Could not get Internet connection at Capitol Reef. I know everyone has found it hard t

o function without the update, but rest easy as we are back online.

Spent Monday doing a hike at Bryce Canyon, the Fairyland Trail. Sunday night was extremely cold but it warmed up during the day as you can see by the sunshine in my self portrait.Although some may feel these self portraits are due to my narcissistic tendencies, really I just want to chronicle do devolution into a sweaty-toothed madman by the end of the trip.

Here is a picture of a natural bridge on the Fairyland hike,

I show this because I went off the trail to see this, and had a tough time getting back to the trail. I ended up going straight up a huge hill to to get perspective and find the original trail. When I got there I took another picture of the bridge here to show the vertical distance I traveled straight up. It was near heart attack exertion.

I took a few shots along the way. The trail was very cool, but I will give you this bit of advice. When a trail says 8mi long, you can't necessary think, "well I can walk 8 miles, so it wont be that bad," The key question to ask is how much climbing elevation is involved. I had to go uphill both ways and was about dead by the end.

After recovering in the parking lot I headed for 2 parks on the way to Capitol Reef, where I was planning on camping. The first was Kodachrome. Here is a picture,

nothing special, but I did try hiking a bit in my flip-flops, as I did not want to put the boots back on for a while, and crashed twice as they just don't make a good hiking flip-flop...I think I have a new business idea.

After Kodachrome it was off to Escalante, where I snapped this picture. Escalante is actually a very large park, so I just chose a 4 mile trail called Calf's Creek.

it was a nice hike through sand, did not make it to the waterfall at the end as I wanted to get to Capitol Reef by dark.

Before getting to the Reef I climbed to about 10K feet in the car for the panoramic image here.

Lots of birch trees surrounded me as I speed at 100 mph down a 10% decline in the minivan.

Finally arriving at Capitol Reef, this is a rock formation called Chimney Rock,

or something clever like that. The campground was nestled in a canyon, with great views during sunset. The group I had been seeing ever since Zion arrived at the campground just before me and stole the prime campground as you can see here.

Well, it is 4am and I am again sitting in the men's room as it was the only place with a power supply. The things I do for my loyal reader...(s)?