Day Three

We woke up at the crack of dawn and watched the light from the sunrise move across the canyon from our hotel room. Totally cool. Then we headed out to Hermit's Rest to see as much of the canyon as we could. We spotted a Western jay and a Juniper Titmouse, both new life birds for me. So that was really cool. The canyon is just amazing. Steve and I both kept thinking we'd like to hike to the bottom and we'd like to run the river.






We're really enjoying the National Geographic National Parks Guide Book which tells us which overlooks to stop at, which to hike at and which to skip. Great investment at $25.


We went back to the room and packed the car. We stopped by the canyon market but were decidedly unimpressed. We bought ham and cheese and ate roll ups for breakfast. Then we headed north to find our way up to Escalante, Utah. That proved quite the adventure. We stopped in Page, Arizona to grab food at McDonald's crossed the Colorado and found the dirt road that the GPS advised us to take to Escalante -- Cottonwood Canyon Road. The first two miles weren't bad and we were thinking this really would be a great thing. But then as we climbed higher, we got to deep clay areas, covered in snow that had started to melt. We slid through one and then got stuck in the second one. We were having visions of having to call a tow truck for our beautiful rented Saturn outlook. Not such a great option!

Fortunately, through my old country roots and Steve's excellent assistance from the passenger seat, we backed our way right out of that hole, turned around, sped through the first mud hole and headed for the highway. We wound up taking the long way around through Kanab. The whole purpose of this was to see Capitol Reef National park because two of my friends insisted it wasn't to be missed. At this point we weren't so sure. Still Utah is incredibly beautiful and driving anywhere in the state can't be all bad. We drove through Red Canyon and past Bryce Canyon, saw plenty of hoodoos and other beautiful canyons. We wound up staying in Escalante, after first driving past it to Boulder, only to find out that Boulder is basically a non-town. So we headed back to Escalante, across a narrow mountain pass after dark and past herds of deer that love to stand in the center of the road and play chicken.

We snared one of the last hotel rooms in Escalante before they rolled up the streets at 8 p.m. We stopped at the Escalante Outfitters Cafe but they were out of food. The woman at the Subway at the gas station said Subway had closed 30 minutes earlier but she called the Mexican restaurant and talked the owner into staying open long enough for us to drive up the street and stop in.

Again, we fell into bed exhausted by about 11:30 our time.