Bryce Canyon National Park

If you liked the Grand Canyon, then you’ll love Bryce. Definitely belongs on your bucket list.

We drove to Rainbow Point and took pictures at waysides on our way out of the park. When you do this, you don’t have to cut across traffic — and there was a good amount of traffic. We’ll let our photos speak for themselves.

RAINBOW POINT (Elevation 9,115 feet)

 

 

 

BLACK BIRCH CANYON

 

 

 

AGUA CANYON

 

NATURAL BRIDGE

 

FARVIEW POINT

 

INSPIRATION POINT (Elevation 8,100 feet)

 

 

 

UPPER INSPIRATION POINT

 

 

 

 

 

We’re Out of the Smoke

We drove into a campground outside of Bryce, UT on Thursday to clear skies. Well, actually we RV’d through some pretty fierce thunderstorms getting here.

The scenery is awesome and we haven’t even toured Bryce Canyon yet.

We decided to take a “do nothing” day in order to get used to camping at 7,600 feet. There is a difference.

However, on Saturday we’ll start touring and photographing the park. Can’t wait. We stopped by the park’s visitor center today, bought some T-shirts, and soaked up info on Bryce Canyon. More photos to come.

After Bryce, we’re headed to a campground outside of Zion National Park for a week. Finally, we’ll be back in Lake Havasu at the end of the month.

Note to Self: Avoid the West during Fire Season

The last time we saw blue sky was August 31 on our boat ride up the Clark Fork river (see Fire, Water, and Eagles).

Smoke from the many Western wild fires have been “hazing” our views . . . as well as making it difficult to breathe at times.

When we were in Saint Regis near Thompson Falls, the smoke was as thick as fog and we could “taste” it. Ugh.

We figured by the time we got into Idaho that the smoke would be gone. Think again. It looks like we’ll be near Las Vegas before the air is clear again.

Fire, Water, and Eagles

We’re camped near Thompson Falls, MT for the Labor Day weekend.

It’s beautiful country — mountains, rivers, and that big sky — but just incredibly dry (see our previous post Wildfires).

 

CLARK FORK RIVER BOAT RIDE

We took a boat ride up the Clark Fork River from Thompson Falls to Trout Creek and got a bird’s eye view of the dry country . . .

 

EAGLE FISHING

 

FIRE ON THE RIVER

We spotted at least two large fires in the mountains as we travelled up river. On our return trip back to Thompson Falls, we saw a large helicopter getting water from the river and flying it to a nearby fire.

 

Poor Port Aransas

Last March we stayed at Pioneer RV Park in Port Aransas, TX right on the Gulf Coast.

Here’s a YouTube video of some of the damage just caused by Hurricane Harvey. The first part of this video looks like it was shot in downtown Port Aransas. However, from about 0:20 seconds on, it’s a view of the Pioneer RV Park shot from Highway 351.