Bryce Canyon & Scenic Byway 12

Heading south on H'way 15 from Fillmore the scenery continued to be great farming land. I loved how this hay seemed to glow in the sun. Shame the colour isnt bright enough to show. We have been surprised at how quickly and regularly the terrain changes.

We stopped in Panguitch for coffee. This place was the cafe of choice as they had 'Broncos' in their name and espresso advertised on the window. Most places serve drip coffee that is sitting on the warmer all day. We spent 20 mins chatting to the shop keeper about Italy as she is heading there next week.

Red Canyon was literally the entrance to the change of scenery that the beginning of Scenic Byway 12. On the left of the pic you can see the grey type rock and then the red rock started. This Byway is quite famous and wow we are so glad we took this route. BTW Dixie National Forest encompasses approx 2,000,000 acres.

Red Canyon... its hard to gauge dimensions again but these are tall pine trees in the foreground

Me driving through one of the tunnels. A bit more spacious than the tree we have driven through in the past.

Bryce Canyon was so amazing. The variety of colours and the was it has eroded was beautiful.

See the path near the bottom of this pic. If you look carefully you may spot the person strolling along.

Panorama from a lookout.

Natural Bridge. At this point we were 8627 ft in elevation. We averaged this elevation for most of the day but were constantly climbing and dropping between 9600 ft down to 5000 ft. We are finding we are quickly short of breath when exerting ourselves. Should have done altitude training before the trip!!

After Bryce Canyon we headed east towards Escalante. This area felt like a moonscape.

We had lunch at Escalante Outfitters. They served great food with real & fresh ingredients. This was a vista along the road after lunch and before Torrey which is the end of Byway 12.

The gold of the silver birch trees stood out with the dark of the pines amongst them.

The landscape from Torrey to Hanksville was just awesome. It was like driving thorugh the base of a maze of canyons. The colours changed from white through pink to red, then grey, purple and blue. It was really like another world. Where it was red Mark said he expected 'roadrunner' to zip past.

The bottom of these canyon walls was actually more purply blue than appears in this pic.

On interstate Route 70. Flat grey terrain with flat grey roads (can you spot the cars) then a steep red escarpment behind.

We arrived in Moab for the night. It has been quiet everywhere we have been and seeing this town had many many hotels and motels we figured we would have no prob getting a room. Well at 7pm we foudn out we were wrong. Finally we got a room at the 3rd hotel we tried. Its quite nice too. Just across the road we had dinner at Blue Pig. Mark with his full slab of ribs. (actually we shared) A blues band playing, local beers and baseball on the TV. Mark was happy. Check out the whole roasted sweet potato, with butter and cinnamon. Scrumptious!

Check out this 'toothpick' Mark bought. Adding this to his previous purchase of a Bison belt buckle... oh God help me!!! What's next!!