Posted on

Bryce Canyon National Park

Bryce Canyon National Park was the second stop on our road trip to Utah’s Mighty Five national parks. The drive from Cedar City to Bryce Canyon was unreal! It takes you several mountain passes and red canyons before taking you to a relatively flat drive with beautiful mountains in the background. When you first drive into Bryce Canyon National Park, it doesn’t hit you the same way that Zion does. When you drive into Zion, you’re immediately surrounded by its grandeur. This isn’t to take anything away from Bryce. It’s only to say the experience is different.

As we drove through the park, it reminded Jake and me of Northern Minnesota, which is a beautiful place. And then when you make it to the viewing points, which also serve as trailheads, Bryce Canyon takes your breath away. It will leave you breathless. The varying colors of the canyon, the hoodoos, the mountains in the background, and the trees make for an incredible view. We found as we traversed each park it was hard to compare it to the others as each park is vastly different than the others. It’s also what makes this road trip special.

Before you go, here are some things to consider.

  • Bryce Canyon is at a higher altitude than the other parks. Its average elevation is 8,000 ft above sea level with Rainbow Point at over 9,100 ft above sea level. If you’re not used to higher elevations, Bryce Canyon should not be the first park you visit. Give yourself time to acclimate to the higher elevation as the Mighty Five Parks’ average elevation is over 5,000 ft. There is a big difference between 5,000 ft above sea level and 9,000 ft. You should familiarize yourself with the symptoms of altitude sickness and if concerned discuss it with your healthcare provider before your trip.
  • The busy season runs from April to Early October. And it is busy, so plan to get there early in the morning if you’re not staying in the park.
  • Buy the Interagency America the Beautiful pass. For $80 ($20 for seniors, free for military,) it gives you access to all of the National Parks.
  • We only had one full day at Bryce and I would recommend trying to plan at least 2 or 3 days here.
  • The Bryce Canyon National Park newspaper is a good resource for planning your visit.
  • Watch the weather carefully. The weather will impact your ability to complete certain hikes (like the Narrows) safely.
  • Get the right gear! You’ll need good hiking shoes and socks, ponchos, jackets, walking sticks, hats, sunglasses, a charger for your cell phone, lots of water, and snacks. Additionally, we brought bear spray, sunscreen, and bug spray. We ended up needing heavier jackets, hats, scarves, and even mittens (my hands were so cold) as it was quite cold the morning we went.
  • Prepare to be flexible. Your planned hikes may need to change depending on the weather conditions or rock falls. We had planned to do both the Navajo Loop and Queen’s Garden Loop, but couldn’t only do part of the Navajo Loop due to a rock fall on the Wall Street side of the trail.
  • There are two restaurants in the park. We ate at Valhalla the pizza place, which was quite good. It wasn’t ridiculously expensive and the pizza and hot chocolate hit the spot.

Some of our favorite hikes:

  • Navajo Loop is a moderate 1.5-mile hike that begins and ends at Sunset Point. It is one of the park’s iconic trails passing Thor’s Hammer and featuring numerous switchbacks! We started on the Two Bridges side as the Wall Street side was closed due to a rock fall. This trail can be combined with the Queen’s Garden Trail or Peekaboo Loop Trail. This trail is a bit deceiving as you begin the trial by descending into the canyon. The end of the trail. is the hardest as you ascend back up from the canyon floor.
  • The Queen’s Garden is a moderate .9-mile hike that starts at Sunrise Point. It’s called the Queen’s Garden because of a hoodoo that was said to resemble Queen Victoria. We combined this trail with the Navajo Loop Trail, which was an awesome hike. Again the beginning is much easier than the end when you have to ascend out of the canyon.
  • Rainbow Point Trail is listed as a 1-mile easy hike. Jake and I found it to be a bit harder than easy due to the high elevation. This trail is at 9,100 feet above sea level, which is about 9,095 feet higher than I’m used to. However, you shouldn’t miss this trail. The views from Rainbow Point and Yovimpa Point are incredible. Even if you don’t hike the trail, you should drive up to Rainbow Point to see how the park changes as the elevation changes. Moreover, you can also enjoy the Rainbow Point Lookout without having to hike the trail.
  • Mossy Cave Turret Arch and Little Windows Trail is located on the East side of the park off of Utah Scenic Byway 12. It’s a .9-mile up-and-back trail that culminates with a cave and a beautiful waterfall. Since the trail isn’t in the main part of the park, it didn’t have any crowds at all. It’s a short beautiful hike with plenty to see.
Bryce Canyon Selfies

