Zion and Bryce National Parks, UT

OK... we are a little behind on the daily travel logs, but we didn't have WI-FI and sporadic cell phones networks for the past two days.  On Monday, we left Las Vegas for Zion.  Beautiful scenery as we moved into Utah and higher elevations.  The red rocks and trees start to become part of the view.  Stopped for lunch in St. George, then on to Zion.  It started raining as we got to the park, but that didn't take away from the spectacular views!  Zion has high cliffs and with the rain, the waterfalls and streams were flowing.  We didn't stop to take too many pictures, but Dave captured a few terrific shots.  The highlight of the day was passing through the Zion tunnel to travel to our hotel.  The tunnel was built at a time when the cars were much smaller, so if you had a larger vehicle, you had to pay to pass through because they had to stop traffic on both ends until you made it through.  When we got to the entrance, we were waved around a large pickup that was going to have to be escorted.  Luckily, we went through before him.  

Our hotel had an interesting background, and I'll add that info later when I have more time.  But it had been in the family for over 60 years.  It is now a Best Western but it is still run by family members.  Good food, and a bonus of watching the hummingbirds coming to the feeders set by the windows!  

On Tuesday, we headed out to Bryce.  It is always interesting to me to watch the landscape change.  We had great weather and Dave took lots of pictures.  We decided to do the Scenic Drive in our car instead of taking the park shuttle, so we could stop for as long (or short) a time as we wanted.  It was so interesting to see the pronghorn deer along the side of the road in the high mountain meadows.  Since the view points were on the left side of the road, we went to the end of the drive before we really viewed the "hoodoos" and the fantastic canyons of Bryce.  I'd been there about 10 years ago, but Dave had no idea what he was  in for... The camera came out and was never idle unless we were driving.  I enjoyed watching the swifts flying through the canyons, and was really happy that I bought some binoculars for this trip.  Hard to describe all the scenes and wildlife - I think it really needs to be experienced.