Exploring the rest of Bryce Canyon

After our morning adventures today, we felt that we still had only seen part of Bryce.   True, it might have been the best part but we wanted to take the opportunity to fully explore the park and the area.  So after breakfast and a brief nap (after all, we did get up at 5:15 this morning), we headed back into Bryce Canyon National Park.

The ranger station provided us with a map which showed an 18-mile path around the park.  Speaking of the rangers, if you love national parks you really should look into the National Park Senior pass (you need to be 62 years of age).  This pass gives you free admission to most national parks – so far, we’ve saved $135.00 by using it.

There are numerous driving and hiking trails, but we decided to take the Bryce Amphitheater trail.  We drove to the furthest point, an elevation of 9100 feet.  This gave us whole new views of the canyons and hoodoos, but also the beautiful Ponderosa Pine forest which surrounds them.  From there, we drove down and stopped at each of points along the way.  We even hiked on the Fairyland Point trail.

Along the way, we saw Natural Bridge (not the one in Virginia), which is actually an arch.  It's shown in the picture at the top of this blog  post.  We also got up close and personal with a raven, which we named Edgar.  These large black birds are visible around the Grand Canyon as well as here in Bryce.  They look like the Blackbirds or Crows we have in the East, but they are larger.  This one was perched on a rock and let people come within inches without flying away.  For those of you who may be wondering, it did not say “nevermore”.

After our adventures in the park, we left the canyons, feeling like we had really experienced all the park had to offer.   So we were looking for somewhere to eat.  Jim suggested the Bryce Canyon Pines restaurant.  We had a great meal (I had a grilled chicken salad, Jim had a burger) and then we ended it with pie.  This restaurant, which serves excellent food, is known for its pie.  Really, you have to love a restaurant that has a separate pie menu.  They had 12 varieties of pie on the menu (all homemade) with a line that said “ask about our seasonal offerings”. 

We decided to try the Sour Cream Raisin pie, a local favorite.  It was so fabulous I don’t have words to describe it.  It was a layer of delicious raising filling like an old-fashioned raisin pie, but that was topped with a sour cream custard.  And the crust was so light and flaky and just perfect.  We were talking with our server and found out that all of the pies are baked by the wife of the owner, 80 every day with more than 100 on days like Mother’s Day, all in her home kitchen.  This is really a family business, the present owners took over from his parents who started it in the 1940’s.  The restaurant has 38 employees, 31 of whom are family.  This is a terrific place to eat, full of charm and tradition and fantastic food.

Now, we’re finishing the last of our laundry and packing up to leave Bryce, Utah.  We’ve had a wonderful stay.  This is the furthest point from home, 2300 miles from home if we drove straight home from here. Now we're off to salt lake city.