Dec 10-11 Bryce Canyon

Sunday -Monday Dec 10-11

   The drive to Bryce Canyon took us through The Grand Escalante and the Dixie National Forest.  The Dixie National Forest is an area of intense green pine trees.  It was amazing to see so much green after driving for so long in desert brown territory.  These ponderosa pines are tall with copper colored thick heavy bark.  They stand tall and straight filling the landscape with lush greenery and the smell of pine.  It was a familiar scent,  the scent of home.
   Driving through the Grand Escalante was hair raisingly scary.  The road was winding and narrow.  There were no guard rails along the sides of steep cliffs. For about an 8 mile section we drove over the top of a canyon.  It was like driving on the knife’s edge of Kattadin.  Mark has a bit of vertigo and he was definitely having a white knuckle experience.  We were driving about 5 miles an hour and hoping that no one would come toward us as were situated in the middle of the two lane road.  Mark doesn’t usually keep his cell phone nearby, often forgetting where he put it.  However, on this most narrow frightening part of the road he received a message on his cell.  He forgot that his cell phone was in his breast pocket and it was vibrating.  “I think I am having a heart attack!”   Amazingly, he continued to drive carefully down the road without having a real heart attack.
   We slowly decended off the “edge” and wound our way through an Aspen forest.  Aspen trees are similar to birch only their bark is more of a cream color.  They grow in large clumps close together and I believe their root system is actually one tree system.
   There is such pleasure in the open road.  It is a classic American adventure.  It represents freedom to go wherever, whenever one wishes.  We are truly enjoying this open road freedom.  Where else can anyone drive almost 3000 miles from coast to coast with no roadblocks.  There is always a place to stay and eat, and meet friendly people along the way.
   We made a stop to admire another landscape and to give Jack a pee break.  There were 2 ravens hanging around our car.  They were not scared off by Jack’s bark; they just flew a few feet higher than he could reach.  They were beautiful birds, large with shiny black feathers.  They stared at us for quite some time.  They watched us get back into our van then, as if on cue they worked in tandem to stop us from driving on.  One flew right next to the drivers side sat down on the road and proceeded to “talk” to Mark.  He rolled down his window and responded in his version of Raven talk.  The other bird was on my side of the van talking to me.  Mark slowly started moving when the Raven on his side of the car flew right in front of us and sat in the middle of the road.  As we approached closer, he refused to move.  Slowly, we crept closer until the other bird joined him in the middle of the road.  We continued to move slowly toward the birds when all of a sudden one them took off seemingly heading off in the wooded area.  We laughed and thought how clever these birds were to try to stop us and perhaps provide a treat.  As we made the sharp turn down the road who was waiting for us right in the middle of the road.  That Raven cut us off by taking the short cut.  He knew we would be coming around the bend.  These birds are really clever.
   Since the nights are still well below freezing we booked a room at Ruby’s Hotel in Bryce Canyon.  The days are warm, reaching into the mid 50’s and full sunshine.  The weather couldn’t be better for hiking and viewing the canyons.  We scoped out the park and planned our day to experience the beauty of Bryce in the morning.
   We walked the rim and Mark walked the Queen Garden path down into the canyon.  I started down the path but got a feeling of vertigo and shakey knee syndrome.  I remember hiking in the Grand Canyon 20 years ago and having similar feelings.  Years later, these feelings don’t go away, they get worse.  I have had my share of panic attacks in my life, most notably one in Aruba with Joe and Anna while ATVing.  Not a pretty sight, except for being rescued by Carlos.  Anyway, I did not want to have one here. The area known as the amphitheater was an unimaginable outcropping of rock formations called Hoodoos.  The Native Americans thought that these were the remains of bad Indians that the coyotes had turned into stone.  The colors are spectacular, light orange, beige, white, greys and cream.  It is a most extraordinary geological landscape.  While Mark traversed the bottom of the canyon I had a very peaceful meditation on the illusion of permanence.  As much as I might wish for things to remain the same, change is constant even if every so slowly.  These monumental structures are a beautiful reminder of that.
  Bryce is a natural wonder!