Slow in Panguitch, Utah

We literally wasted today away – it was lovely! Saturday found us driving through Bryce Canyon with camera clicking again. Although it is totally awesome with those wonderful orange colors, it’s never quite the same as the first time around which we did in 2003. But it was still simply wonderful to see all those colors again. The clouds became quite heavy and rain definitely threatened much of the day, which toned down my ability to get those glorious orange photos, but there is still hope…….

We booked a mule ride down into the canyon for Monday afternoon! Just for the record, in case you don’t know, I don’t do very well at all on narrow roads, ledges or with steep drop-offs. Those mules had better be well rested and more surefooted than ever before! This is just another one of my fears that I have been dodging since our first visit here and to the Grand Canyon. This time I will face it.

We could have gone on the ride today, Sunday, but the group was already 27 strong and Monday’s only 6 so far, so it should be much better. It’s a three and a half hour ride and I just know that I am going to be cussing my *ss – I mean, mule, by the time we get back home again.

So with yesterday afternoon stretching ahead of us and the whole of today, we had to change our ways and get used to simply hanging out and taking things slowly. It’s been easier with us not sleeping too well - the temperatures have been below freezing, at around 28 degrees and I am sure the mattress freezes into a solid cement block at night. My hips and back have been waking me up before the cold these past two nights. Also, doglet has been sleeping under the covers, keeping herself warm. But she gets up about three times a night and has this insane need to ask permission to come back up on the bed each time. She gives this tiny little squeak of a whine which instantaneously wakes both of us up and then she comes up and licks us both thanks before diving under the covers again. By then our brains have fully registered the cold and we both have the need to get up and visit the bathroom….. aaargh!

This morning we drove out of the town of Panguitch, where we are right now, to Cedar Breaks National Monument, which is not a monument as such, as far as we could see, but some more awesome red, pink and white cliffs, hoodoos and valleys. It was a lovely drive past Panguitch Lake where we walked for a little while until the wind just bent us out of shape enough to get us back into the bakkie and moving on. Allie was much better in the pickup today with no shivering or shaking at all, hopefully she will be the same from now on. We even saw a big deer running in one of the fields. Our third live one on this trip. This town of Panguitch is at 6 600 feet in elevation and one of the lookout places at Cedar Breaks was at over 10 000 feet, with some snow and ice lying on the ground too... Maybe this helps towards us being able to slow down a bit....

The trees are really lovely around here – a mixture of pine, cedar and birch. The cedar has this beautiful deep green color, the pine – well, pine as normal and the birch with their tall, spindly, twisting white trunks topped with the most glorious brilliant yellow leaves. The leaves shimmer in the slightest of breezes and when the sun catches those yellow leaves I find the camera jumping up involuntarily! Sometimes the birch and cedar are bunched together, dotted with red leaves from something else growing there – beautiful, and at other times the yellow is like a drop of paint messed in a sea of green cedar covering the hills. It’s really beautiful.

The campground we are in right now is closing for the season tomorrow morning, and we had to book site at a different place for tomorrow night. We found one closer to Bryce Canyon and will be moving there tomorrow morning. They do not have internet that reaches out to the campsites and I don’t think I am going to have the energy after that mule ride, to sit in their office. We are leaving this area on Tuesday morning early and heading towards the Great Sand Dune National Park – it looks warmer there too.

Not sure when we will have internet again, so let me clear up one thing that I am getting a lot of questions and laughs about: WHY did I kick that cactus……..? Well, I wanted to take it home with me as it looked half dead and was quite beautiful, I had carefully cleared off the prickles in a place big enough for my shoe and tried to push it over but when it did not budge in the slightest, I kicked it and, obviously, missed the prickle-free place… I don’t normally wander around desert areas kicking cacti.

I have put a few more photos online – the link is still the same, with a new album added. Hopefully after the mule ride I will have some really great pictures to share….

Love and light
And a special dose to you, Diane and Kay
Annie