Fall Break Vacation Part 5 (Bryce Canyon)

Today was our last National Park to visit. Unfortunately when Eric woke up today he wasn't feeling very well and didn't want to do anything. It was also quite cold and at first none of us wanted to do much hiking. We went to the visitors center and to pick up our Jr. Ranger handbooks and were told we would have to listen to a Park Ranger presentation. We didn't have much time so we went to one lookout and took a few pictures. As we were parking Meagan said she saw the last state for our license plate game we had been playing all week and we didn't believe her at first. We parked the car and all got out and sure enough right behind us was the state of Delaware. We had done it! We saw all 50 states of license plates on our trip. We walked a few minutes to see this breathtaking view of the canyon. Then the kids picked up litter as we walked back to our car. This was the most litter we had seen on our entire trip. Then David, Heidi and Emma wanted to take a little hike back to where we were going to listen to the Park Ranger. We dropped them off and drove the rest of the way. Eric was not happy and didn't want to do anything but be carried. Meagan and I still wanted to see somethings so we dragged Eric along. During the Park Ranger presentation we learned some cool things about the rocks in the canyon. He said that if we drilled down in the ground so far we would come to the rocks in Arches and asked if anyone had been there. We raised our hands. Then he said we could keep drilling and get to the rocks of Mesa Verde and asked if anyone had been there. We raised our hands again. He continued talking about all the different types of rock that were found in all the different parks we had been to. The kids thought that was so interesting. We also found out that Bryce Canyon is really not a canyon because to be a canyon water erodes away the rock. That is not what happens in Bryce. Here the water gets down in crevices and then freezes and expands and that is how the cool "Hoodoos" are formed. Poor Eric was tired and feeling yucky but lasted a little while. I really wanted to hike down into the hoodoos and take a picture. I was able to convince everyone to at least go a little bit. Then David, Heidi and Emma went all the way to the bottom. At the bottom were these 2 trees in the middle of all the rocks. They said it looked really cool. The kids were then able to get their 4th and final Jr. Ranger badge and the Park Ranger that had given us the presentation was the one to do it. Bryce was really pretty and I was quite impressed. I continued taking pictures as we were leaving including driving through this little arch on the way out. We had a great vacation and everyone seemed to like it. They only asked that not all of our vacations be "Nature" ones. I told them that next time we will do something different.