#404 Bryce Canyon North Campground

We went to Bryce hoping we could find a campsite because this part of the world is first come first serve only. As we entered the National Park the Ranger suggested that there may not be a spot for a rig our size. He called down and talked to the host and they said yeah no problem so he sent us on down. I turned into the camping area and as I approached the loop the host was there to meet me. They suggested that we just follow them and they would suggest the only one or two campsites that would work for us.

There might have been one other possibility they showed us but we took the one they thought would work best. It was a really big pull through, maybe a hundred feet long or so but it had a fairly sharp turn with a tree in the middle of the turn. The tree eventually was scrubbing the awning. I said I think I can make it and the host said you just really need to back up because you're going to damage your rig. I backed out of there went forward past the site and backed in. This angle went so much better so we were grateful to the host for all their help. it was kind of tough but after 20 minutes of finagling about we got in there and that was the end of the difficulty. This site was pretty cool because it was so far away from everyone so Bert could wander off into the woods and I liked that. After we got settled in and the hosts were long gone always tried to show Bert where she should go instead of where he wanted to go. He might just cross the street and go into someone else's site so I will kind of walk him up to the top of the hill to acres and acres of nothing but wildness.

We went on a little hike together and I showed him how cool it was up there. At some point, he heard a sound and went flying back to the rig but at least he had been shown the right direction for his exploring.

I noticed my battery situation had really gone downhill. I knew I needed to do something so I went online to see what the price of a decent RV battery would cost. I drove down to the Sinclair gas station which was the only game in town and asked them what a decent battery would cause and surprisingly it was about the same price as NAPA so I went ahead and bought it. I also bought some fat cables that I could jumper into my battery system with cable ends I had in my stock. I put it all together and we had at least a good battery even though the existing ones weren't doing much anymore.

We went to a local restaurant and it was okay but it was more like fast food and a little busy messy with trash falling out of the trash cans so once it's okay but not too many times. I noticed a lot of the other places were probably good and all but everything was 18 to 20 dollars per person so that kind of stings a little bit. We did a good bit of hiking and we went down to one of the more famous hikes which are called Wall Street. It was a bit of a stroll to do the whole thing so India and I did about one mile in one mile out with some of the twists and turns which were a little spooky for both of us, like don't fall off the cliff.

Bryce is a beautiful place and I took lots of pictures because I just love doing that. We went hiking in the area several times and one time I went by myself and did the whole thing. It’s called Navaho loop and it was about three miles and it wore me out but it was quite a nice and beautiful hike.

There was a package I needed to receive so I knew Bryce was in our path and asked Ruby's lodge and restaurant if we could receive a package there and she said okay. I told him I would be happy to pay a fee and she's don't worry. We figured at least we could eat some dinner there to say thank you.

I had heard about and thought about the Grand Escalante drive for quite a few years and did not try it in the RV several years back. The truck at the time was not running right so I didn’t want to risk it. It’s a very scenic drive and a guy said you feel like you’re driving on the spine of the country. We decided to do that as an excursion which is kind of an all-day event.

We left out at a decent hour maybe 10 am and went on down the main road which is the only road along the way I noticed it was quite remote but there were still RVrs camped along the way. The Escalante is a wilderness area and eventually, it becomes just a two-lane road that can be kind of creepy because there's one section a few miles long that you are just a two-lane road with a cliff on the right and a cliff on the left so I sensed hey don’t fall off the cliff and it was creepy, I was going 5mph and praying I wouldn't meet anybody.

Our Excursion convinced me I was glad I had not tried this in the rig. We ended up in a town called Tory which is at Capitol Reef National Park. We stayed here once before but this time it was more of a wave hi and keep on driving. We went on down and through a town called Antimony, it was by a big lake where we had boondocked a few years back. We started looking for restaurants but there was only one in Antimony and they seemed to be closed. There was nothing else so we headed on back towards Bryce hoping to find some civilization and a place to eat. It was a really interesting thing to do but a long day with a lot of driving, four to six hours.

As we returned to Bryce we wanted to try some other place to eat. We went down about 20 minutes below to a place that had live music and nice food. It was called The Showdown restaurant and lodges. They were really busy and there was about a 20-minute wait but we managed it was a nice visit and we enjoyed the guy singing with an acoustic guitar and a bar stool.

Back at the rig, I took Bert up over that hill several times, and soon I would take a cushion, drink, and a book and just sit there and soak up some nature while he walked around and enjoyed himself. I took great pleasure in doing this as we did it two or three times together. It was a nice place to take a cat on a walk. Bryce was as beautiful as always and we enjoyed being there. It's about 9,000 feet there so really cool in the summer but towards the end, I noticed it was a little warm like 82. I mentioned it to someone and they said yeah Utah is going to be hot for the next few months. I mentioned my next stop was Provo and they said yeah it's like 100 degrees plus down there. All I could say was wow it seems boondocking isn’t much of an option for the next stretch. We had made a reservation at Provo at a state park that had a full hook up but would need a 2 hour stop as it was a pretty good haul there from Bryce.