Day two: to Zion and Bryce Canyon

An early start and we headed for Zion National Park, via its doorstep little resort village, Springdale, where we were all persuaded to buy Tilley hats, "made with Canadian persnicketiness" and guaranteed for life: perfect, we were assured by the charming lady who sold them to us, in sun, wind and rain.  Little did we know how well they would be tested over the next days.

Certainly it was getting windy as we walked in the park's canyons, but still sunny and fine.  The hats' ingenious cords held them firmly in place, once we had mastered the technique.  The canyon we followed wound deep into Zion's heartland, with a small river flowing out surrounded by cottonwood and juniper trees and many shrubs and spring flowers.

We continued on our way through a narrow tunnel then out into a completely different, dry, chaotic landscape.  We soon realised that the landscape changes completely over each horizon.  Wonders that we found amazing here don't even get national park status, because the parks have even better stuff!  We followed Scenic Byway 12, "Utah's first All-American road", and scenic it was. We were especially taken by Red Canyon, a collation of weird shapes resembling Asian temples or Castilian castles.  

So for our second night, at the Grand Hotel in Bryce Canyon City (population 300).  We had been steadily climbing since St George, and getting out of the car were almost flattened by an icy blast.  (Tilley hats up to the challenge though.). Even the locals were surprised by this late cold snap.  There were warnings of high winds gusting to 60mph, and temperatures dropping to minus 7 ("feels like minus 15").  From the tropics to the Arctic in one day?  

Nevertheless we managed a late afternoon visit to the adjoining national park.      The town sits on a rather bland plateaus, but offers up its great treasure as a surprise to unsuspecting tourists.  The land falls away into the vast canyon filled with layer upon layer of rock, fantastically carved into turrets, walls, and endless features, all looking splendid in the late afternoon sunlight as cloud shadows scudded across.  We visited several lookout points and walked along part of the rim, to get the most of the changing views.