry to any of our liberal friends about the two bumper stickers we saw. We are unabashed conservative Republicans.

April 15 -Kodachrome Basin State Park

We left Bryce and headed down to Kodachrome Basin State Park. This was named by National Geographic when they took pictures of this colorful area for a 1949 issue. These hills are all part of the Escalante/Grand Staircase where you can see most of the earth's geologic layers. Saw a chukar partridge today.

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