Animals you may see while visiting Bryce Canyon (not an exhaustive list):

  • Pronghorn
  • Mule deer
  • Golden-mantled ground squirrel
  • Golden eagles
  • Peregrine falcons
  • Utah Prairie Dog – you can adopt one at the Vistor’s Center, which we did. His name is Mr. Muffins.
  • Great basin rattlesnake
  • Tiger salamander
  • Cougars

The park has a beautiful visitor center and numerous nice restroom facilities throughout the park. The shuttle system efficiently transports guests up and down the canyon to the various trailheads. If you’ve never been to Bryce Canyon National Park, I’d recommend adding it to your list of places to visit.

What is the biggest challenge you will face in the next six months?

The biggest challenge I’ll face in the next six months is planning for one son’s graduation and the other’s wedding. I’d love to throw in a trip too, as I’m quite passionate about travel, but don’t think I’ll have the time or money to travel.

Posted on

Beautiful Savannah

We really enjoyed our time in beautiful Savannah last weekend. In fact, I found myself wishing we had another day to spend exploring the town. Originally, we were going to drive straight to Charleston. However, when the tournament booked our hotel Saturday through Monday, we decided to spend Friday in Savannah.

Instead of getting a hotel room, we booked an AirBnB to share with our friends. We got a two bedroom apartment in downtown Savannah. It was an absolutely gorgeous apartment in a great location. I loved that the AirBnB put us in the middle of old Savannah. We are a mere two blocks off the river. Our street was also lined with several great options for coffee, food and drinks. The location was perfect.

If you go to Savannah, you have to check out the Riverside. It’s lined with shops, restaurants and bar. Moreover, the views of the sun setting over the river with the backdrop of the suspension bridge are absolutely stunning. Their are some street vendors making palm flowers and singing, but they’re not overly intrusive. At the east end of the strip, you’ll find the City Market. It’s super cute and has a lot of local vendors, which are always fun to support.

Of course, I really enjoyed my stops in the candy stores. In particular, I bought some tasty truffles and a rather large peanut butter cup from the Savannah Candy Company. This store offers a smorgasbord of tasty morsels from candy to popcorn and ice cream. Truly, it has something for everyone. However, they’re famous for their pralines and saltwater taffy. All of the candy is reasonably priced.

My favorite part of Savannah, outside of the candy stores of course, is walking the city. The architecture is stunning. It has the colonial feeling of Boston with a Georgia climate, which isn’t a bad combination in January. I love the green spaces in the squares that dote Savannah’s downtown. They’re absolutely beautiful.

If you go to beautiful Savannah, stay in downtown close to the river. There are several hotels in the area as well as AirBnBs. We had to pay for street parking at our AirBnB, but the cost was minimal. Our friends who woke up after 8:00 am Saturday and hadn’t fed the market, received what we thought was a citation. However, upon closer inspection, we discovered it was only a warning. Talk about southern hospitality! In short, Savannah is definitely a must see city.

Posted on

Long Drive

It was a long drive back from South Carolina to Florida last night, but we made it home safely. Fortunately, our drive was a happy one. The Mayor and his team won the championship Monday morning. Excitingly, the Mayor had a hat-trick in the championship game. He was on fire, to put it mildly. Speaking of fire, his goalies had an awesome weekend and earned the team the number one seed.

