My Big Utah Road Trip #4

I FOUND LATTES!!!!!!

OK, so I need to cover two days here. I left Zion yesterday, which I think was Saturday the 19th of October. After the reasonably good dinner I'd had the night before, I decided to see on my way out if the same place made coffee during the day. As in, REAL coffee, not 'Murican sludge. According to the sign outside as I inched my way through a couple of miles of traffic trying to get into/through Zion, yes. They made "espresso". Sounded promising. I swung in. And let it be known for any future Aussie coffee whores staying in Zion or Springdale, The Spotted Dog cafe makes lattes. Reasonably well. Well enough that I drank the whole thing. And stayed awake on my drive to Bryce Canyon.

I don't know how cars don't regularly drive off the side of the road and crash in Zion. Or maybe they do. The highway actually goes through part of the park and it is SPECTACULAR!!!! Every single turn, I had to pull over just to stare and take photos. Words can't describe. Honestly, I don't know how I didn't crash. And by through the national park, I mean literally. Once you wind your way up into the park, there is a long tunnel that bores straight through the side of a mountain and out the other side.

Goodbye, Zion!

I learned two things on the way to Bryce. First thing - roads look whackingly different without a foot of snow on them. I was a fair way along the I-12 before it hit me I'd been down that road on my last trip, albeit travelling the opposite direction. But still. I tend to pride myself on good road sense (as opposed to good driving sense) and an immaculate sense of direction. Why else would I fly to another country and see fit to navigate around it without a GPS? Yet it still took me a good while to actually recognise the road. The second thing I learned - deer are almost as dumb as kangaroos when it comes to roads. (I also learned a third thing, that I can drive reasonably well with an operational DSLR camera in one hand, but I won't mention that in public.)

It doesn't matter which direction you point the camera in Utah.

Now, about the deer. They stroll out onto the road in the most elegant strut you've ever seen. And as you dump the brakes, they give you this big brown-eyed look of "What? I'm walking here. You can just wait." Picture a Kardashian with four legs, brown fur and a much higher IQ. There. That's a deer crossing the road. Sadly, I did see quite a few skittled ones. It's not pretty. I've become ultra, ultra paranoid about driving at dusk and dawn because I'm not in a car that's really designed for plowing wildlife off the roads. That and the whole I don't like killing things part. I've become paranoid enough to actually do the speed limit. Occaaaaasionally.

Gratuitous car photo.

So I land in Bryce Canyon. I have been here before so I knew what to expect scenery wise. What I wanted to see this time was some wildlife. Namely the big and dangerous stuff, but those are near impossible to spot. (Until they've spotted you and that's generally not good.) What I was able to find were Utah Prairie Dogs. And deer. The later it got, the more deer there were. I was also informed they have pronghorns in the park. I would love to have seen those, but alas there weren't any in the places they told me to look. Maybe next time. (Did you see that? See how I just slipped that comment in?)

Utah prairie dogs. Not to be confused with... other prairie dogs.

This raven owned this fence. He marched it back and forth like a solider.

I had a rushed dinner at the Canyon Lodge dining room restaurant thingy. Because I was going to an astronomy session at the visitor's centre, I just wanted something small and quick. So I ordered a quesadilla. A single quesadilla. Forgetting momentarily that I was of course in America. It was the size of a freaking atlas. Needless to say, I ate half. The aforementioned astronomy session was really cool. For anyone visiting Bryce Canyon, if it's on when you're here, go to it. Really informative, really funny and afterwards they take you out the back and you can look through some huge telescopes. Naturally I'm here during a full moon so the sky is a bit washed out, but it was still several types of awesome. Generally speaking Bryce Canyon has some of the best night skies in the world for star-gazing.

I asked the ranger where the best place was to go and photograph the sun coming up over Bryce Canyon. He told me Bryce Point, inside the park. Now for whatever reason, I don't know, maybe the extreme height of the surrounding mountain ranges, (or maybe that's normal here, NFI) the sun doesn't currently rise until about 7:40am. Which is brilliant. I am not a morning person, shall we say. I headed off around 7:15 and got to my spot right at 7:35. Upon stepping out of the car, I firstly turned into a popsicle, and secondly spotted the whopping great crowd of cameras standing on the lookout at Inspiration Point, (a bit further along) all with the same bright idea as me. It was three deep to the railing and I knew I wouldn't get any good photos through that crowd. So I stayed up where I was, climbed a railing or two, and got a little creative. It was quite worth the cold.

Bryce Canyon, in sunrise glory.

Not as warm as it looks.

Random side note - I discovered at this point that the car has seat heaters. Let's all give a resounding "hell yes!"

Back to Tropic for breakfast - which was ordinary. At my wits' end, I enquired at reception if there was ANYWHERE in the REGION (complete with arms expanded above and outwards from head) that served proper Italian style coffee. The girl said, "Yes. A new place has opened about five seconds drive down the road, and they make EXpresso." I kid you not. She said expresso. She also said five seconds, which was totally accurate when I drove it. (Tropic has a population of about 400.) I decided to chance it. And lo, it wasn't too bad!! More happies!! In fact, they were so nice, I think I might bail on my free included pretty ordinary breakfast tomorrow and go there.

