Sunday, June 18th

I am sitting in yet a different laundromat today. I found an outlet to plug into and I have seen basically everything I feel the burning need to see here, so I thought I would charge everything up and get ready to move on tomorrow. I do not really have big things to report after yesterday, but I will keep a running journal.

Last night I had the grand idea that I wanted to go to a star gazing activity. Nothing like that was listed, but there was an astronomy program listed to start at 9 pm. I geared up and went. Everything here is quite evolution - old earth - centered. Sometimes I have a hard time getting past that to enjoy what is being said, and at 9 PM at night after hiking 10 - 11 of challenging miles I was struggling. I made it through the program and learned that there would be stargazing in the visitor center parking lot, with a massive telescope going on until 11 PM. I made the hard decision to go to bed instead, or should I say go to tent and hard ground sleeping bag instead.

In spite of my fatigue, I had a hard time sleeping last night. The road was noisy. There was a cow, or bull, having some sort of fit nearby. My neighbors packed up to leave around 3 AM . . . it wasn't a restful night. I was hoping to sleep in and rest up since I didn't really have huge plans for my day, but that didn't work. My body said it was done sleeping by about 6 AM, so I got up. While taking care of my morning ablusions I wandered into the local laundromat. There I saw a poster notifying of Sunday services in the park. WHAT? I had asked about that yesterday. I guess the group has a hard time getting people to promote or listen to their options. No matter what, I decided I would drive myself into the park (shuttles don't start until 8 AM and I was ready to go by shortly after 7.) I parked over at sunset point and decided to hike the Navajo Loop before breakfast and before church.

I was quite worried when we did the crazy switchbacks in the beginning. I started thinking that I had just done another hike like I did yesterday. Nope! It was a beautiful hike. Yes, it was all the way down in the canyon and back out again, but it was far easier. It was beautiful and I was back up on the rim about 50 minutes later. It was MUCH tamer than the Fairyland loop trail.

(I found this file in my "draft" folder. I don't know why it didn't publish, so I am going to do my very best to even remember what I did that day - it is Saturday, June 24th as I write this - so I probably have forgotten a great deal! I recall sitting in the laundromat for quite a while working on everything, so maybe it will come back to me).

I had time after that to wander around to attempt to find where "church" was going to be held. I looked in the "General Store" for a while, refilled water bottles, and then found the same ampitheater I had been at the night before. I guess that was the only ampitheater I could have made use of, so I eventually wandered up there. I found 4 college aged students there - one had a mandolin and the others were just hanging out on the benches. I knew I was about 20 minutes early, but was hoping I wouldn't be the only attendee that day.

I learned that the kids leading the service were just on a summer break and were working at the park. As part of their service the kids joined a ministry that leads worship services in most of our national parks. They were all from different parts of the country. Eventually one other family came and an older single woman from Austria (that will be me someday, I'm sure...just a random single traveler in a foreign country showing up for a tiny worship service. For now I am the "middle aged" random single traveler . . .) It was truly a casual worship experience with not a TON of depth, but it was a nice break and chance to remember my Creator, with others.

After church, I decided that I was done hiking in the park for the day and drove back out to my campground. Once there, I decided I wanted to walk out to the "hidden waterfalls" that the resort mentioned. It was a 2 mile round trip hike and was truly much easier than any of the others I had experienced. In hind-site, I thought the heat was bad that day (so I took things a little slower), but I didn't know what heat was at all yet at that point! HA! The "hidden falls" were indeed hidden to the point that I couldn't even get a photo of them, but I heard them. I guess that was good enough.

Upon returning to "Bryce Canyon Village" (which was where the trail left from) I wandered through the shopping centers and thought I was cooling off while window shopping.

I returned to my campsite where I took a little time to have some lunch and attempted to catch a short nap in my hammock before catching the "Rainbow Bus Tour."

This Rainbow Bus was something I had to call the park visitor's center to reserve a place on. I don't know why more people don't do that! It took me all the way up to Rainbow point and had a guide to tell us all about the history of the park and the local flora and fauna. My guide was 80 years old! He used to run a specialy grocery store, but had sold the store earlier so he and his wife could travel. He has driven busses (etc.) for several of our national parks. Now, this is his main gig. He impressed me. He was funny, sharp (thank goodness since he was driving my bus) and lead us on some walks trails that I am quite sure most 80 year old men wouldn't want to do in that heat. He made visiting all the scenic places even more interesting.

One highlight for me was Rainbow Point itself. Years ago, my parents had taken a trip to Bryce Canyon and they had taken my mom's picture by an elevation sign at Rainbow Point. My dad said it was unique because his little plane had never flown as high as mom's car had just taken them. I like that story.

After my (sing with me here) "three hour tour" I returned back to the campground where I parked in the laundry room to charge up all my technology devices, and I thought I had posted this update. Apparently something happened and that did NOT take place. I worked at packing up my car and got thing sready to move on to Zion the next day. Now,6 days later, I do NOT remember anything important about the rest of that day.