Since my last post, we have traveled many miles through Utah and Arizona. From Park City, we drove 1 hour North to the quaint valley town of Huntsville, Utah to visit our friend Elsa Svensson and her husband Ron. We got into town early enough to sit around and talk, then partake in a hamburger at the oldest bar in Utah, then walk a bit along a lake trail. Elsa and Ron have just completed their dream retirement home and it is stunning!
From there, we drove down through Utah on I-15, then cutting off on a beautiful 2 lane road to get to Bryce Canyon. We stopped at a big chain store in Ephraim, Utah to buy "The Club" (car anti-theft device). We did this for added insurance in Mexico. We got to our hotel destination, Ruby's Inn, around 6pm. This particularly hotel is located very close to the park entrance and it was buzzing with tourists. I swear I heard more German and French than English. It is a great time for European tourists to visit the US (based on the Euro/Dollar exchange).
Anyway, we went to bed early with the plan to get up early and hit the park early. We were pretty successful at this! We got to our first viewpoint at 8am. We stopped at 4 viewpoints and hiked 3 trails. The first trail was a 30 minute easy one. Then we hit the biggy, the Navajo Trail which drops steeply through high walls. It's a mind-blower! Very cool! At the bottom of the trail we connected to the Queen's Garden trail which went another 2 miles. The two together was the best trail I've ever been on. Unimaginably beautiful!
We left Bryce Canyon around noon...and got to our lodging at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon at 3pm. Actually, it was 2pm because Arizona doesn't do daylight savings, we we gained an hour when we crossed the border from Utah to AZ. We decided to have dinner at the Grand Canyon Lodge which sits right on the North Rim. I made a reservation and we drove in at 5pm. It's about an hour drive from Jacob Lake (where we stayed) and the North Rim. We did the Bright Angel trail, then had a wonderful dinner. It was a wonderful night.
The next day, we didn't get up early or attempt to tackle big trails. We took it easy. We left Jacob Lake around 10am and got to Sedona at 3pm. The drive was amazing. Especially the last 25 miles from Flagstaff to Sedona on Alt89. We stopped along the way to take pictures. Our accommodation that night was at the Hilton Resort and Spa. We have Hilton Honors points that we used to stay there for free...so that was NICE! And indeed it was nice. We were upgraded to a suite and the room was lovely. We had been staying in some pretty cheap places so this was upscale! We walked to a nearby restaurant for dinner then went to bed. Our plan was to get up early and hike but I woke up with coughing fits all night* so we slept in.
* For the past 8 days I have had a horrible "tickle" in my throat. It actually started in San Francisco and Denni thought it was from the smoke in the air, but it continued in Park City...but there I attributed it to the extreme dryness. I must say, it's been pretty dry all along the way. I'm really hoping it stops soon! I'm tired of coughing!
I've updated my pictures from the trip at Flickr. Check them out at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/moiramw/sets/72157605978102900/#
