We took our second excursion to southern Utah to visit two more of the National Parks: Bryce Canyon and Capitol Reef National Park. We of course waiting until getting back from Australia to book the trip, so Gregg worked his magic and found us places to stay and a great route as, even though I love camping (hahaha... sorry), I wasn't quite ready to try it with Kaylen just yet. So, we took off to Bryce Canyon. We were lucky and had beautiful weather the entire trip! Kaylen did great the whole ride down!
We bought a kid leash so that Kaylen couldn't take off and fall down any one of the 100 cliffs! We used it toward the beginning and it was great! Many of the stops at Bryce are pretty crowded because they're trying to cut down on pollution and traffic, so they run major shuttles to most of the main stops. We always managed to find good pictures though to admire all the beauty.
These places really are so amazing. And we've said many times, pictures do not do them justice. They are definitely awe inspiring. We realized pretty quickly that this trip would not be like the couple other trips we took to Arches National Park a couple years ago. We were given a great kid back pack deal, which was great, but this wouldn't be as much of a hiking trip as just admiring the scenery.
Kaylen did great on the couple hikes took her on. We took this beautiful hike called the Navajo Loop. Gregg did such a great job on our hikes with Kaylen on his back! She did great too! She did want to stop every 2 minutes though for "wah wah"...which really meant the ice floating around IN the water! :-)
The family on the Navajo Loop
The hike up to the waterfall and the mossy cave hike
We stopped over night in a tiny "town" called Boulder between Bryce Canyon and Capitol Reef, although it wasn't much of a town. We went to the Anasazi Indian State Park. It was a little smaller than we figured, but it had great ruins we could walk through behind the museum of the Anasazi or ancestral puebloan people that once lived there.
Gregg and Kaylen in front of a pit house
Gregg booked us a room at this really nice hotel called Boulder Mountain Lodge. It was beautiful! We had an end room so we could park right outside our door. The room had vaulted ceilings and a huge bathroom. The hotel didn't have a pool, but it did have a hot tub. It was a bit too hot for Kaylen, so she just ran around it for a while until we were all ready to head back to the room.
One of the other super great features of this room/ hotel was that we had a door on the side and another in the back that lead to this great patch of grass that Kaylen could play on. There was a great double Adirondack chair, a gorgeous day, and the grass for Kaylen. Pretty perfect.
Even though the tiny town of Boulder is hardly on the map, their restaurant Hells Backbone Grill (named after a nearby hike) is award winning. Gregg being the awesome planner he is, got reservations early and for being a pretty deserted town, that restaurant filled up!! It was pretty fancy and unfortunately, Kaylen was not in the mood for dinner, much less a fancy dinner! But we enjoyed our dinner and headed back to the room for bed! It was a great pit stop between two beautiful parks!
Next up... Capitol Reef! It is one of the less traveled parks, maybe because it's not quite as large, but as soon as we drove in... it was hard to understand why! It's beautiful! There is a great scenic drive tour and due to it being our last day, also the day we were heading home, it was a great way to see much of the park!
Our scenic drive explained all of the different layers of the earth's crust. The most defining for Capitol Reef is called the Waterpocket Fold (I had to re-look it up! :-) ) It was beautiful, that's all I really know. So many very different layers and different colors.
We finished off our scenic drive with a great hike... again, Kaylen did great! We were able to see what is called the pioneer register where some of the early pioneers wrote their names on the walls and some early petroglyphs! (Seen below)
Our family on our hike!
These pools of water were called "the tanks" or waterpockets.
Our little rock hoarder
We definitely had a wonderful trip! Kaylen did so incredibly well considering the 4 hours drives, the irregular schedules and having everything be so unfamiliar! It took us just a bit to realize that these trips as a family will be different, but honestly, it's great to share the experiences with Kaylen and we love all the great time with her! There are 5 National Parks in Utah and now we've done 4 (not mentioned above was also the Canyonlands found near Arches). So, the one we still need to make time to do is Zion National Park! It would also be great to see the Grand Canyon while we live so close.
Thank you to my wonderful husband and daughter who are always so darn wonderful and help make such fantabulous memories! Love you!
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