Day 9 - July 10, 2020

Amber DeBono
Jul 11, 2020
3 min read

Another great day down, we hope many more to come!

Today started in Tropic, Utah as we woke up in our tiny cabin from Bryce Valley Lodging. Last night, I realized that, with a little research, we needed to do two more things at Bryce Canyon - the Queens Trail and the Natural Bridge. When we got there, we couldn't figure out how to get to the Queens Trail so we braved a more difficult trail that's also quite popular - The Navajo Trail. On the trail, we saw "Wall Street" and "The Two Bridges". This type of hiking is already tough for lazy folks like us, but it was even more difficult wearing a mask. Often, people would be within 1-2 feet of us and hardly anyone was wearing a mask. But anyway, the views were spectacular and I was really proud of us for doing anything other than an easy trail. Then, we drove to the Natural Bridge which was another amazing view. After that, it was time to go to Zion National Park.

Zion is only an hour and a half drive from Bryce Canyon (although our GPS tried to take us on a route that would take 2.5 hours - nice try GPS!). Last night, I had noted the spots I wanted to see. Shortly after entry, we saw the Checkerboard Mesa which was on my must-see list. We drove further and went through two tunnels (one was a mile long) and then the road we wanted to take for the other sites was blocked. Later, we found out that we needed to take a shuttle for that route, that the shuttle required a ticket, and the tickets were all sold out. Then we thought about it and we realized we didn't want to be on a shuttle for 90 minutes with a mask on. Also, the emerald pools I wanted to see were out of commission for the summer. A ranger suggested taking a trail to a nearby river which we did and waded in for a while. We then drove to what we thought was another scenic view (it turned out to be a somewhat tough hike...and it was 101 degrees...we passed) and saw a bunch of long-horned sheep. They were walking up some rocks along the road. Incredible!

After Zion, we were pretty beat. We wanted to see Provo and realized that we just didn't have the energy to visit Provo and then drive to Salt Lake City - so we are staying the night in Provo and checking out SLC tomorrow. Here, we went to a restaurant that specializes in Native American cuisine. We ordered takeout (no outside dining) - Navajo tacos (one veggie, one pork) and ate it back in our room at the Provo Marriott. After dinner, we walked around downtown which was quite nice. This is where Brigham Young University is - so it's a rather lively college town. We got a dulce de leche cream horn and, most deliciously, a nutella cronut at Bianca's Bakery - yum!

Tomorrow, we will stop in Salt Lake City and end our day in Boise, Idaho. I foresee a potato in my future!