Day 41 - Me and Nina Rocking the Rock Formations At Bryce

It was a good thing that Nina was on California time and that i get up insanely early these days as our multi-reasoned time difference provided the opportunity for me to make tea and do some blogging while Nina slumbered. I was feeling particularly uninspired, and humorless, in my writing that morning and decided to blame it on the altitude (Tropic is up there - about 7,000 feet, i think).

Our little log cabin was a nice place to lounge and ease into the day. We were going to be camping that night more towards the actual park (Bryce Canyon, i'm talking about), and i was going to have to ride 11 or 12 miles (up a big ol' hill, of course), even though it was my "rest" day. Nina woke and we ate breakfast - a combo of the motel's "continental" breakfast following me everywhere (i suppose it's me following the breakfast from place to place) and the goods in Nina's well-stocked igloo. i ate everything, and Nina, being less of a huge breakfast eater, did manage to save something for herself. We packed up; both of our gear had kind of exploded in our comfy setting the evening before (you know how it is - we made it like home). Out at 11 on the dot.

The ride from Bryce Canyon Inn to Bryce Canyon Pines Campground and Lodge (or something like that - you get the point: the names are all basically the same, as i said in the last post) wasn't too bad. It was short, at least. The hill wasn't so bad, but as soon as the ascent ended, i was at the wide open intersection of my route (highway 12, at that point) and Route 63 where the cross-wind was bent on bending me toward the oncoming parade of RVs and motorcycles. I made it to our campsite a short while later (it took Nina all of 15 minutes to get there compared with my hour-forty) to find Nina all set up and buzzing with activity. The plan was to go for a hike later in Bryce Canyon after i had unloaded the weight of getting a few more blog posts in the can and my stank-ass laundry seen to. The washer and dryer were inside the gas station grocery store. The slightly standoffish elderly proprietors had popcorn, freshly popped, and i bought some, opened my computer and clickity-clacked away waiting for my laundry to get done. Eventually, Nina got bored lying around in her hammock and came to investigate where i was in the process (no pressure, of course - Nina is a non-pressure type of friend). I was still feeling eh about what i was writing but my clothing was dry and seemed to sparkle and dance, lightweight and free of the crusty mess.

We went to an early dinner (it was like 4pm at this point) at the Bryce Canyon Pines Restaurant - soup and pies! soup and pies! I had the soup (cream of broccoli - something i'd never order in real life; i'd just taste Donny's) and salad and rainbow trout again cuz it looks like salmon and pie (cherry - it may have been baked on the premises but the filling wasn't homemade. still, with ice cream, i polished it all off). Nina attempted to keep up and did pretty well. But i'm a Hungry Man now, and i bet i could beat any of y'all in an eating contest. Especially where kale and chard are involved. And sushi. Rembmer sushi? I don't.

I was flatlining at this point, having the Sunday blues knowing i had to get up tomorrow and bike a regular day (and it was actually Sunday!), and Nina could tell. She generously offered to drive me back to the campsite since she had all day to poke around the canyon while i was riding (i still had to set up all my shit) and abandon the walk, but i couldn't. You can't (or I can't) bike up to (or, rather, near) this amazingly beautiful place and not actually see it (depsite what the website seemed to suggest, Bryce Canyon Pines was not inside the park, nor was it within walking distance).

So we drove over to the park. As luck would have it the $25 fee to get in was waived - it was a "free Sunday"! At the Visitor Center where we stopped to get a map and figure out what hike (brief, i was praying, based on my exhaustion), we ran into Ben the dude i had met eating breakfast at Escalante the day before! We chatted with him for a while, and he showed us all the hiking he had done on his rest day (????) and suggested one for my fading ass. Ben asked us what we were doing later, for dinner, and we hemmed and hawed a little, we think, giving Ben the impression that we blowing him off. Unfortunately awkward exchange. But we had just eaten, the hike was nigh, and by the time that was over, i'd need to be diving into my tent to avoid being flash-frozen.

The hike was worth it. The sun was low and the light in the canyon, or rather amphitheatre, as it's called, was suitably dramatic to the naked eye (though it was hard to photograph as you'll see from the pics at some point). The Indians believed that the hoodoos (the pointy red, pink and white geological stuctures formed by wind and ice erosion) were people (baddies, i think) that the Coyote trickster had turned to stone. Sounds reasonable; i'm sure they deserved it. We were smart to have waited until later in the day as there weren't too many people hovering around, and Nina and I were able to take pictures and movies of each other without too much rude interruption by mere tourists. I'm a townie now - of everywhere. Because of the altitude (YES, folks, EVERYTHING even slightly off-kilter is blamed on the altitude - Nina got really into it too!), we were both winded coming back up from the amphitheatre to the parking lot.

Back at camp, the temperature was plummeting (it was supposed to go below 40!). Nina of course made a roaring fire in three seconds and was prepared with extra blankets for both of us. I retired into my tent having sufficiently obsessed over the next day's ride and the incessant climb to Cedar City where Nina would be meeting me.

I slept ok, with my bag pulled up over my head, delicately balancing the need to guard my face from the frigid air with the Mexican blanket Nina had lent me and the need to not suffocate. The night was indeed cold (if Dashie had been receiving a signal, even he would admit to lower than 40 degrees), but the stars made up for it. I debated for too long in the middle of the night whether to piss inside the tent (into my empty water bottle) or brave the cold. I discarded the former idea and peed on the fence (and a little on my shoe) mesmerized by the constellations that never look like what they're supposed to, except the Big Dipper. Stupid Ancient Greeks.