June 24 - Trusting your child's life to a cowboy with braces

After a few failed attempts at finding an RV site close to Bryce, we opted for a KOA Kampground (one can only wonder whether it’s Klan-owned), which was a serviceable option. On the one hand, we were able to plug in, and recharge computers and cell phones, and hook up water, and we were even able to get cell phone service! On the other hand, they have a little work to do on their sewer system, and let’s just leave it at that.

So it was off to Bryce Canyon National Park, which is not really a canyon, but a series of tall stone outcroppings (I suppose they should call it Bryce Kanyon or some such, but maybe the KOA people would sue for appropriating their disquieting use of the K).

In any event, these stone outcroppings (known, and I’m not making this up, as “hoodoos”) are Krazy Kool. They’re white limestone cliffs which have eroded so much that all that are left are what look like totem poles of rock. Millions of years ago, the whole place was ocean, and the iron deposits left behind have oxidized, so the whole place is literally rusted, thus the cliché orange color.


Hoodoos

It looks to me like an ancient civilization, and all that’s left of it is a sprawling network of eroding foundations. And some Krazy nut painted the whole think orange.

After minimal debate, we decided to take a trail ride into the Kanyon. For those who think we should be written up by PETA, I assure you that these animals were in really good shape, so don’t worry.

Our guide was a cowpoke-in-training named Stetson (I swear he introduced himself as “Stetson.” I had half a mind to say, “well, in that case I’m Tam O’Shanter.”) “Stetson” was all of fifteen or sixteen, with a face full of braces, but otherwise he played the part of the grizzled ranch hand, waxing laconic about his mule and the vistas, and cracking the occasional corny joke. I have a sneaking suspicion that, like the guides at Universal Studios, there’s a thick manual that they have to memorize, because some of our juvenile guide’s bon mots seemed a wee bit canned.

Janine, Maggie, and "Stetson" (damn, I wish I had a closeup)

No matter – young “Stetson” showed promise. He was reassuringly confident and genial, and he led us down to the bottom of the canyon, working our way around narrow rims with deep drop offs. Janine initially nearly gave birth to kittens on the horse in front of me, before she eased into the experience, but Maggie loved every minute.


This was actually an astonishingly good way to experience this amazing place. The horses do most of the work, there’s a charming apprentice cowboy providing play by play (“that there’s manzanilla – mean’s ‘little apple’ in Spanish because it makes little berries that look like apples but taste like wood”), and you don’t have to stop in order to take a picture. Very efficient.

When it was all over, we limped back to the RV for the two hour drive to our next destination - Zion National Park. Now, on this score, a little research would have gone a long way. First, our RV park was on the west side of the park, and we were coming in from the east. As it turns out, the only way to get from the east side to the west side is to pay your entrance fee and pass through. Since we'd be coming back the next day, this wouldn't be a problem, but you have to take a shuttle around the park, except to pass through (if this is getting boring, feel free to skip to the part about the hippie freak grocery store in the middle of Mormon Utah in a paragraph or two).

As you might imagine, they don't let dogs on the shuttle, and especially not our dogs, so seeing much of Zion was out. So we paid our twenty five bucks (plus fifteen for an "escort" through one of the tunnels - RVs don't fit in a single lane, so they have to close the tunnel so we can drive down the middle) and pretty much drove straight through the park to the other side. It's pretty spectacular, but we'll have to come back some day to get a real sense of the place.

RESUME READING HERE
On the far side of the park, however, rose an apparition - an oasis, really. Literally at the west gate of Zion is a gourmet organic health food market, staffed by hippies. Selling such blasphemy as Polygamy Porter (our checkout person had a button on that said "I've Tried Polygamy," as well as granola, goat cheese, and actual fresh fruit and vegetables, you'd think this place would have been burned to the ground years ago. You just never know where you'll find hippies, thank goodness.

So we were off to the Zion River RV Park, a Disneylandish place complete with swimming pool, game room, wireless internet, and flat sites (we spend nearly every night of our life sleeping on a relatively flat bed, and to be honest I don't think we appreciate this nearly enough). We scored a dandy little spot next to the Virgin River, and settled in for the night.