Back to Bryce Canyon. (I ran up a few miles, here.) I was left with a couple of hours to kill before my trail ride. Photo time!! More look-outs, more epic scenery, this time with the advantage of "early morning light" until at least 11am. (Winning!) Also chatted to lots of fellow tourists from all over. The world. Even ran into some Aussies.

Another random side note - as many of you will have now gathered, given that America is like, oh, the most litigious nation in the galaxy, it is really, really, fracking strange where they don't put safety barriers and railings. Say, like, on the Moki Dugway. (Google it.) Or along cliff paths in Bryce Canyon. Got some wicked-ass photos out of it, though! :-D

Trail ride time. I did make a point out of telling the cowboys running the show that I could ride. They ask anyway, but I shed my natural Australian modesty and outright said that I could ride really well. (I stopped short of telling them I can ride anything with hair, people always look at me sideways when I say that.) Nobody wants to be stuck on the animal that is doing its final furlong to the knackery. I wanted something with a bit of spice. The cowboys had a great sense of humour, too. I heard one Dutch tourist tell them he'd never ridden before. They said, "Perfect, because we have a horse back here that's never been ridden." I think the joke went over the guy's head but I had a good giggle imagining how that would play out.

The horse they gave me was called what I suspect to be 'Walweep'. Struck a massive language barrier here. When I tried to repeat the name in MY accent, I was strongly corrected. These guys all talk with a Utaaaaaahn draaaaaaawl. Now I'm reasonably familiar with a Utah accent. So take that, and add the dash of Arizona and Texas where some of them originate from, slow it down thirty or forty miles, and bam - there you have it. I can't even think of how to phonetically type the way they pronounce Walweep. I think there might be about eight 'a's in it. Bung on your best John Wayne, say the word "Walweep" real slow like and you'd probably be about right. Walweep is a flea-bitten grey of undetermined breeding. Side note - after the brutal bashing I gave myself in Zion, I almost had to be helped into the saddle, I was that stiff. I bet they were all thinking "And she said she can ride, pffffft..." Anyhoo, the guy that loaded me into the saddle said Walweep would give me a very sweet, smooth ride. The way he said it very quietly made me highly suspicious. I am a horse rider, after all. A "sweet ride" could mean a few things.

I was right to be suspicious. Walweep is an awesome animal. Mega responsive. I had only to flex a calf muscle and he was off. Completely neck-rein trained, if I laid the reins over, he spun. If I pushed my hand forward, he went up a gait - even when I did this by accident. He also hated every other animal in the group, so I rode at the back of my group. Which meant I was at the front of the second group. The conversation with the cowboy leading the second group went something like this:

Him: "So, where you from?"
Me: "Australia."
Him: "Wow, that's a long way. How many are there in your party?"
Me: "My party? Oh, I see. It's just me, I'm travelling alone."
Him: "You left your boyfriend at home, then?"
Me: "No, I don't have one of those."
Him: "You don't? So can I take you out to dinner tonight?"
Me: "Are you serious?"
Him: "Yes ma'am."
Me: "Sure, that'd be great."

Ten seconds later...

Me: "So now that you've asked me out, what's your name?"

Shortly after this discussion, I was distracted by the discovery that my horse was suicidal. The tracks we were riding were in SERIOUS need of some very freaking serious guard rails!!!! Sheer drops off hair-pin turns. Lots of them. And Walweep wanted to do them in a big hurry. Or better still, sit on his rump and slide down the drops to the next switchback below because that would be quicker and easier for him than inching along behind the mule in front of us that no doubt frustrated the hell out of him. I had to neck-rein Walweep on every. single. turn. or he wasn't going to make them, despite eight animals in front of him doing exactly that. Mind of his own.

They certainly paired us up well. :-D

When we fell behind inching our way down these cliffs, he would suddenly lope off to catch up. Even if it meant plunging down the last twenty metres of a gorge so he could fang up the other side for two strides. He was a very cool ride. I just had to stay ready for him. And I did all this with a DSLR camera in my hand. I am totes awesome. A girl up the front of the ride kept dropping her iPhone off the side of her mule. Less totes awesome.

"Look, Mum! No helmet!"

Ride went for about three hours all up. As stiff as I was before, it actually helped loosen me back up. At the end, everyone else got off their animals and near crawled away. I jumped down and strolled off like I'd been doing it for twenty years. Which I guess I have.

As for the rest of my day, I was near homicidal when I got back to my room and discovered my room keys had demagnetised themselves during the day and I couldn't get in. And when I went down to reception I found they'd "closed for a few hours". They left a nice note about it on the door. Zippo help to me, though. I had the brain function (just) to go to the restaurant next door where half the staff also work and after quite a bit of dicking around, one of them got into the office and set me up with new keys. Lost an hour, though. Small towns, what can you do? :-D

And a very pleasant evening was had by all and that's all I'm saying about that.