That afternoon, we headed back to the hotel in quiet reflection and decided to cool it for awhile. We'd seen and experienced so much up to this point, we figured we could use a breather so we had lunch and then took a dip in the hotel pool. Every day since we'd arrived in Las Vegas, the air temperatures were above 100ºF so we thought the pool would be unswimmable. Another great surprise...it was cool and refreshing! Just perfect for us Yankees! We relaxed the rest of the day and looked at the travel brochures we got from the AAA travel agent and saw "Bryce Canyon" which we'd also seen a lot of signs for. We went back and forth on whether to go to that that evening, it was an hour's drive and we were pretty pooped. We decided against that and instead took a short jog down the road a couple of miles to a little pond we'd seen earlier in the day. Mr. Snoopynut took his binocs and I, of course, had my camera, just in case. Mr. Snoopynut ended up seeing a jack rabbit, which neither of us had ever seen before, but it was too far away even for my zoom lens. That was a pretty neat sight. We also saw some ducks and a few sheep off in the distance. We've all seen sheep before so I decided to spare you. LOL.
It was a warm evening with a light breeze and so peaceful. Utah is just an amazingly beautiful place. We could have stayed out there all night but we needed to get some rest for the drive back the next day. Not a simple drive back like we'd expected...
In New Hampshire they had the "Old Man of the Mountain"...in Utah they have a similar version, the "Old Squirrel of the Mounatin". LOL. (This is a natural rock formation, as far as we know, and we just happened to come across it.)
We headed off the next morning to see "Bryce Canyon". We'd heard of it but didn't really know what to expect. Yet another unexpected surprise.
On the way in to the park was a small pasture/prairie where we came across these White-tailed Prairie Dogs. They must have had their picture taken before because they seemed to be posing for the Snoopynut. Maybe Snoopy called ahead and gave them the "heads up"....
Bryce Canyon has a number of overlooks of the beautiful reddish canyons with ridges and formations that, if you have an imagination, (you know the Snoopynut does), you can see all sorts of neat things. For example, in one photo, we could see a spindly little formation that resembled a Siamese cat. In our minds, this was our little Miss America, no doubt at all. Another woman showed us a "guy playing an accordion" in one formation not long after we had seen Miss America in the rocks, so we're not the only loonies. LOL. Maybe it was the high elevation giving us hallucinations, who knows. Whatever it was, there is no better high. Speaking of elevations, here is the elevation at the highest viewing area at Bryce:
This one's my personal favorite. I saw this guy go into one hole so I waited at another for him to pop out. Sure enough, there he was.....
I took a lot of pictures at Bryce Canyon but it is so hard to capture the height and sheer majesticness (is that a word??) of the canyons. So what I did was enlarge a couple of photos that will take a little while to download for slow internet connections but I think they give you some idea of what we were feeling that day standing so far up on the mountain overlooking the canyons below. When you get the picture open, if you have Internet Explorer, click F11 at the top of your keyboard to get the best view. (You can click it again to get back your normal viewing screen.) In View #2, it was just a few steps back to "Oh, nooooooooooooooooo!!!!"
These could be postcards, couldn't they? See the little winding road down the bottom?
I had attached a luggage tag so I hoped at least someone would mail it back to me. Well, remember, we had already driven 20 minutes or so to this next viewing point so I had to talk Mr. Snoopynut into going back. He was cursing the situation all the way back in his head but I was praying and hoping. We got to the parking lot about 20 minutes later, (keep in mind this was a total of about 45 minutes from the time we left the first area where I'd left the bag), and Mr. Snoopynut wanted to go with me to the top where we'd taken the picture. Well, let me tell you, this trail was no walk in the park, pardon the pun. It was a very steep, gradual climb that wasn't a problem for us the first time but the second time I knew it would be hard because we were both so upset. Our hearts were already in panic-mode! I decided to do it myself, no need in both of us going. Up the hill I climbed, huffing and puffing and kicking myself for doing such a stupid thing. I was still hoping and praying all the way up even though my "little voice" was telling me this was crazy. This is a National Park with millions of visitors from all over the world coming through every day. What made me think there was even a remote chance? Well, whattaya know, there it was, hanging from a wooden post !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That bag never left our sights the rest of the trip.
Now, the trip to Bryce wasn't entirely trouble-free, unfortunately. After the first viewing area, we proceeded to the next one we thought we'd like to take a look at which was about 20 minutes up the road. We began to get out of the car when I noticed my camera bag was not with us. My heart sank. In that bag was not only a roll of film from the trip but also my 300mm zoom lens, only a few months old. I wanted to cry right there. Mr. Snoopynut being the eternal pessimist he is, : ) had pretty much decided it was a lost cause, cursing himself for not picking it up after taking this picture of me and Snoops. Of course, I knew it wasn't his fault or responsibility at all, it was mine. But I am an optimist and I knew if I hoped and prayed hard enough, it would make its way back to me.
