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Published: June 27th 2009
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We started our day with food, of course. We stayed at Bryce View Lodge, a motel, owned by Ruby's Inn Best Western located across the street. It seemed as though we crossed the road to the civilization. The motel had, well, a place for you to sleep while the Inn had pretty much what a tourist would want. The biggest disappointment for us at Bryce is availability of good food. The hotel served standard American food either buffet style or regular style; I don't get it. Serving basic American breakfast is not in any way bad, but managing to make basic American breakfast bad is just plain intolerable. The meals got us to talk about how we might improve food quality around here. We're guessing that the basic problem appears to be Byrce high altitude landscape, 8000 feet in elevation where the visitor center located, and that's 1,000 feet higher than Zion. The weather can be extreme in the winter months and certain parts of the park are closed temporarily. Sometimes, significant amount of snow covers Bryce from October to March. Now, you would think heh! a ski resort. Having done some research online, some winter activities are available like snowshoeing,
Bryce Point
Hoodoos and more hoodoos to come cross-country skiing, snowmobiling, but some how not a full blown skiing in which I assume would attract more visitors than the others. With limited number of more popular activities for a regular tourist, Bryce receives less visits than their nearby counterpart, Zion. Having said all that, my conclusion is that Bryce doesn't attract enough tourists therefore no investors want to put their money here. And what I'm seeing now is a monopoly. Monopoly is bad. Doug might not completely agree with this statement at the present.
After getting our stomach filled, we stopped by the visitor center to get a map and to ask for recommendations from the rangers. Then we got back on the road and began our scenic drive. First stop, which was highly recommended by the ranger, was "Bryce View Point". And yes, I absolutely agree that it's a perfect vantage point. I was amazed by the shapes and the orange color variations of the sandstone. They call these naturally shaped sandstone "hoodoos". According to the National Park Services website, Hoodoos are tall skinny spires of rock that protrude from the bottom of arid basins and "broken" lands. As we were enjoying the views, I couldn't
help but noticed these tiny velvet green birds soaring over my head left and right. So fast and so beautiful that it fully captivated me for quite sometime. I later found out that they are called "violet green swallow". No other names would describe their appearance as well as this. A little later, we noticed this little guy, Golden-Mantled Ground Squirrel, sitting on the rock near the cliff by the trail. I slowly walked toward it and it ran away. I sat on the rock thinking dang I missed it, but only a few seconds later it popped up again. This time, it was sitting right next to me searching for food. It climbed up and down the rocks giving plenty of opportunities for Doug to take pictures of it. I didn't have to go far at all, just needed to make sure that I didn't scare it away again.
After enough squirrel photo shoot, we drove down south on scenic drive to Yowimpa Point located at the end of the drive. Once there, I could see that we were actually driving on the ridge. That was pretty cool. From this point, we made our way back up north
and stopped at each view point. That was when I realized that Bryce looked different from different angles. Smaller view points provide a more up close and personal look while the main view points really display the panoramic views and color variations of the canyon. The whole scenic drive was completed in half a day, so if you don't have a whole lot of time but want to see major attractions, it's very doable in a half-day trip.
Food, food. Lunch time and we were hungry. The national park lodge conveniently located inside the park was, no doubt, our lunch place. Again, food was disappointing very basic American sandwiches and salads. Moreover, they were not as good as we had hoped. Oh! with the except to the side, sweet potato. They should make this an entree and take their entrees off the menu.
In the afternoon, we joined the ranger on Rim Walk. Doug and I were playing hide and seek for awhile when he left for men stress relief room. Finally, Doug and I reunited and caught up with the group. The ranger talked about vegetation and wild life in the area. I didn't stick with the
group for the entire time, but escaped to nearby seating where I could rest my feet, enjoy the views, and was still able to hear them. Not long after I found myself a bench, an old gentlemen who seemed to be in his 70s joined me. I turned to him and gave him a smile and that was enough for him to assume that I was up for a conversation. He started talking to me mostly in Spanish and threw in some broken English here and there. To my surprise, I was able to recall those elementary vocabulary I had learned in my Spanish (not yet) 101 class. He was from Spain and he said Spain didn't have parks like this. The parks there were small. Then he asked me what I did for a living. I had a guess but didn't really remember the word so we playing a guessing game mixed with some silence during that part of the conversation. Eventually, we said good bye and he walked slowly away into the distance. Even though we barely managed to get our conversation going, I was sincerely impressed and admired him greatly. He didn't seem to bother so much
Bryce Point
Bryce Point Amphitheater with the language barrier; he conversed as freely as he seemed to have wanted too. It reminded me of so many second language learners I know, myself included, sometimes don't take enough risk to speak without hesitation, fear, and anxiety. Being aware of it now, I let myself try and purposefully say things I don't quite know whether it's correct or not just for the sake of learning.
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