Bryce, Part 2

Friday, May 21 for Monday, May 17, 2021

Monday, May 17, 2021 was odd. We had stayed overnight in a old-style motel with outside entrances and more-or-less limited amenities. It was called Butch Cassidy's Hideout, and for those of us of an age, we know who Butch Cassidy was. He was from the town of Circleville, Utah (other towns claim him, including Hatch and Panguitch, in that same area. There was a little cafe open in the morning, right next door to the motel and connected to it. We hoped to get dinner there the night before, but they were closed, either because it was Sunday or too late on Sunday when we arrived. We got there fairly early, we thought, for breakfast, but all tables were taken. A man, long gray hair, beard, invited us to join him, since he had a table for four and was alone. We ended up having a very nice conversation, talking about the area, travel, stories and books on travel. He left a few minutes before we were done, and when we left, we found out he had paid for our breakfast! That was kind of him, and I will thank him when I find his name and contact information, which he did give me.

After checking out, we stopped a little down the road to:

As we approached the home and information boards, I was wearing my black cowboy hat, and a gut asked if he could take my picture! He said he was going to tell his kids he met Butch Cassidy there!

It was about an hour drive to Bryce Canyon National Park, which we wanted to finish after Sunday.

There were things to see on the way into the Park.

Once into the Park itself, we went to the various overlooks and trailheads -- though not hiking ourselves this day!

A quick note here -- those of us in the East and Midwest hear every year about wildfires in the West. We have noticed in every park we have visited that there was some major fire in 2002, or 2005, or 2008 and so on. But every park has been hit. That isn't all bad, because fire enriches the soil for the plants and trees that remain, but there is also much damage, as well.

(The opening selfie picture is also from Natural Bridge)

I hope you noticed how the clouds and lighting changed through this not very long time we were taking these pictures. The weather, which had been great for us, really turned on Monday.

While we had been doing our wandering and picture-taking, I noticed that we were missing our denim chambray shirts, which we wore all the time in cooler weather, which we had on Monday. Thankfully, we also had other jackets to get us through. Randy checked with the motel/diner, and they had them from housekeeping. Rather than write them off (mine was from Mt. Rushmore, Randy's was one her mother had owned), we decided to write off the rest of the day and return the hour + for them.

We returned to the diner and had lunch and picked up our over-shirts. Then we headed to our next town, Bicknell, UT in preparation for Capitol Reef National Park. Again, the journey there was part of the adventure!

Once we got to that small, older-style motel, we settled in. As sunset approached, I went outside to try to catch a few good shots. Not as good as I would have liked, but here are a couple.

A bit of a spoiler alert -- at this small place, we had a lot of trouble with the Internet -- which is necessary to upload pictures from phones to MacBook and into Google for access to this travel blog. That is one reason we are behind, and I am trying to catch up!

At least a couple more entries will follow, but as of Friday, May 21, 2021, we are headed back to North Carolina, and will soon wrap up this trip.

Thanks for coming alone, and look for a couple more entries.