The problem with most tournaments is that the skill level in the brackets is all over the place. There’s usually a team that gets blown out every game and a team that blows everyone else out. Thankfully, this was not the case this weekend. There was a lot of parity in the U16 bracket. In fact, at the end of the round robin all four teams were tied in points. We had the lowest goals allowed, so we got the number one seed.

After the game we headed back to the hotel, so the Mayor could shower before we started our drive. Obviously, we didn’t want to hit the road with a stinky hockey player. Once he showered, we headed to Ihop for a quick lunch. Ihop definitely hit the spot. We finally hit the road just before 2:00 pm. As we headed out of Charleston, I uploaded and edited the pictures I had taken over the weekend. Thanks to my hotspot, I was able to upload the pics to Shutterfly and share with the team before we left South Carolina.

The drive home was pretty uneventful except for a major accident of the north side I95 in Georgia. Traffic on the southbound side didn’t slow too much despite the helicopter landing on the other side of the interstate. Its never gold to see the helicopter. Hopefully, everyone involved will be okay.

We broke up our long drive with a stop at Buc-ees in St. Augustine. For the uninitiated, Buc-ees is a chain of gas stations and convenience stores that are very large in scale. The chain is from Texas and it lives up to the reputation that everything is bigger in Texas. At the Saint Augustine location, there are 104 had pumps. The amount of food, drinks and random things sold at the store was overwhelming. However, I would highly recommend the chopped brisket sandwich. It was really good.

Posted on

Road Trip

We left the house this morning for a road trip up to Charleston via Savannah, Georgia. Originally, we had intended to drive all the way through to Charleston, but the Mayor’s first game isn’t until late Saturday night. Consequently, we thought we’d take the opportunity to spend a day in Savannah. It took a little bit longer than I had hoped to get out of the house this morning. I definitely was not moving very quickly, nor was the hubby. We finally got on our way at 10:30 this morning. The trip is arduous and long, but the drive up I-95 is literally pretty straightforward. While the 95 is a pretty easy drive, it is as boring or even more boring than it is easy to drive. There’s just nothing interesting to look at.

We made brief stops in New Smyrna and Ormond Beach for gas and Chic-Fil-A. I usually love their grilled chicken sandwich, but I wasn’t feeling it today. Fortunately, the french fries I split with the Mayor were very good. The two stops pushed back out ETA for nearly an hour. Thankfully, as we got closer to the larger metropolitan areas off of I-95 the traffics jams lessened and we made up some time. We finally got into Savannah around 5:00 pm. Tonight we’re staying in an AirBnB, which is my preference when traveling, in historic downtown Savannah. It’s a cute two-floor apartment in an older building on a busy Savannah street. Honestly, it’s just perfect.

I prefer AirBnBs to hotels because you have a lot more room to move around. If you’re traveling with your family, a hotel room is way too cramped. Also, I like being able to keep eating meals when on the road. If you’re in a traditional hotel, you can’t cook your meals. This helps save money and ensures the diet doesn’t go too far off the rails. We’ll be staying in a hotel once we get to Charleston because we don’t have any other option. This tournament is a stay-to-play tournament, so we must stay where the tournament directors put us. Honestly, it’s one of the most annoying aspects of youth sports. I hate spending $50 more a night for a room, so the rink and tournament director can get a kickback. Moreover, not only are the hotels overpriced, they’re not always high quality.

Day one of the road trip has been a success. We ate dinner at a cute restaurant off Broughton St in downtown. Before dinner, we walked downtown and down to the river. The riverside was absolutely stunning. It’s a super cute area lined with shops, bars, restaurants, and hotels. The famous Savannah City Market is there too. I wanted to stop and buy some chocolate but the Mayor was hungry. Since the Mayor turns into a monster when hungry, my mission to get chocolate was quickly and sadly aborted. Needless to say, I’ll be walking down that way tomorrow morning before we head north to Charleston.