In our original plan, we were supposed to get to Bryce Canyon early. Since Canyonland however, we’ve seen that late afternoon is a very good time for visiting the parks. It’s cooler, with fewer people. So we stayed at the hotel this morning, enjoyed the swimming pool and the sun.

We arrived at Bryce Canyon early afternoon, spent some time at the geology day fair, went for a ranger-led walk about the geological history of Bryce Canyon, the vegetation and the park’s history.

We went for a long hike in the hoodoos. It was a bit cloudy at the start, but the sun appeared in the way back, changing the scenery completely.

During that hike, we met a family who were speaking both French and Norwegian. That puzzled us, and even more when Sarah recognized one of her classmates from the French school in Oslo last year… Quite a coincidence.

The kids completed their 7th junior ranger program, the last one, hopefully, for this holiday.

Before heading back home, we ate our diner looking at the sunset.

Bryce Canyon marks the end of the first part of our holidays, the great parks of Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and Arizona. Next is Las Vegas and the Californian coast.

We left Tusayan and the Grand Canyon this morning, heading northwards. We stopped for lunch at lake Powel, and drove to our hotel which will be our base camp for the coming days. A very short break, just the time to drop the bags.

We then drove to Zion National Park for a late afternoon visit – we arrived at 16:30. We took the shuttle bus to the trailhead of the temple of Sinawava.

We hiked for 30mins until the Canyon was too narrow and the trail stopped… and then, inspired by many others, we continued, barefooted, up the river. The hike became magical.

We walked for another hour before turning around.

We came back to the hotel quite late, after a stop at McDonalds.

The hotel provided some entertainment during the night with a fire alarm at 00:29. Thanks to our well trained kids, we were out not more than 1 minute after we woke up. Sarah was the faster to react. We were the first ones out, by far. It turned out to be a false alarm, but it took 30min before we could go back to the room.

In the morning, we woke up a bit earlier than usual and caught the first shuttle bus to the park. We followed a ranger led walk about fossils, where the kids went hunting for old marine fossils.

We took the shuttle to the western part of the south rim, had lunch, and went to the geology museum.

The kids got their 6th junior ranger badge. We, parents, are almost getting tired of it. It’s a lot of work, actually 😉

Since the hotel was just 15min away, we had decided to break early, enjoy the swimming pool, eat diner and go back to the park, by car, for the sunset. The sunset was a magical moment, with beautiful colors on the red rocks, a quiet crowd enjoying these precious minutes.

We’re leaving the park, and Arizona, tomorrow, going back to Utah. They’re both in the same time zone, but Arizona has summer time, which got us seriously confused on the way to the Grand Canyon. The clock on our phones and in the car updated automatically, so we were not aware of the change before quite late yesterday.

We left Moab in the morning, after a last session at the arcade games and at the water slide 🙂

We drove through the spectacular landscape of western Utah, with the iconic monuments carved by erosion. We didn’t stop at Monument Valley, we knew it would take too much time, and already got a good sample of it on the road. Priorities, priorities!

The second half of the trip was less enchanting, the equivalent of the Wyoming on our way to Cody, only with different colors.

We arrived late afternoon at the Grand Canyon National Park, made one stop to see the view on the eastern side (Desert view) and one stop at the main visitor center to plan our day tomorrow with the help of a ranger, smiling and helpful despite having spent the day answering the same questions again and again.

We reached our hotel, right outside the park, at Tusayan. We had read bad reviews in our guide about this town (tourist trap) but it’s the perfect place for families, with plenty of restaurants close to the hotel(s). It’s not charming, it’s not cheap, but it’s very convenient and the hotel is comfortable. And it’s literally 500m from the park’s entrance.

We finally went to Arches National Park. Because of the heat, we woke up early and went straight to the Delicate Arch, an hour hike from the nearest parking.

It was quite busy on the trail and at the arch, but people there were mindful of others and self disciplined, queuing to take a picture under the arch, and always letting 30s between each group for allowing for undisturbed pictures to be taken.

We stayed there half an hour, took our picture under the arch, and hiked back to the car under a burning sun.

And of course, as with all the other national parks, the kids completed their junior ranger program, the 5th one.

We enjoyed a relaxing lunch and afternoon at the hotel, alternating between arcade games and water slide.

We had diner at a local brewery, very nice grilled and smoked food.

This is our last day in Moab! Tomorrow we head west. More parks to visit!

Moab was the first place after Denver where we would stay a few days and relax. It was important after driving over 2000km in less than a week. Our plan was still to try to get to Arches national park early in the morning, but we cancelled that yesterday, and decided to have a quiet morning instead.

The kids enjoyed the Arcade room at the hotel and the swimming pool – or, rather, the water slide. We went for a short walk and lunch on Main St.

Mid afternoon, we drove to the Canyonland National Park, 45min from Moab. A beautiful place, a high plateau between the Colorado valley and the Green river valley. A Lucky Luke scenery, with cliffs and canyons. We keep getting surprised, even though we have been in the area several times before.

Of course, the kids can’t visit a national park without getting a junior ranger badge… They have to work hard, though!

Back to the hotel quite late, Tim couldn’t resist ‘a few’ rounds at the water slide, like 45, and counting…