This is part 2 of a 3 part Trip Summary.  Catch up on part 1 here

Putting the Grand Canyon in the rear view, this leg of the trip moves north towards Bryce Canyon with a few stops along the way.  First off, WHAT A DRIVE!  Such a beautiful part of the country.  Lots of elevation changes and some tight quarters on this day.  The route I took isn’t for the unprepared or faint of heart behind the wheel.  At one point, I had the trailer almost jackknifed on an overlook in Sunset Crater (Erin was not as impressed with my driving as I was impressed with my abilities to react to my curiosity… or stupidity as she called it)

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Day 4 – 21 June 2017 – Williams, AZ to Sunset Crater National Park to Cedar Breaks National Monument to Cannonville, UT

 

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Sunset Crater NM

We set out from Williams nice and early.  We arrived at Sunset Crater Volcano NM early in the morning.  We really loved this place.  We hiked two trails and got the JR Badges for the kids.  We stayed about 3 or 4 hours.  We probably could’ve hiked another trail, but that’s about all you need here despite it being strikingly beautiful and interesting.

As I mentioned earlier, the drive north toward UT was unreal.  It really put a taste in our mouths as to what the North Rim of the Grand Canyon must feel like.  So of course, we have to go back for that now.

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Cedar Breaks NM

We arrived to Cedar Breaks NM mid afternoon.  The road up to Cedar Break is narrow, windy, and steep (a bit of a theme here, eh?).  The Visitor Center sits at 10350′.  There was still snow on the ground here and there in mid-JUN.  It didn’t impede our travel at all, but a consideration when you want to arrive.  Because of the elevation, the weather was absolutely amazing.  The kids wanted their jackets eventually, but I wanted to soak it in after living in the desert summer for so long.  Cedar Breaks is at least a day/overnight spot.  I wanted to hike the few trails and spend a night or two in the onsite CG once I got there.  It is most definitely on our list to return to one day.  Also unbeknownst to me in my research, Cedar Breaks is known for a huge wildflower bloom in late JUN.  We were a few days early and missed the bloom.  Their website/Facebook communicates the bloom fairly well.  Better make CG reservations early if you want to camp during the bloom (even though you have to make a guess on the bloom days, months in advance.  Be more to the minute Mother Nature!).

While we were there, there was a wildfire nearby.  That’s what the smoke is in the pictures (and you’ll see some smoke in Bryce Canyon pictures further down in this post from the same fire).

 

 

We saw the beginning of the flowers, but nothing like this.

From Cedar Breaks, we headed east towards Cannonville, UT and our CG, CANNONVILLE / BRYCE VALLEY KOA that we used as a base camp for Bryce Canyon NP.  We set up camp and got ready for Day 5.

Side note – We’re going to have a few types of posts:  General Talk, Trip Summaries, Campground Reviews, and more as this site evolves.  This post and the others related to this trip are Trip Summary posts.  We’ll come back and review each campground in separate posts.  So if that’s what you’re looking for, it’s coming.

 

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Day 5 – 22 June 2017 – Bryce Canyon National Park – RV at Cannonville/Bryce Valley KOA

The campground was a few minutes away from the boundary of Bryce and about 25 min from the visitor center.  We got to the VC and picked up our JR Books.  Bryce Canyon is VERY proud of their JR program.  By that, I mean the requirements far exceeded most of the other parks we’ve done the program.  The kids had to see several specific things across the park, answer some more complex questions, and pick up 10 pieces of trash.  The book even came with a glove stuffed in it to pick up the trash.  It seemed a little daunting up front, but like most things with my kids, I was wrong.  They ate it up.  They enjoyed picking up the trash and still pick up trash everywhere we go based on that lesson (I guess mom and dad telling them to pick up their own trash isn’t a good enough lesson…now they pick up anyone’s trash because a cartoon prairie dog told them to…I’ll take it though).

We grabbed a picnic lunch in the park, per usual, and finished up the JR activities just after lunch.  Evidently all the parks in this area host Space Fests around this time of year.  We caught an interesting program at the hotel that we sat in a blow up planetarium (reminded me of playing with a parachute in gym class) and learned some interesting things about the night sky.  We went back to the VC to get our badges. Then we set out to hike one more trail before we went back to the camper.  I believe the name is Mossy Cave Trail, but it was by far our favorite part of Bryce.  The trail is south of the VC and off of the main highway, not the park road.  It follows a stream and goes back to the cave on one fork of the trail, then backtrack to the fork and then to a waterfall.  The kids were mesmerized by the stream and the smoke from the wildfire mentioned above made the lighting in the narrows quite interesting.  That day there was even ash falling everywhere while we walked.  Quite eerie at times.

 

Once we finished up our hike, we made our way back to the CG.  We enjoyed a nice dinner and got a good night’s sleep to prepare for our next leg of the journey to a CG near Capitol Reef NP.

 

Thanks for reading along.  One more installment of this Trip Summary to get us through Capitol Reef NP and Mesa Verde NP.

 

-See you out there

P-T ParaD