Las Vegas to Bryce Canyon

---

11th August, 2022

Alarm went off bright and early this morning so we could make the 7am pick up for the tour. We were by ourselves at the pickup point for quite a while. But less than 3 minutes from pick up time, heaps of people turned up. We had a full bus of 13 passengers plus the driver. The driver Joe told us that this was going to be a very fast paced tour and warned each one of us not to be late back to the bus anytime we stopped.

First stop was Zion National Park which was quite spectacular with mountains almost right on top of you. There was a shuttle bus that goes around the park and stops at significant places and we just rode that to each stop, got off for a look around and then hopped on the next one coming through. It was a nice place and I enjoyed it, but it wasn’t overwhelming. Some of the group went on a hike to the top of one of the highlights and ended up staying there too long. The rest of us had gotten back to the bus on time but this group were about 1/2 hour late which didn’t make Joe the driver very happy. Our lunch was included with the tour and we received a ham and salad roll, bag of chips, fruit and a bottle of water. The roll was quite large and more than enough.

Our next stop was Bryce Canyon. WOW!!!! Just WOW!!! What an amazing place. The rocks look so different from every angle. Your imagination takes you to things you would never think of. You could hike down into the canyon which is about 4 miles but it was an extremely steep drop and although we could both probably get down there, I doubt either of us would have walked back up. Our solution was to walk the rim and we still got some awesome photos. I wish I was fit enough to go down the bottom, because I would have loved to get some pics shooting back up to the top.

There was a storm as we got there and the lightning was pretty fierce and the rain torrential, but it only lasted about 5 minutes and within 1/2 an hour you wouldn’t have guessed anything had happened. BUT, by about 6pm the temperature dropped pretty rapidly and we were all looking for a jumper.

Some of the group had opted to camp out while the others, including us, had motel accommodation for the night. We all ate dinner together at the campground. The dinner was huge. Lots of roast meats, hot veggies, salads and bread rolls. After dinner, Joe took us to our hotel and because we were all so cold, we immediately jumped in the showers which were nice and hot, had a couple of drinks and fell into bed. Fantastic first day.

---