day 05.
Waking up was good! The nearby town made the vibes feel homey and Christmassy. I loved that. Best month of the year. I woke up late though, late for me, which is like 830 am. I got myself and the camper together and on my way out asked the lady at the checkpoint of the campground for a map of the park. She immediately questioned if I had paid the park entrance fee on my way in. So keep that in mind if you ever lose your map. They really guard those, and that’s at every park. I low key feel like that’s your “ticket” lol. The Zion National Park scenic drive was just that, scenic! Thankfully it didn’t feel super long, so I was able to spend time at some of the turnouts and get some really dope shots.
One thing about Zion that I noticed is that it had a lot of trails, and of all the parks I went to I felt I was seeing the most people actually on the trails, given the climate.
Angel’s Landing was the most gorgeous turnout area. I loved the brief time I spent there.
On my way out, I stopped and did the canyon overlook trail and it was everything.
Seeing this park in the daylight was even more amazing than I imagined it would be the night before. I met some really cool people on my way. The overlook, which looks out into a part of the canyon was insane. Basically looks down into everything I had spent the whole morning driving through and exploring! Really cool shit.
Not only that, I saw some goats on my way out, and that was surprisingly really cool too.
One couple I met was doing an exercise for an art class and was drawing the canyon from the overlook. Another group of girls were there celebrating their friend’s birthday! You already know how I get down about Sagittarians! They were really friendly, and once at the bottom I let them check out my rig, and they shared some tidbits about some national parks in other states that I am planning on visiting on future trips! Good group of gals. And we love a girls trip. Especially for a birthday, Insecure reminded us of that.
Made a bathroom stop, a sandwich and my way to my next stop, Bryce Canyon National Park. Now I have to interject and say, even typing this out I’m amazed because this seems exhausting! But when I say, with each stop it just got more and more breath-taking, really I’m feeling rejuvenated to see if Bryce is going to top this.
Once I made it out of the park, I grabbed some gas and the GPS led me thru a quaint, cute small town and I saw a sign for $5 license plates. I’m thinking maybe gifts, but also, just cute for me. Manifesting my own place that I can decorate with my own flare and style, and I can picture these vintage license plates on the wall, right now. SO glad I stopped, the man was very insightful, and knew everything about these plates, dating back farther than the 60s! I got more than 3, put it that way. Even though I was more than a little behind on my itinerary, I am so glad I decided to stop there.
By the time I got to Bryce, there was a couple hours of daylight left and I dug right in. My plans for this day in particular were ambitious, and compounded with just being late from the jump, naturally everything couldn’t happen.
Bryce was like a wintery fortress. Really really pretty. It was high up, so of course covered in snow and it was cooooold! My favorite turnout here was The Natural Bridge. Really cool shit. I hiked some of the shorter trails, and one of them led me 8100+ ft above elevation to Inspiration Point. This canyon was also vast, and just mind-blowing because it goes on for as far as your eye can see. By the time I pulled out of the park, it was already dark, and I was definitely in for a short-ish night drive.
This begun a truly hectic 18-hours. Lol. My most stressful hours of the trip, by far. I passed through, the Grand Staircase Escalante, which even at night seemed UNREAL. I was wishing I was actually apart of the MCU and had night-vision, I wanted to see it so bad. But that’s what being late gets you. ‘Night Mode’ on my phone captured some cool images of it, so I kinda feel like I saw it lol. Definitely want to drive back through there when the sun is up, for sure!
By the time I get to Capitol Reef National Park, and arrive at the campgrounds, to my dismay I realize there’s NO service on my phone. I’m not talking one bar, 3G, hold it up in the air n you get a little service type of service. I mean straight up NO SERVICE, nothing. I hadn’t told anyone I had made it, my mom knew I was driving at night, so I knew I had to drive all the way back out of the park until I got some service to let them know. Again, most of these campgrounds are several miles into the park so like easily a 10-15 minute drive out. Now, I’m exhausted, but I do it and let them know I made it, I have no service at the campground but I’m safe and good and I’ll call in the am.
Whewwwwww! Drive all the way back to the campground and knock out eventually. Staying somewhere with no service is scary and it took me a few to wind down my nerves, but there were a couple other girls there (this is odd reassurance, I know) and I eventually dozed off.
