Bryce Canyon National Park, a sprawling reserve in southern Utah, is known for crimson-colored hoodoos, which are spire-shaped rock formations. Weathering and erosion shape these statuesque rock features. Before this area was full of hoodoos it was full of water. Between 55 and 40 million years ago, today's Utah was a mountain-encircled basin. For millions of years, rivers deposited sediments (mostly dissolved limestone) into a system of large lakes. Twenty million years ago, as the Colorado Plateau began to rise, the lakes dried up and their mixtures of sediments became the muddy limestone called the Claron Formation. Hoodoos don't grow like trees but are eroded out of the cliffs where rows of narrow walls form. These thin walls of rock are called fins. Frost-wedging enlarges cracks in the fins, creating holes or windows. As windows grow, their tops eventually collapse, leaving a column. Rain further dissolves and sculpts these limestone pillars into bulbous spires called hoodoos. The delicate climatic balance between snow and rain ensures that new hoodoos
will emerge while others become reduced to lumps of clay.
The park’s main road leads past the expansive Bryce Amphitheater, a hoodoo-filled depression lying below the Rim Trail hiking path. We checked out the overlooks at Sunrise Point, Sunset Point, Inspiration Point and Bryce Point. Upon entering the park we drove through the red arches. We had planned on stopping for pictures on our way out of the park, so the only pictures I got were from the RV, but then we took a different route out of the park. There are trails through the canyon that we wanted to explore, but unfortunately we didn't have enough time. We actually had not planned on stopping at Bryce canyon for this trip, so we only had a few hours to explore the park. Thankfully they also have a shuttle bus system in place that took us to all the hot spots. There were tons of annoying little flies/gnats at the canyon. Just after leaving the park the RV refrigerator/freezer stopped working. Jason drove until 11:30pm, almost hit a cow on an open range and 2 deer! We had 1 deer on the right shoulder of the road and 1 deer just to the left of the center line walking to the right. Thankfully Jason handled the situation perfectly and didn't try to swerve and just drove right in between the 2 deer. If either deer would have moved I'm sure we would have hit them. With a 32 foot RV you can't swerve and over correct. That gave Jason and I both a scare and we found the first possible spot to pull over and camp for the night at a View Point. Jason worked on the refrigerator, but couldn't fix it. We had brought our camping cooler, which was in the shower/tub area to keep our water/beer cold. So, the next day we moved the refrigerator items into the cooler.
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