Bryce Canyon National Park, Day I

As my comrade noted in her earlier post, we went to Bryce National Park where we stayed at Ruby's. On the plus side, Ruby's is a stone's throw from the park, on the minus side it's a destination for families of extremely loud & obnoxious children and oblivious parents. After a two and a half hour drive from the Grand Canyon, I was in no mood for screaming bratlings. We dropped off our stuff and cruised on outta' there.

We trekked to the park after dusk to scope out the scene. There we saw two points of interest: Sunset Point, which we had arrived a little too late to enjoy, and Sunrise Point, which offered us hope for the morning. It seemed like a good idea to go get cozy in our room until the adventure began in the morning.

Wrong! After another failed attempt at getting settled in our room, we went back to the park to stargaze. Aside from nearly wandering off the edge of a cliff in the vast darkness, it was absolutely glorious! Interestingly, in most rural areas of the United States, 2,500 stars can be viewed on a clear night. At Bryce, 7,500 stars can be seen twinkling in the void.

We decided we couldn't bear being in the room at Ruby's without some booze. Conveniently, Ruby's has a huge general store on-site. My fellow Diva and I stocked up on Coors Original, cheese, and snacks and headed back to the screaming shack that was our lodging. That bottle of Tuaca we had been carting around came in quite handy! We spent the evening drowning out the noise - and our sorrows - the good ol' fashioned way: with lots of alcohol.

So, naturally when the alarm went off at 5:45 am, we chose to skip the sunrise in favor of sleeping off our booze-fueled stupor.