Boondocking at Bryce Canyon

Monday, October 2nd

Hard to believe we have been back on the road for 5 weeks already. We sure have seen lots with more to come.

This morning we made ourselves stay in bed to 6:15 am to try and "reset" our internal alarm clocks as we have been waking up before 5 am for which seems like weeks. Excitement, I guess and the fact that we were without TV for 3 of those weeks and got out of our routine.  Especially since Ray needed to lay down after dinner to rest his back and I usually went in and joined him  to keep him company around 8pm. But for me, even reading more than half an hour laying down, without the TV I'm asleep!

Anyways, this morning we will have a lazy start as we are only moving 1 1/2 miles down the road to the boondocking spot on FSR 090 as I had mentioned previously.

We were all set up by 11 am. What a great spot. Great area for Freya to run around. It was quite cool with a breeze so Ray and I just hunkered down for a couple of hours waiting for the sun to break through the clouds ... Freya refused to come in, she just stayed outside on her mat, sniffing all of the new smells. Ray needed to lay down and rest his back. Ray and I have been quite busy for the last while and have not had very many chances to have an "at home" day so I am looking forward to slowing him down somewhat so he is in better shape for the next leg of our adventures.

After lunch around 1:30 pm, the sun came out so we took a drive further down the road to gather up some dried branches for a campfire. Ray drove and I jumped out to collect the pieces. Once back at camp we had a lovely roaring fire for a couple of hours just relaxing.

A fabulous free spot!

Tuesday, October 3rd

I woke up at 4 am and realised it was quite cool in the coach so kicked up the Big Buddy from low to medium. Love that heater! Freya knew to sleep on the couch where it was warmer! Temps outside was 22 F. Burrr. We were warm and toasty in our beds though.

Freya woke us up at 5:15 am ... her usual time so we put her up with us on the bed and managed another 45 minutes of "snoozing". I cranked the rear furnace and turned the Big Buddy onto high. At 6 am it was warm and toasty so up we got. Temps outside had dropped even further to 21 F.

Noticed as it started to get light that a small camper van snuck in overnight into our camping spot ... hope they like generator noise and a large dog! lol

After breakfast we headed out at 8:30 am to drive to get some pictures from Inspiration Point and then drive to the other end of the park to stop at all the other overlooks.

Inspiration Point

Inspiration Point

Inspiration Point

Inspiration Point

Inspiration Point

Ray and I had heard about the "Wall of Windows" and we managed to spot it while up on Inspiration Point.

Wall of Windows

Wall of Windows

Also noted from Inspiration Point was the "Chinese Wall"

Chinese Wall

Chinese Wall

We drove further up the road and stopped at Black Birch Canyon View.

Next up was  Rainbow Point View at the very end of the road. Some of the road is just on the very top of the mountain where you can see down both sides. See the car?

"Driving the Edge"

Rainbow Point Vista

Rainbow Point Vista

Next viewpoint was Ponderosa Canyon View:

Next up was the Natural Bridge, which is actually and arch.

Natural Bridge (Arch)

Natural Bridge (Arch)

That was enough walking around for today. Back by 11:00 and spent the rest of the day outside enjoying the sunshine. Although the temps were a little chilly, we felt warm in the sun.  I did take a hike up the hill behind us with the dog "to see what was on the other side". That definitely pooped me out. We are both finding the high altitude a little hard still. 8000 feet a little thin with breathing, even the dog takes lots of breaks. We had a gorgeous fire and I even managed to roast a potato and yam in the coals.

Ray's new favourite pass time .... killing wasps that kept congregating in Freya's water dish.

"I'm going to get you!"

Wednesday, October 4th

Ray and I both had a great sleep and finally did not wake up until 6:30 am. Must have been all of that fresh air yesterday. Had a lazy morning ... Ray served me coffee in bed so I could watch some of my shows to catch up. A lot warmer last night about 42F ... 20 degrees warmer than yesterday morning at 4:30 am. Noticed it did go down to 34F at 6:30 am though. Another beautiful and sunny day.

Today, we drove into Panquitch (1/2 hour away) to load up on groceries and gas for the car for the next week or so in preparation for us to continue down Highway 12 towards Escalante. Ray came for the drive to keep me company.

This year's adventure in Utah is to explore The Grand Staircase by viewing Bryce Canyon, Escalante Grand Staircase etc. Really fascinating.




The above picture shows all of the "layers" of geology to have these colourful cliffs.

After we got back and had lunch we took off a short distance down the Forest Service Road to cut some firewood from a couple of 6" trees that were down on the ground. I did all of the heavy work lifting, packing and turning the short log to enable Ray to use our little chainsaw to cut the log into chunks. He had to kneel down so not to stress his back too much. Within minutes we had enough wood for a couple of fires. Yeah. That was his "activity" for today, now to relax and enjoy the sun.

Tonight's fire will be my cooking implement as we are trying out "hobo dinners" that I have not done since the kids were small.

At the moment I am sitting in the parking lot of Ruby's Inn and Campground blogging as we have used up all of our data until Friday. :)

PS if I have made any errors .... Ray will edit the post on Friday and I may be changing some things ... lol

PS: We had 4G 4bars of cell coverage with AT&T at this spot.