Unfortunately our month of a zillion steps came to an end before we knew it. We got up bright and early to head back east on Saturday, September 25th. Our first stop was Cedar City, Utah, setting us up to visit Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks.  One of our rest stops combined a much needed restroom visit with an interesting walk around some petroglyphs.

The next morning we got up dark and early to head to Zion as we’d read that it gets quite busy quickly and you have to take shuttles into the park with all the other riff raff. Thankfully the sun rose before we got onto the windier roads and we managed not to drive into an canyons. The intel on Zion getting busy was entirely accurate, but we got a parking spot without issue and didn’t have to wait too long before we were able to board a shuttle bus.

Angels Landing is the most famous hike in Zion, but I’d nixed that because it is a hike along a knife edge ridge with fixed chains to hold onto. Instead we hiked up past it along the West Rim trail and were super happy with our decision. The West Rim trail was gorgeous and uncrowded. When we passed the start to the scary part of the Angels Landing Hike it looked busy, but not too bad. By the time we returned past it it was an absolute zoo. We heard stories of people sitting on the chains and grabbing onto strangers when they were scared. Yikes.

We took a break after our West Rim adventure and then hiked to the Emerald Pools and checked out the start of the Riverside trail to the start of the Narrows trail, another famous hike that requires wading in sometimes chest deep water for a long way, yes, I nixed this one too.

Relive video of Zion hiking

After another night in Cedar Park, we drove to Bryce Canyon where we hiked the Navajo / Queens Garden Loop. Everything was stunning and now we have a massive catalog of hoodoo pictures.

Relive video of Bryce Canyon hiking

We needed to eat lunch on our way out Bryce to Grand Junction we stopped at the Red Canyon area. Just another gorgeous place to walk around after having some much needed PB&Js.

We made it to Grand Junction, Colorado in time to grab dinner at a local brewery, Rockslide Brewery, which had well above average food for a brewery and good beer to go with it.

From there is was time to head to Boulder, Colorado where we were fortunate to connect with an old college buddy. In one of the rare good uses of Facebook, I wrote to one of Jon’s old college roommates who we knew moved to the Boulder area after college. He and his family invited us over for a much appreciated home cooked meal while on the road. It was so good to see him and meet his lovely family. It didn’t seem like it had been over 20 years since we last caught up except for how much we had to catch up on!

Before meeting up with our friend, we took his advice on a local hike and checked out the Sanitas Loop Trail.

Relive video of Sanitas Loop hike

From Boulder we drove to Sedalia, Missouri for the night. The next day we visited Jon’s aunt and uncle in Osage Beach/Lake of the Ozarks and managed to avoid the cartel. We stopped one last time after that in Corydon, Indiana and then made it back to Bowie, Maryland on October 1st in time to celebrate our nephew’s birthday with him in person for the first time in 7 years.