Back to Salt Lake via Bryce Canyon

After a long road trip yesterday to Escalante where we drove through Zion National Park, we had another mammoth trip today returning to Salt Lake City, but first we saw the sights of Bryce Canyon. And what sights they were.

Bryce is full of 'hoodoos', naturally carved red sandstone pillars and fins, in such a quantity, they become eye-boggling. We didn't have time to hike down among them, which must be amazing, so we travelled the rim trail, stopping every so often to look down on a new vista of knobbly rocks.

A Native American legend related to Bryce Canyon has it that the spirit god Coyote turned the inhabitants to stone on account of their wickedness. The white discoverer, Bryce, a Mormon pioneer farmer described it as "a hell of a place to lose a cow". I'm happy to believe both of those stories, having seen the place.

We didn't see any coyotes, but we were chuffed to see a Utah Prairie Dog on the rim trail. He stopped and posed for photos for us, which was cool, as apparently they're quite rare. However the privileged feelings didn't last long. An hour or so later, we were eating our dinner in a tourist trap restaurant and there was one running around inside the restaurant eating fallen bits of food. There's nothing like finding out endangered animals are considered rodent pests to take the shine off seeing them in the wild.

Monument Valley to Grand Canyon

Remember that scene in Back to the Future III when Marty McFly ends up in the old west? We went there today. Or, more accurately, the place where they shot the exterior scenes, and just about every John Wayne Western ever made.

So what's Monument Valley like? Towering red mesas erupt from scrubland without warning. Every few miles a small shack peopled by members of the Navajo Nation try to sell you jewellery or other trinkets. It's hot, it's awe-inspiring, it's hot, it's amazing, it's hot.

And if you know where to have lunch you can try Navajo Frybread. Imagine a yorkshire pudding crossed with a doughnut and you'll have a good idea what it tastes like.

Then we reached the Grand Canyon, which is, indeed, "grand". But the problem is it's so vast you can't really gauge the scale of the cliffs, mountains, ridges etc. You can stand there and gawp, but that's about all you can do. At Arches you could interact with the landscape - go and stand under an arch, walk round a mesa. Here all you can do is stand and say 'Yes, it's very grand...'