We arrived in Bryce Canyon the evening of Tuesday 4^th November and planned to stay 3 nights. Still needing to make sure we had Wi-Fi and phone reception for John’s mornings ‘office hours’ we booked into a campsite just outside of Bryce Canyon in Panguitch.

It was indeed cold, as we’d been promised. Having to keep the door shut and having coats and shoes (not flip flops) brought back home how small a space we are living in. It’s totally different when all the windows and the door are open and we can spill out onto the grass / gravel / garden space outside of the van. I have to confess I was feeling a little claustrophobic.

We stopped off in the Red Canyon visitor centre, just outside of Bryce before going to our campsite and found snow on the benches there that hadn’t thawed. Slightly relieved our stress by hurling snowballs onto the unsuspecting children who had stayed behind in the van sulking!!

Wednesday morning we drove into Bryce properly. We’d read various descriptions of the unique landscape here. One spoke of Dr Seuss type landscape and ethereal hoodoos. There are no words to describe it (lazy I know!!). But truly even withstanding the fat that I am no writer, I wouldn’t know where to start to describe this crazy place. The red spires and hoodoos are like nothing I have ever seen before. William said it was like being ‘on Mars’ and Charlie said it was like being ‘in a painting’. John observed that it was like a world of ‘village church spires’ I think they might all be right!!

The sun shone through clear blue skies, so despite the freezing temperatures we got to see it in the most beautiful of lights. We drove the road through the park to the southern most point. Snow all over the trails sent the kids completely loopy like puppies. We stopped at every viewpoint on the 18-mile road through the park and marveled at the incredible scene below us.

The next day we ‘Hiked the Hoodoos’. Unbelievable trails zig zagging down onto the canyon floor where you walked between under and through the most incredible hoodoos!! The Peekaboo Trail was the most spectacular of all. It was a scorching day and reminded us once again how quickly the weather turns here.

That evening we went on the Moonlit Hoodoo Walk. The poster said no torches or headlamps allowed. We couldn’t believe that it would be possible to descend into the canyon without any source of light. We were of course forgetting the moon!! Wow.. Please don’t judge us on not actually considering that incredible source of light. So it was we descended 500’ or so down narrow paths on cliff edges with only the huge glare of the moon to go by!!

One of the Rangers on the trail had an enormous telescope, which gave the kids their first proper sight of the moon up close. Another shared a great story of why it is a coyote looks up to the sky while he howls; ancient tales say he is calling to his family that were turned into the stars.

It was one of those very special moments of the trip so far. Halfway back up William and John spotted something exciting in the night sky. Charlie and I agreed with them that there was a ‘red star’ with trails coming out of it – mainly to humour them… Yet again we were proved wrong as the Ranger confirmed he’d seen the meteorite they described and that it was probably only the size of a grain of sand – truly incredible!! Descending into this ethereal landscape by moonlight will stay with us all for a long time.

We left on Friday 7^th November and headed to Moab and the Arches National Park for the weekend…