Bryce Canyon N.P. & Best Friends Animal Sanctuary
Trip Start
Jun 27, 2009
1
31
35
Trip End
Aug 07, 2009
Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Today, from our headquarters in Kanab, we headed out to see Bryce Canyon National Park. The park lies about 1.5 hours northeast of Kanab and we reached it by about 9:30 this morning. Just like our guidebook said, it was much less popular than Zion due to its remote location (thank goodness!).
The park is small by comparison to say...Glacier or even Zion, but it has it's own personal charm. There is only one road through the park and off of this road are the many vista points. The first one we stopped at was called Sunset Point, and it was spectacular. A brief history:
Sixty million years ago the entire Utah Basin was underwater, but some 15 million years ago the plateau began to rise because of two tectonic plates moving together. When this happened, much of the underlying soft sandstone was exposed to the elements of air and water erosion. In this part of the basin, the erosion left craggy canyons and towering pillars of sandstone and other harder rocks called 'hoodoos.'
The views were gorgeous throughout the park. Deep canyons carved out by water predominated the landscape, all of it in bright pink, red, and orange hues. Intricate patterns were also created in mountainsides by weathering including arches (see pictures).
I loved the park, and it's unique charm and quiet personality made me rank it above the hustle and bustle of Zion. Here's a quick summary of our personal rankings of the National Parks we have seen thus far:
Jen: (going from most favorite to least favorite) Glacier, Zion, Teddy Roosevelt, Bryce, Crater Lake, Redwood, Grand Canyon, Death Valley.
Me: (same order) Glacier, Teddy Roosevelt, Crater Lake, Bryce, Grand Canyon, Redwood, Death Valley, Zion.
So you can see our opinions differ quite a bit!
After we left Bryce we headed back towards Kanab and the 'Best Friends Animal Sanctuary.' This is the nation's largest 'no kill' animal sanctuary dedicated to the goal of having no more homeless pets. They have over 2,000 animals on any given day, and have even taken in Michael Vick's dogs after he was arrested. They rehabilitate animals of all kinds and we went on a tour of the place. We got to play with cats and dogs and it was overall a wonderful experience. We have even considered to volunteer some of our time to transport their rehabilitated animals back to the east coast. We'll see what happens!
Thats it for today, tomorrow we're off to Colorado and the Mesa Verde National Park. Sorry that my journals have been shorter and less detailed as of late. Both Jen and I, while supremely enjoying our trip, are getting tired! And of course...we miss our cats!
Night!
