Crinkly's Good Ole American Family Road Trip Day 15: Bryce and Zion in one busy day (Deja vu) (9/10/15)

(So if you have read the post from my motorcycle road trip, this day will sound kinda familiar) 

Woke up early and had breakfast at the hotel (really good breakfast, glad we are staying here 2 nights). We then got ready and headed out for the long day of park exploration. First we get to Bryce Canyon, which is beautiful and an awesome park. We hiked around a bit to the different overlooks to see the canyon and surrounding areas before heading out towards Zion.

Crinkly enjoying the red rock formations you drive by as you get close to the park. These are the views on the road trying to get to the park. Wonder what the park has in store for us.

Plateaus of the park. Just hanging out for a bit.

Crinkly is liking how this day has turned out already.

My dad and I went down there a bit as we couldnt resist. Wish we had our camping gear to just keep on walking.

Series of paths intermingling down in the canyon. Crinkly is going on a quick jaunt I think.

Just think how huge this is and yet, is nothing compared to the grand canyon a couple hundred miles south.

One of the walls of the canyon.

The canyon in all its glory. Take it in world!

Crinkly, do not go down there, you will get lost!

I would like a day or 2 to do what those people are doing and walk among all these formations.

Crinkly seems to not have a big fear of heights like yours truly.

Look at the color striations in the rock. 

Just beautiful scenery to enjoy. Crinkly is loving it.

Just looking across the way as there is a rock isthmus that juts out. 

Crinkly just looking at all the divets in the rock.

Crinkly with his surrogate and parents. One of these days Ill get the handle on wearing my sunglasses instead of them resting on my head.

Should we play is this earth or alien planet?

This (among the other pictures) is why people much visit Bryce Canyon.

Just crinkly taking in the different colors/formations in the rock as we explore the canyon.

Crinkly wants to go sandboarding. Dont know if thats a good idea here.

Crinkly taking in the formations in the canyon.

Dont know if the expansive nature of the land in the picture is truly captured here.

Crinkly is thoroughly impressed with the view of the canyon. Bryce is truly phenomenal.

Crinkly taking in the views from this tip of the plateau we drove across.

Crinkly looking down through the arch.

Take 89 down between the 2; it is a really pretty road, especially as you get more south. Take the eastern entrance into the park, which I think is hands down better than the southern one, as it provides some nice views with switchbacks, tunnels, and a really great hike (canyon overlook trail or something like that) that had a great view at the end (overlooking the switchbacks), but whose real beauty was the hike.

These beautiful rock formations are the first thing you see as you get into Zion from the East. Pretty cool designs.

Crinkly living on the edge as we hug these rocks on our hike to not fall down into the valley.

Part of the hike goes through an exposed cave in the rock formation. Watch your head Crinkly!

Crinkly wants to keep going up even though the trail ends here.

Crinkly taking in the view after a pretty steep hike to get to this overlook. Worth it!

Crinkly looking at the cool wavy formations at the top of the hike.

Crappy panoramic view from the top of our hike.

Crinkly wanted to be as tall as that rock.

Crinkly looking at the formations through the trees on our hike.

People take rock climbing vacations to come here and scale these cliffs. Crinkly and I are not these people.

Crinkly enjoying some shade while taking in the views.

Its amazing that different rock formations in the same area are such drastically different colors.

Crinkly taking in the views of the rock from inside the valley.

Pretty butterfly resting for a little bit on the stained rock.

O'Brien Clan exploring the waterfall we hiked to.

Crinkly is unimpressed with the Zion waterfalls. I dont blame him.

Spotted some deer in the river below our hiking trail.

Crinkly posing with his deer friends (see what I did there :))

Beautiful stone, both underfoot and overhead, with outcroppings you get to walk underneath, and a lovely crevasse below; I recommend this hike to anyone going by this entrance. Get into the park and take the trolley up to the lodge stop to do the lower pool hike; very anti-climatic as summer is almost over so the falls are piddly droplets coming over the edge. Walk back, take the tram back, get in the car and head to Sonny Boy's BBQ, which is decent Texas BBQ for being a ways away from TX. Meat was good, but I thought the real winners were the sides; I got the hush puppies and the mac and cheese, both of which I thought were really good (some of this may come from the fact that this was the first meal we ate since breakfast – I had some peanuts and a banana throughout the day). After feasting, we come back to the room and make plans for the next day of driving.

Crinkly's Good Ole American Family Road Trip Day 14: Driving to Utah (9/9/15)

Headed out early in the morning after a pretty good breakfast at the hotel and drove all day until we got to our hotel (Abbey Inn) in Cedar City, UT. Noticed the temperatures getting warmer as we headed south (and lower altitude as well); as we pulled into the hotel I realized just how much I didn't miss 90+C temps. The past few days was a blessing having much colder temps than anything I have seen in the past few months. Checked in and unloaded the car before we headed out to dinner at Chef Alfredo's Stentorian Italiano which was a pretty nice place with really good food and decent sized portions. After dinner we headed back to the room to hang out for a bit before catching some Z's.

Crinkly's Good Ole American Family Road Trip Day 13: Exploring the Grand Tetons (9/8/15)

We woke up and cleaned up the cabin (laundry, sweeping, washing, etc.) before heading on our way down to the Tetons. Made our way through the pass, which was a pretty road with some steep gradients. Got to the southern entrance of the park and suffered through a very rough road before getting to the meat and potatoes of the park (views of the Tetons).

There they are in all their glory. Little patch of snow nestled in there that has been receding over the years (wonder why).  

Better view of the glacier.

View of the part you get to explore as you are dwarfed by the tetons.

Just a wide open road with some pretty monstrous rocks ahead of us.

So beautiful!

As we drive around we find this lake. Glorious views!

Shame this lake has waves as that would be an amazing mirror image to have  a picture of.

Crinkly wanted to take a sip of the water but this is as close as he would get. This my friends is paradise. Just need my bathing suit and a tent and I am good for a week.

Sorry for all these redundant pictures I just love this scenery.

This was a zoom between the foremost rocks. Just to portray the vastness of this chain.

View down onto the plains.

The range in all her glory.

Does that lake look familiar? :) It should but this is a slightly different view.

We had a visitor as we were taking pictures. YAY!

Little pic of the range from afar as we drive down to Jackson hole.

Ok I promise I am done (for this day). Love so much about this pic.

On that road we drove by the second black bear sighting of the trip (again on the side of the road just eating some berries off some bushes). We drove the loop looking at the Tetons and the lakes in front of them; the lake-view overlook was pretty with nice views whereas the other overlook a little bit north was kinda a disappointment (maybe in spring/early summer it is more lush and better to look at). After that we drove back on the highway route to Jackson to check into our hotel, Lexington. Jackson hole is a great lil town surrounded by mountains with an incredibly chill vibe to it. After checking in, we met up with a friend's family who were in town as well at the million dollar cowboy bar (had saddles for seats at the bar) for a few drinks. When we finished up there after catching up, we went to the Merry piglets Mexican grill which had really tasty mexican food (especially considering how far north we were); the chips had some decent flavor for tortilla chips, the salsa has a nice zing to it, and the tacos were delicious among other great things. We finished dinner and headed back to the hotel as today was a long day and tomorrow will be a long drive.