We woke to a wonderful Sunday morning in Torrey, Utah. Torrey is named for Jay Torrey of Pittsfield, IL who came up with the idea of the Rough Riders, which of course helped create the famous career of Teddy Roosevelt. Now 172 people know that fact about Torrey, assuming the entire population of 171 know the roots of their town's name. (To be honest I used wikipedia. I also want my editor to read that last sentence to make sure it is grammatically correct.)
After we found out that amazing fact about Torrey, we picked up our fresh muffins and snarfed them down for breakfast. Really my muffins were more like cupcakes being that they were chocolate and chocolate chip but really what is the difference between a muffin and cupcake. Rhetorical question, we can discuss the differences at another time.
We only had a few miles to cover before reaching the little known place of Grand Staircase - Escalante National Monument. I have no idea what any of those words mean when pieced together like that but we just called it Escalante. We were told to visit this place way back in St Louis one night when we were telling some friends our idea to drive west for a month. This girl said she had done something similar a few years earlier and Escalante was amazing. She said "you can swim in a waterfall!" and Megan's eyes lit up. We were going there come hell or high water, and actually high water might make the waterfall more majestic.
We knew we had about a 3.5 mile hike to reach Lower Calf Creek Falls but that was nothing. After a short detour off trail which included some rock climbing which should have been the first clue that we were off the trail, we started to hear some water splashing. Then the air temperature went from about 95 to 85 degrees as the cool water was being sprayed into the air. We came around the final bend and we were greeted with an incredible 125 ft waterfall. Just a small ribbon tumbling through the air splashing down into a large pool.
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| Lower Calf Creek Falls in Escalante |
We had brought some swim wear to change in to so we could play in the water which was going to feel wonderful as we had worked up a sweat with our rock climbing detour. There were a few others playing near the water but not many people were getting in and we quickly found out why when we dipped our toes in, Brrrrrr! That water was freezing! It wasn't going to stop us though so we inched our way in and tried our best to get all the way to the waterfall but the water was damned cold to get under the splash. I finally built up enough courage to dive in, I almost had a heart attack as I went under and felt my heart begin to race.
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| Megan Swimming Through the Falls |
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| Looking Up at the Falls |
We had about an hour drive to our next stop, Bryce Canyon, where we were hoping to find a place to stay. We stopped half way in to the drive to get some gas and found a little ice cream shop attached, so we definitely weren't passing that by. We also talked with the owner about Bryce Canyon and she said that we should try to stay at Ruby's Inn, it is just outside the entrance of the park and they have a huge camping area. We called Ruby's Inn and they had availability so we were set.
As we drove on to the grounds at Ruby's Inn we noticed a few teepees along the road; when we were at the check-in desk I asked what the deal was with them. They told me that we could rent them and sleep in a teepee, so again we weren't missing out on an opportunity like that, plus they gave us the one that wasn't right next to the road, in fact it was back on the far edge of the grounds away from everything else.
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| Our Home for the Night |
Setting up camp this night was a breeze; all we had to do was unroll the sleeping pads and bags and we were set. The teepee was huge inside; we could have easily slept another 6-8 people in it. Ruby's Inn was perfect for us, there was a pool that we took advantage of. If you hadn't noticed we were starting to really enjoy the relaxation time at the end of the day. After our relaxing pool time, we went back to our teepee and played some cards, I remember winning at rummy or gin or gin rummy whatever it was but I bet Megan probably remembers it differently. Who will ever know for sure.
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| Hoodoos of Bryce Canyon National Park |
Then we decided we wanted to check out some of the park at sunset so we hoped in Jeep and drove in to the park to a few of the vista points, one of group being called Sunset Point, which seemed promising. Bryce Canyon has these things called hoodoos that look like those drip sand castles but are orange. They have a very interesting look to them and it was cool to be up close and between them. The views were all facing east which confused me as the sun was setting in the west here. I was underwhelmed by the Sunset Point but felt that if we came back for sunrise it could redeem itself.
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| Hoodoos of Bryce Canyon National Park |
We scurried back to our car as the temperature was no longer "shorts and t-shirt weather" and headed towards a restaurant where we found a buffet to fill our stomachs to capacity. After gorging ourselves all we wanted to do was sleep and since we were getting up predawn, sleep was welcome.
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