After the Grand Canyon showed us who’s the boss and we regained our normal, non-limping stride, we ventured back to the state of Zion Curtains (Google it) and shit-balls-it’s-hot temperatures. Utah. Why? Because we like a challenge.

Right after we got out of the canyon, we needed a soft bed, AC, and a hot shower. Stat. We booked two nights in the raging/not-sure-if-you-can-call-it-a-town town of Cliff Dwellers. It has a lodge. And no wifi. But it has a restaurant. So there’s that…

Within the first few hours of our arrival, we fell asleep for three hours. Guess hiking for 20 miles and waking up at 1:45 am took it out of us. We also seriously debated leaving Cliff Dwellers and dwelling elsewhere that had wifi. Yes, we are those people. After 3 nights of camping and no service, we craved the juice of the world wide web. Can you blame us?

But we decided to not throw money down the toilet and, instead, walk the 10 steps to the restaurant, watch Jurassic World on, gasp, cable, and just chill (minus the Netflix).

And we totally drove 45 minutes to Page just to try and get a hit of wifi, but turns out…not so much. So we went swimming in our newly fave marina, Wahweap, and weeped for the days of wifi. I also discovered in Page the oddest bathroom ever. Right?

After two days, we were refreshed and ready to hit up another national park. This time? We met Bryce. Bryce was a park we heard you could really see in a day. We also hadn’t booked any camping until a week or so before, so we stayed in nearby Kodachrome State Park. It was pretty, not too crowded, and loved having 15-miles-per-hour speed limits. So. Slow.

With almost two months of camping under our belts, we’ve become pros at setup and takedown. We’ve also become more sensitive to campground rules. Especially quiet hours. We love quiet hours. And it seems the more we camped, the less people liked to follow them. Fuckers. Also, what is up with all the children? When does school start back up? And where’s my birth control? Us child-less people need to drink in peace and quiet by our tent.

Did I just have an adult version of a temper tantrum there? Any hoo. Our first (and only) full day in Bryce, we headed into the park early to avoid the crowds and heat. Big surprise. Craig found a great loop hike for us to do, so we drove the ridiculously slow speed limit and parked near the freakishly popular viewpoint and trailhead.

Bryce is like something out of this world. Sorta reminds me of Goblin State Park, but bigger…and dare I say it, better. Size Queen.

We combined two hikes to create one big loop. Or, if you are into details, a drunk figure-eight loop. If you are in Bryce, do Peekaboo Loop and Queens Garden Trail. You get up close and personal with the hoodoos (those weird, creepy rock formations) and see most of what makes Bryce Canyon famous.

You start on top, hit rock bottom, then climb your way back up. After doing the Grand Canyon, this shit was pretty easy. Except that we were a mere 50 yards from the top when we were told we had to turn around because the trail was closed.

Jokes and awesome gifs aside, it was real serious. A woman fell 100 feet into the canyon at the top of the trailhead. Search and rescue were trying to get to her. And, rumor had it, it was bad. They told us we could wait for a minimum of an hour while they tried to rescue her, or head back the way we came (which was about 2 miles of climbing in the rapidly rising heat).

We decided to venture back, with very little water left since we thought we were almost to the top. Luckily, a very nice woman gave us some of her water, and helped us try and tell people that the trail was closed. Lots of confused faces and lots of people that didn’t speak English.

But we backtracked and reached the top (an hour later than expected).

I tried to Google and see what came of the woman who fell. But I couldn’t find anything. Instead, I found out that a few days after we left the Grand Canyon, a woman fell 400 feet (and died) after she moved out of the way to let someone pass her on the trail. Mother Nature doesn’t fuck around, people. I’m hoping no news is good news in the case of the Bryce Canyon incident.

The next day, we packed up our tent for what we thought would be the second-to-last time and ventured towards Zion National Park. We had a backcountry permit to hike the iconic West Rim Trail. However, we were over desert camping and hiking in the ridiculous heat.

So you know what we did? We didn’t. Instead, we decided to flake on our hard-to-come-by permit and go to Vegas (early). What happens in Vegas stays on this blog’s next post…