Best Western Paradise Inn Beaver

... of horseshoe shaped canyons filled with amazing rock formations called hoo-doos. There are various "stop-offs" at points along the main road through the park and we stopped off and admired the views at most of them.

At one of our final ones, there was a couple standing off the path in an area which was clearly marked as out of bounds due to the park services trying to re-cultivate the vegetation there (no doubt previously trampled on). We made some ...

... waere eigentlich verboten: 100 Dollar Strafe!) =) Chapter 19: Bryce National Park 27. May 2008 Amazing! No other place amazed us more than Bryce Canyon. We gazed at it from the various viewingpoints and shared our very tasty chipmunks (psst that's forbidden: 100 Dollar penalty!) =)

Short day driving today. My eyes are bagged. I am where I planned to be when I mapped out my return home. Surprise. Surprise. When I left Vegas this morning I decided to drive to Provo, another 250 kms further. But I know how to read the signs now. It was time to stop. That's It! That's All! PS. The ICE show was amazing last night. Third row, center stage. But that wasn't hard to get. It wasn't a sold out show.

Day 6 Only about 4 hours drive today, but when we got the Bryce canyon it was snowing. Not good when we were all sat in the van in shorts, vests and flip flops. so we hopped out and Art found us 6 man cottages, was really fun. Once we got settled it had actually stopped ...

... instead of just putting on the heat, I went and drove instead. It would've been tough for me to go back to sleep anyway. So we went onward and stopped at rest areas and sleeping and when it got cold, I drove again. We ended up outside Green River at 8 am. It was amazing to wake up in Utah. The scenery was just incredible. I had never expected Southern Utah to look like this. We were just outside Moab, and after hearing about another friend's experience in ...

... then headed back to the park to do some more hiking in the snow. When I got back to my camp, Gerry invited me to dinner. I rushed to the bathroom to cleaned up and look presentable (lost cause, I guess). Then, I went to join them and I was treated to Gerry's home cooking and their friendly conversation. We ended up going to see The Pink Panther at the Zion Big Screen movie theatre. Classic Steve Martin-and Jean Renu as a sidekick (?). Nina ...

Only one more night to stay in the Bates Motel, sorry Travelodge. Last night was definitely the coldest of the trip so far, there was actually a little bit of snow on the ground and our car when we woke up this morning. Also we could see that the mountains in the distance had received a fresh sprinkling of snow. Luckily as we braved the same mountain road that we drove over the other day, the snow ploughs had been out in force again. Using our frequent user National Park ...

... at the hotel it was Superbowl XL night, meaning that most of the schedules were pretty much exclusively dedicated to coverage of the game. I watched the final quarter, but to be honest I've never been much of an American Football fan. We preferred to watch Puppy Bowl II that was on the Animal Planet channel, this involved a constantly changing procession of cute puppies running around a mini pitch, with puppy toys scattered across it.

... snow and the branches of the trees bowing under the weight of the snow too, it was like a quick visit to Narnia. Even though I doubt that C.S. Lewis imagined people zooming along in jet skis by the side of the car! Difficult to believe that only two days before we'd been in seventy degree heat. On this trip so far, we've been pretty lucky with the hotels that we've stayed at, especially when you consider that our ...

... value minerals I headed into Richfield where I got a couple of quarts of oil and filled up on gas before heading south. After a quick stop at a rock shop to get more of an idea what I was looking for I stopped along route 4 by a creek and got a bath and shampoo since I had accumulated a good portion of grit and dust the last few days. Feeling much better, I tried to find the road to Milford from ...