Day 9

We very gladly left our motel this morning deciding we would sleep in the car tonight rather than go back there. Hotel rooms are extremely hard to come by with this being the long weekend. Doesn't anyone work?

We started our day doing a back road byway - gravel all the way! When we got as far as a reservoir we decided we had seen enough pasture land so went back to the main road and our trip to Bryce Canyon. On the way we saw the top of a mountain that had blown off,
the lava flow was evident both sides of the road and we came to a lake that had been dammed by the flow giving it now way to flow out. According to the sign a couple of sink holes had formed allowing water to flow out that way..

Bryce Canyon provided another breath-taking experience of viewing orange and white layed rocks making us see castles or cities with walls around them - hopefully you can see that in the pictures. Tom and I are really struggling with which pictures to include, it's hard to cut them down from 183.



This is the road we drove for 36 miles!!!!



At 5:30 we found a motel for the night – only our third try at a room. After checking in we left for a two hour byway sightseeing trip 18 miles back to see Grosvenor Arch a beautiful sight caused by wind and water. We started out on a very enjoyable paved road but knew dirt was yet to come. After a couple of miles we started what was to be a 2 hour byway trip and truly enjoyed getting away from the crowds of another national park. Tom had been excited about this tour and showing me some more back road driving in our MKX; however his excitement turned to questioning about what we were doing on these back roads – driving through a gully of water and climbing and descending roads that were rock with nothing to keep you on the road. Not 18 percent like the hill this morning but definitely a challenge for the driver. Anyway who would think that driving 18 miles could take so long. The funniest thing was seeing a sign just before a hairpin turn that said 15 mph and Tom said he hadn’t been able to go 15 yet lol. I’ve included pictures of the road and also the arch we went to see.

We came back out the same way as to continue was twice as far J and when we got to the gully again we came across a van on its side and people climbing out the top of the vehicle. They were coming through the water and hit a rock throwing them over to the side of the road and into the sand which grabbed the vehicle and flipped it. Anway they were all fine but had no way to communicate with anyone so we gave one couple a ride back to their camp – the way we had just come from and they got another vehicle to see if they could right the other. Our bit of excitement for today. At this point Tom told me he wasn’t taking me on any more dirt roads.

Our day ended in a very good restaurant eating our first meal of the day – we just weren’t around any stores or restaurants so ate what we had – two tea biscuits, an orange, two small chicken legs. Actually that doesn’t sound too bad but it sure didn’t seem like much.

So tonight we’re in a place that isn’t on the map near Cannonville – about 16 miles from where we started this morning but actually many miles later.