Day seven: Bryce to Torrey, UT (Beauty overload)

After today I need to spend 24 hours in a completely white room. Seriously, I’ve seen so many amazing things, I can’t assimilate any more. In late afternoon we stopped at a scenic vista that is the kind of place the devil would take someone and say “You can have ALL OF THIS in exchange for your soul!” I got out of the car and was like, “Hey, look at that cute squirrel!”

Granted, he was really cute, but behind him was a thousand mile vista.

To explain my saturation…I woke up early at Bryce to get to the sunrise viewpoint, and was greeted by dull clouds. At the time I was disappointed that my photo op was ruined, but when I downloaded the pictures, I was pleasantly surprised that the gentle light yielded some nice results in contrast to the sharp sun of midday.

I got a cup of tea and went back to collect R., and by the time we got checked out of the room and ready for our hike, it was bright sun. We took a “moderate” difficulty hike and took WAY WAY too many photos. I will spare you all but a few.

Climbing down into the valley was fun, climbing back out was a brutal switchback. 80-year old women with walking sticks were passing me.

After that we took a brief tour to check out Kodachrome Valley State Park. The road there was great…farms surrounded by southwest-style hills. Unfortunately, as soon as we got to the park, a thunderstorm rolled in.

I’m from California so this phenomena was totally new to me. One moment we were standing in the sun in 74 degree weather, the next, there was thunder and lightening and rain and the temperature dropped almost 20 degrees. A waitress at Bryce told us a German tourist was killed two weeks ago by a lightening strike, so I hurried to the car. Within about five minutes, the thunder and lightening were happening only three seconds apart, and the rain was coming down so hard we could barely see. It rained hard on and off all day.

We headed back to “scenic” Highway 12. Turns out it wasn’t even paved until 1985. The scenery changed constantly and dramatically.

Bare white rock, red cliffs, river valleys, dramatic vistas, high plateaus with meadows and aspen trees, pine forests, farmland surrounded by striated peaks. This is probably one of the most amazing 100 mile drives I’ve ever taken.

By the evening my head was spinning, probably in part to the tiny windy road we were on all day. We checked into a traditional motel in Torrey Utah, and had a great dinner at Diablo Cafe. Tomorrow, I’m planning a hike in a “small, steep-sided canyon.” I think that my brain can handle that amount of scenery!