Day 8 - July 9, 2020

Amber DeBono
Jul 10, 2020
3 min read

Wow! What a day! I can't believe what we did today - I think both of us would agree that today was the best day of our trip yet!

We started in Grand Junction, CO. I was happy to see more people staying at our hotel wearing masks. The hotel was OK, it just wasn't a 3.5 star hotel!

We drove to the downtown area and walked around a bit. I got an iced latte at a local shop and we took pictures of some funky artwork around downtown. Many people were wearing masks.

Next, we jumped into the convertible and pressed on for Bryce Canyon. While we were driving, we saw several billboards for Moab. I told Ian to look up what there is to do there, because we were going to stop there on the way to the Petrified Forest. He found the Arches National Park, which seemed like something we shouuld visit, so we took a bit of a detour and headed there.

The website had multiple warnings that the park may be too full and if the line was to the highway, to come back some other time. Ian looked up a webcam and saw a lot of traffic. But, when we got there, we were only 5th in line - phew! The views throughout the park were fantastic. I tried to limit the amount of pictures I posted here...it was difficult to choose which ones to post. Our favorite arch was the sand dune arch - it was like walking through beach sand to get to the arch.

By the time we finished there, it was nearly 2 pm and I was getting hungry. Ian found a local food truck park, which we both thought was so cool and needed to check it out. There were about 6-8 trucks and we ordered spring rolls from one truck and a veggie sub from another. Both were very good. They had outside seating and misters which was nice, because it was pretty warm (but not Tennessee warm!)

On the way to Bryce Canyon, we thought there was a gas station coming up in 10 miles, so we thought we were good with a little less than 1/4 of a tank left. Turned out, the next station was 100 miles away. Due to Ian's quick research skills, we found a gas station that required a bit of a detour, but we had plenty of gas to get there. Ian had to take a picture of it - it was in the middle of Nowhere, Utah....well technically, Emery, Utah. We pushed on and took a picture of Butch Cassidy's childhood home.

Bryce Canyon was also an amazing sight, although if I had to choose one that I liked better, it would be Arches, hands down! We walked the sunset trail...which is one of the easier trails. We are going to see if we want to go back tomorrow before we head to Zion. So a little more research is needed before bed time.

On the way to the hotel, we picked up some pizza and wings, which were both very good (at the Pizza Palace). It was the only place open after 9 pm, so we were quite pleased! Our hotel is the best one yet! I actually rented us a cabin which is much like a tiny house - so this is our first tiny house stay! Some of you may know that I'm obsessed with tiny houses, so this was perfect! It's cute, clean, and well-appointed. It's also great not to have to deal with other guests in hallways, elevators, etc.

FYI - some people wear masks at the parks and some don't. The park rangers tended to wear masks at all times. We always had ours on whenever we were possibly 10 feet or closer to other people...following our rules as always!

That's it for tonight. The plan for tomorrow is Zion National Park and Salt Lake City!

Also, I received some feedback stating that I should caption the pictures (ahem, Ian). I'll do my best to do that, but I do this blog right before bed and I might get too sleepy...