Red Rock Country

I've wanted to go to Bryce Canyon since a friend told me about it back in 1997 (Thanks Matt!). I've seen pictures of it before but seeing it in person is something different. It's an incredibly beautiful landscape, with the densest concentration of hoodoos anywhere in the world. Hiking among the hoodoos is humbling and I wish we had more time here. Dad and Eve joined us recently for a couple weeks of adventuring and I'm thrilled that they get to experience Bryce Canyon with us. The US National Park system has figured out their shuttle system. Both here and Zion have fast and efficient shuttles, removingthe need for scrambling for parking spaces, spilling out of full parking lots, or walking long distances to the site you actually want to see. Canada has lessons to learn in this case.

Northern Arizona is known as Red Rock Country. I thought this was more metaphorical, a bit of exaggeration, but the rock (and the soil) is really red. Combined with the reds of a sunset (which we all known is just refraction of light!) and the landscape becomes a photographer's dream. For the past few days, we've had to drag the kids out to go hiking (they don't want to go hiking) and then drag them back to the car (they don't want to stop hiking). As long as our hike includes an awkward, vertical scramble across the red rock, they seem to be happy.

Today, we tried mountain biking ... with thin tires on bikes that are not mountain bikes. The trail was only a green circle but it definitely tested everyone's limits. Both kids struggled with rocks and took minor spills, but they bounced back quickly and improved quickly. They were happy at the end of the ride ... not because it was over but because they knew they'd pushed themselves and succeeded. I've never really been excited by mountain biking but I had a great time today, too.