Sept 22 Our first day at Bryce was a no-show. Thick low clouds provided less than 100-foot visibility, not very appropriate for sightseeing. We tried just driving through the park but barely saw the edge of the road let alone the spectacular land formations.

Our second day was better with the fog lifting late morning so we did get to see the interesting hoo-doos. It rained during the night. Our phones were honking alert warnings of flash floods. There was a heavy cloud cover; we could see less of the mountain tops than we did the previous day. We set off with the intension of having breakfast on the road. There were no open places in Pungitch, so we decided to stop at Ruby’s Inn, a large restaurant hotel complex at Bryce that just celebrated its 100 th anniversary. The breakfast was great and by the time we finished it looked a little brighter! We thought we could just try the drive and see there was any visibility. Right away we saw a herd of antelope! Their behinds were to us, so no picture. As we began the scenic drive we were able to see over edge into the canyon! At first it was still very cloudy and there was only a hint of the view. As we drove, the clouds opened various amounts at the different points. It actually gave the views different character. We would see one area with a narrow view due to the clouds, the clouds would move and open up a whole new vista. We took a picture at Pine Tree Point with the obscured view thinking that was what we were going to see. On the way back up the road after stopping at a few viewpoints, we saw Pine Tree had cleared and took pictures there! Beautiful! At Sunset point, we had planned to hike down Navajo trail to Queens Gate. As the ranger the previous day had predicted, the trail was muck…red, gushy sticky muck. We did not do the hike.