On the Road with Rolo

All of the places my brother and I visited in Utah were repeats–we passed through this area on a family road trip when I was almost 7 and he almost 4. But our memories of that trip are vague at best–apparently I had the Grand Canyon and Bryce Canyon mixed up in my memory bank and about the only other thing we remember is Rice Krispies treats and Aaron staging a hiking strike–so we returned to create some new memories in Zion, Bryce, Arches, and the land in between. It truly is a stunning part of the country, and we were oohing and ahing and stopping for pictures around every bend in the road. We only had time to drive through Zion on the way to Bryce (thanks to my National Parks Pass it’s no big deal to just drive through a park with a $20 admission fee), stopping for a picnic lunch below the great arch or whatever it’s called and then taking a one-mile hike to look out on the vista from atop that same mountain. Bryce was so cool we decided to cancel a possibly mediocre day of spring skiing to stay there another night. We hiked the Fairyland Loop, eight miles of cool scenery and very few other hikers, and the next day took in the Navajo Loop along with a gaggle of French tour-bus tourists who Aaron says were making fun of my car as they walked past. Then all the way down the trail they were shouting to each other about nothing of great import, mostly how it looked so cool down there and hey, let’s go! Take my picture! Aargh. The fact that they were speaking in French did nothing to reduce the annoyance of being surrounded by shouting hikers (there must have been at least 50 of them, traipsing down the hill in their impractical loafers and silk scarves). We left them behind at the bottom and climbed back out of the canyon via the Queen’s Garden trail, which was really cool and interesting. A final stop-off at Bryce Point (where we encountered more shouting French people), and we bid adieu to the canyon. We headed off via Route 12, the Scenic Byway, on our way to Moab, passing through part of Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument and Capital Reef National Park.That was sort of a rough day for Rolo–he wouldn’t start for a few tries first thing in the morning, was an accessory to my driving 45 in a 30-mph zone in Escalante and barely getting away without a ticket, was maltreated by me as I pulled into an unpaved turnout a little too quickly (and thankfully didn’t get a flat tire), and valiantly assisted in helping me swerve around some massive rubber disks in the middle of the interstate near Moab. Phew! Luckily we all arrived safely in Moab, where we checked into the Lazy Lizard Hostel and went to eat at a packed Mexican joint, full of locals and sunburned dudes in lycra, called La Hacienda. The next morning we were off to Arches National Park to take in more cool red rocks, and hiked to the Delicate Arch along with a lot of other people–but it was a fun atmosphere and everyone was having a good time lounging out by the arch after the long, hot hike to get there. We hung out there longer than expected and didn’t leave Moab until 3:00, and arrived in Denver right around 9:00 after a long, slow climb over the Rockies.Pictures of all this fabulous scenery can be found in individual albums here.