Bryce Canyon, Utah

The quote today is from Nova who can’t understand why the gnats keep flying at our faces. The gnats are very bothersome here and they don’t care if you douse yourself in bug spray, vanilla, or anything except staying indoors.

We set aside today to explore the campground we are staying at which is called Kodachrome Basin State Park. Nole and the boys set off after breakfast on a trail exploring adventure on the bikes.

The girls and I were on our own to do some exploring but first, we started laundry. I sat back and let the girls handle things. They liked putting money in the machines.

Once the wash was going, we went for a walk on a very short trail called the Nature Trail. There are signs along the way explaining what you can see (rock formations, plants, animals, etc).

This plant is called Mormon Tea and contains ephedra. It had a nice smell to the leaves reminiscent of medicine and herbs.

We saw some whiptail lizards. In fact, there were a bunch of them together that scattered when they noticed us.

Then it was time to check on the laundry. The girls moved the loads to the dryer and started those up.

They didn’t want to do another hike so we went down the road to see what we could see on the other end of the park. There was a rock here called Chimney Rock. The scenery around it was beautiful and the girls especially loved the field of Black-eyed Susans. The sign explains why this park is named Kodachrome.

We went back to the camper to make Ramen for lunch and the guys arrived shortly after. We spent the afternoon watching movies on DVD, folding laundry, reading, playing, showering and relaxing. The girls built a fort in their bed too.

At 3:30 the campground hosted a ranger-led interpretative walk. It was on the same trail that we took earlier so I didn’t take a lot of pictures.

We had dinner, chicken and mashed potatoes with salad, and then we went back to Bryce to do Mossy Cave.

There was a waterfall!

We took a bit of a wrong turn but then we found the cave. I thought it was really cool. Water drips through the ceiling of the cave. In winter it forms cool icicles but in summer there is drippy moss. Nova was disappointed that we didn’t get to go all the way into the cave. She said “Yelp review: 0 stars. Not enough moss and can’t go all the way inside the cave”. I thought it was a cool easy hike though.

We wanted to stop at an ice cream place but they only had 4 flavors and they were closing when we arrived so we decided to go to the grocery store instead. We bought supplies to make root beer floats and sundaes.

Nova decided she would actually like to go scorpion hunting so she, Cal and I went tonight. She found 3 of them.