Bryce Canyon

One of the things on my bucket list is to visit all of the national parks in the lower 48 states and Hawaii, plus Glacier Bay and Denali (I'm just not going to make it to the others in Alaska, I'm afraid), and thankfully I have friends who love going off to wonderful places with me. So a few weeks ago, I visited Bryce Canyon. My feet enjoyed it.

My stomach enjoyed it. I declare Becky the queen of the dutch oven—pasta with meatballs and then pineapple upside-down cake for dessert=yum!

My nose enjoyed it. A ranger told us these trees smelled like vanilla, and she was right.

The Utah fan in me enjoyed it. This was the weekend of the Utah-BYU game, and let's just say it was a good thing my Utes won big time. Yes, we're all wearing our hats celebrating our school of choice, but I was the one who really cared about the outcome of the game, so it all worked out. And we got some funny comments since we walked around in our hats all day.

So yeah, in spite of a few minor annoyances (being sick and getting caught in another rainstorm—although I didn't mind that as much since my jacket was waterproof and I've never thought that lightning is out to get me), it was a rather nice trip. On Saturday night we even got to do a bit of stargazing through some high-powered telescopes. I saw Jupiter's moons and the Andromeda Galaxy and Uranus (insert your own elementary school joke here). And really, it was three days in one of the world's beautiful places, so I'm not going to complain. In fact, I think I'll celebrate.