Catching Up with Family and Friends

We haven't just been sitting here in Arizona, doing nothing.  We have had good times with family and friends.  Over their spring break, our son Eric and his wife Liz, our grandson John and his friend came to the Valley of the Sun to see us and escape the cold and snow in Colorado.  We had a great lunch at Garcia's with them.

Before they left, we also visited them at their resort, Tapatio, for another good lunch.

Yesterday, we met our friends Barbara and Ron, at the Peralta Trailhead and had a beautiful hike on the Dutchman Trail.  I had forgotten how many saguaro cactus and cholla cactus grew in that area. 

 

 

 

The US Forest Service volunteer in the parking lot told us to look for two rock formations, the cathedral and the three bears.  We think we found both of them.

We also hooked up our Airstream trailer to our new truck and went to Tucson for a few days.  The truck pulls the trailer great.  And we enjoyed a visit to the Tucson Botanical Gardens.

There were organ pipe cactus

crested cactus

and creeping cactus that looked like snakes!

We also saw beautiful human creations in the gardens.  Many of the benches were artistic creations.

Look at this garden wall.

Someone put in a lot of artistic effort to make this wall chart so we could identify the herbs and flowers in one garden.

Oh yes, we have both been able to get both of our Covid vaccination shots!  

All in all, we are enjoying our winter here in Arizona. 

Bryce Canyon Hiking, Scenery and Visitors

After our week near Capitol Reef National Park, we continued south and west to Bryce Canyon National Park. This is probably our favorite national park and we became very familiar with it in 2005 when we volunteered here for three months. That was 15 years ago and we are still enamored. The scenery is spectacular. 

 We have done three major hikes and walked the rim during our stay. First, we hiked Navajo Loop to Queen's Garden and came up Wall Street. Bryce is not really a canyon, it is an amphitheater. You can look at it from the rim and it is beautiful. But hike down to the bottom--700 to 800 feet--and the experience is very different. Just remember, if you hike down 700 or 800 feet, you have to hike up the same amount. We have gotten lots of exercise!

This is a view looking up from the bottom. 

The bottom of Navajo Loop and the hike up Wall Street is like a moderately wide slot canyon. The light is filtered and everything has a red cast.

There were quite a few people enjoying the same experience we were.

These are views from the Rim down into the amphitheater. The rock formations and fascinating and the rock colors range from red to to pink to white.

After our walk along the rim, our niece, Tina, and her husband Vance came to visit. They have been traveling around beautiful Utah this month, as well. We had a really good visit. 

Bryce Point is the highest place along the rim of the Bryce Amphitheater. Saturday we rode the park shuttle from the Visitor Center to Bryce Point, then hiked down into the bottom and hiked back on the Peek-a-boo Trail to the Navajo Loop and hiked up to the rim on the Two Bridges Trail. We logged 13,438 steps that day. We were really exhausted.

Here you can "peek" from one area of the canyon to another.

Some people choose to see Bryce from the back of a horse. We were glad we met the horses at a wide spot in the trail.

At the end of a long summer, the trails in Bryce are very dusty. Just look at my legs at the end of our hike.

There were lots of people along the rim when we hiked out of the canyon. Unfortunately, I didn't pay attention to the fact our week here extended over the Labor Day Weekend. Whatever was I thinking? Bryce is very popular. There are lots of tents in Ruby's Inn Campground, where we are staying. There were also lots of trailers until this morning. Now it is almost empty. I guess summer is over.

Hiking the Reef

That title might make you think we are near the ocean.  But I don't think it is possible to hike that sort of reef.  We are in Utah, exploring Capitol Reef National Park.  We have done 3 hikes on the Waterpocket Fold.  That is an uplift revealing "a nearly complete set of Mesozoic-era sedimentary layers," according to the park's Geology information.

Our first hike was a 3 1/2 mile hike to Cohab Canyon.  This is the backdrop for the Visitor Center.

Many of the cliffs are covered with these holes--called water pockets.  These holes are caused by water and wind.

This canyon wasn't quite as narrow as it appears. 

We didn't walk up this narrow side canyon.

Our second hike was to Hickman Bridge.  A bridge looks like an arch but it is carved out by water, rather than wind and sand.

The rocks in Capitol Reef come in many different colors.  The deep red stone is rich in oxidized iron.  Here is a hill of light pink stone.  We saw this as we were driving through the park. 

This was our view of that mountain as we climbed toward Hickman Bridge.

In places we found trees for some welcome shade.

One of  our views from under Hickman Bridge.

The center of the bridge is really narrow, considering the heavy rock it is made of.

Here are two views looking through the bridge.

Finally, a view of the Fremont River that carved the bridge. 

More interesting shapes on the landscape.

Our third hike was through the Grand Wash, a gorge that cuts its way through the upper portion of the Waterpocket Fold. Though the trail is long--3.5 miles one way--it is almost level, with only a 200 foot change in elevation. The trail was the busiest we have seen here in the park.

One hiker who passed us asked if we would like him to take a picture of the two of us together in the Wash.

Looking up at the sky.

I'm not sure how these plants get enough sun to make chlorophil in the bottom of the wash, but they sure add to the beauty of the place. Notice the windows--holes--in this rock formation.

If we didn't know that we could get out the other end of the Grand Wash, we might wonder where we were going or if we would ever find out way out.

John sure looks small against the massive wall.

Here are some more water pockets. If you look closely, you can see some the smaller stones in some of the holes or pockets. They must have been carried by the water rushing through the gorge.

To really get a perspective on the size of everything in the Grand Wash, look closely at this photo.  There are two people walking away from the camera just under the right side of the overhang at the back of the photo.