Bryce Canyon

Another place I was really looking forward to visiting was Bryce Canyon.  We had seen photos of it while we were planning and I knew it was another beautiful place!

 We had to stop here to show this to Ruby.  This place had a gift shop and also sold sandwiches so we picked some up for lunch.

Here is our first view of what was to come.  Bryce canyon is known for the unusual shapes, which are called hoodoos.

As you can see, this was another area with tall cliffs.  Here's Bob and Mark sitting too close to the edge for me.  There was actually more distance than this photo shows, but still scary!
Do you see the smoke on the right side of the picture?  They were dealing with two forest fires in the area, and one of the paths we were planning to walk on was closed due to fire.

Here's Cheri and I in the same spot.  You notice we sat on the other side of the bench.  No way were we walking around it.  :)

There were fire rangers working to prevent further fires.  They were cutting down dead trees and gathering dry wood into these teepee shapes to be burned later.  We could hear the chain saws while we hiked and we saw a few of them taking a break.

 Bob and I on the trail.

It's interesting to see the old trees that have fallen.  Isn't the bark interesting?

Mark, by a sign echoing what Cheri and I kept saying!

Cool markings on an old tree, made by bugs.

When we finished walking the first hike, we were at 9115 feet.

This is another canyon that is so vast, it's hard to even take it in!

At one of the pull of spots there were a few ravens.  They must have been used to people, because they hung around, and let people get pretty close before flying off.

Here's Bob with the raven.  We named him Ed, as in Edgar Allen Poe.  Bob put this photo on Facebook and said he tried to strike up a conversation with him, but he always answered "Nevermore".  If you are a Poe fan, you'll understand that!  I know our friend Jenny will!


After the hike and drive, we got to the main part of the canyon and absolute beauty!

Look at all those hoodoos!

Do you see the people at the bottom of the canyon? Mark and Cheri did the hike down it.  They said it was gorgeous, but quite a hike back up!

On the way out, we saw a pronghorn antelope!  There was another one in the trees but I couldn't get a picture of it.

Shortly after that we saw these mule deer, the two in back are young ones.
It was fun seeing them in the light, but we stayed late and were driving home in the dark.  At least 4 times on the drive home we saw one or more on the edge of the road.  We were happy to get home without any accidents that night!