The Grand Circle - COMPLETED!

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"The Grand Circle" is the circle of national parks in Northern Arizona, Southern Utah and Southwestern Colorado. They're Mesa Verde, Arches, Capitol Reef, Bryce Canyon, Zion, and the Grand Canyon. And now, we've officially been to all of them!

We started at Bryce Canyon after Capitol Reef (complete with Paul's Aussie Hat). Bryce is beautiful because of the look of its rock features (sorry, no big geology lesson this time). This one was carved out by water, and is still being eroded by water in the winter. That means that all of the rocky spires, called HOODOOS! (isn't that fun? Hoodoo Hoodoo Hoodoo...😊), look a lot like coral. In fact, if it weren't so hot, you could kind of imagine that you were underwater when you walk among the hoodoos down in the canyon.

On the first day there we did a little popular hike, and decided the next day we would pack well and get a good workout by doing an 8 mile hike, with an elevation change of 2300 feet. Well, we did that...and Danielle definitely was trying to bribe all of the local wildlife (squirrels, chipmonks, lizards) to please carry her back the last mile or so. Paul was fine, but then again he is a marine...haha.

The next day we drove to Zion National Park. We took their shuttle around to all of the scenic spots around the canyon, saw a lot of really big rocks, and stopped once to walk up to the "Weeping Rock". This was really cool because it's a sheer rock face that "weeps" a spring down the side, supporting all kinds of flowers and vegetation...vertically. It was beautiful, and very refreshing to let the water rain down over us.

We also had the strange pleasure of paying $15 to drive through a tunnel in the park. Because we were an oversize vehicle, we had to have the 1.1 mile long tunnel through the rocks shut down to one lane so that we could drive through. It was actually pretty cool! It was a little nerve-wracking, as the opening was only 11 feet tall at the sides and extrememly narrow, but kind of neat.

Then we decided to head to the Grand Canyon's North Rim and camped in the wilderness that night. Echo enjoyed being covered in mosquitos, while we didn't really care for it much. When we woke up we went to the Canyon, enjoyed the view of the giant fissure in the rock, and decided we had A)had enough hiking, B) had enough rocks and, C) had enough National Parks.

So, we're all national parked-out for the moment and heading to Las Vegas to recuperate for a while before we drive back through deserts and on to Yellowstone National Park. Viva Las Vegas!

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Comments

[digital_explorer]

So stunning landscapes
So this what Im referring to: every trip to Las Vegas, this is also a must see attractions. This is in my list for my US trips. I like your description, the ''weeping rock''! another enjoyable read! rey

[anonymous]

Oooops!
I think I forgot to put my name on the comment about Elvis curling his lip. The Grand Canyon is . . . well . . . GRAND! We accidentally came across Bryce when we were over that way and found it just as awesome . . . definitely otherworldly. Glad you are having such a wonderful time! Love you! Ellen