Utah Parks Tour Continues

We've reached Bryce Canyon National Park and I miss my cat.

We started the day near Capitol Reef National Park. It's one of Utah's least visited national parks, according to the brochure back in the Whispering Sands motel room. I can see why.


Other than a natural bridge requiring only a one-mile climb to reach, Capitol Reef had little to distinguish itself from the canyons you see all over Utah. The park may have other worthwhile things to see accessible only by unpaved roads for which your car needs 4-wheel-drive.

Happy enough that our Toyota Pious still has four wheels, we weren't going to try to get to them.

One stone face did feature ancient carvings that park literature touted as historical records of early inhabitants.


They looked like grade-school children's drawings to me. What's the difference between graffiti and archeology? About 800 years.

By early afternoon, we were winding our way south on Route 12, opting for a scenic route that repeated much of the scenery we had already seen, and found a room in a town 10 miles outside of Bryce Canyon called Tropic. If you're keeping track, that means we have now stayed in Utah towns named Hurricane and Tropic.

A skinny girl with poor skin and breasts large enough to distract you from the acne manned the Bryce Valley Inn's check-in desk. She was a Russian student here on an exchange program. Sort of. When I asked another Russian student working in the restaurant next door if any Americans went over there, he said, "Not so much." Not so much of an exchange, then.

After dinner we went to the canyon. Mindful of this morning's disappointment, we hoped we'd see more than what we'd driven 120 miles through this afternoon. We went to a place called Sunset Point -- it was that time of day -- and saw a sign that said the area was best photographed at sunrise. Should we have gone to Sunrise Point? No. The sign said that all the viewpoints were best photographed at sunrise. Tomorrow night we have a room at the Bryce Canyon Lodge within the park itself. We'll drag ourselves out of bed for sunrise Sunday morning.