Day 26-27: Bryce Canyon, Utah

It was Theresa's turn to drive but she passed it up when she heard what she had to drive through. There was a short cut to Bryce Canyon from Zion, but you had to go through a 1 mile tunnel. Our RV was oversized, so we had to pay a fee to get special permission for them to block the tunnel while a ranger escorted us across. After the tunnel there were lots of narrow switchbacks.

We had to go through Zion National Park to get to the tunnel. When we got close to the entrance of the tunnel, there were about 10-15 cars waiting in front of us. They had stopped the cars to escort an RV and boat entering Zion from Bryce. When we finally made it to the entrance, the ranger stopped us and said wait for her to signal us to go. She then radioed in and five minutes later she waved us through. We were slightly disappointed in the tunnel. It was completely enclosed so you couldn't view Zion from the sides of the tunnel. We reappeared on the other side to have a line of cars waiting for us to exit. We thought it was interesting that the Rangers did not make us wait until five or more oversized vehicles were ready to go. Instead, they seemed to block traffic anytime an oversized vehicle wanted to cross.

We could not reserve a spot in Bryce because it was first come first serve. However, Theresa read that the campgrounds never seemed to fill up, so we chanced it and it paid off. We got a spot inside Bryce Canyon National Park in the North Campgrounds. It was near the park shuttle so we didn't have to drive around with the RV. 

Bryce is famous for their hoodoos which are the odd-shaped rocks left standing caused by erosion. The rocks looked like points or even stacks of rocks that someone had piled one on top of the other.

We took the shuttle up to Bryce Point. We only were only going to the vista viewing because the hikes here were going to be too long. However, when Ariadne saw the snow banks below, she wanted to take the trail. So we walked part of the Under the Rim Trail until we got to the snow banks. We got on the shuttle and went to Sunset Point and hiked along the rim until we got to the Lodge. We ate lunch at the lodge and bought firewood and s'mores accessories to build our first campfire! We continued our rim hike to Sunrise Point and back to our campground. The views were amazing to look out upon as we were hiking along the rim.

The s'mores were a huge and yummy success! Ariadne enjoyed her first campfire and s'mores activity! Although, once we entered the RV, we realized how we all smelled of smoke! Laundry was not happening for another week so we'll have to figure out what to do with our smoky clothes!