When I got up today, the sky was clear to the east and stormy looking to the west. Unfortunately, I was headed west but where I was it was very clear.

Red Canyon is a really cool but small place. It does have the reddest sandstone that I have seen yet. It is so small though that you can drive back and forth through it well within an hour. But within that hour there is a lot to see. Unfortunately, it's more of a sunset place that a sunrise place but I did manage to get one cool picture.

After that I headed off for Bryce Canyon. Bryce is supposed to be one of the highlights of this area.  First off though, Bryce Canyon isn't really a canyon, it's a series of amphitheaters. When you enter Bryce, you drive along Rim Drive which isn't exactly on the rim but it's close. Not really close enough to see though so you have to stop every so often and get out and a take a look around.

When I got there their there were a lot of clouds but a lot of sun breaks as well. I found a cool place just outside of the park entrance named "Fairyland Canyon." It turned out to be one of the best place along the canyon. It was really quite impressive. As you're standing at the edge of the amphitheater, the area below you is full of giant sandstone spires. They're hard to describe, but they look sort of like a whole pile of different sized flat rocks stacked one on top of another until they are 100+ ft tall.

It took me quite a while to set up for a shot. It's much harder using a view camera that is pointing either up or down at such an extreme angle. You end up with a lot of distortions in the perspective, which you can correct for with a view camera (unlike a regular camera) but it takes a lot of time and it's not something I do very often. All in all I think it took me about 1.5 hours to get the picture.

Next I found another place with really tall spires. It had this really cool area where they almost formed a slot canyon (really narrow canyons). Again it took me quite a while to set up. I got a color shot, but while I was getting ready for the B&W shot a very dark cloud moved in. I waited about 40 minutes but then it got darker and started to rain. I took the shot anyways since I was just waiting for better lighting but I don't expect it to be very good.

After that I went into the lodge for some lunch, hoping that the clouds would clear by the time I finished. Luckily they did so I started searching for more interesting places. I have to say though that while Bryce is really interesting to look at it's not a very easy place to take pictures. I kept wishing that I could either get to a place where I was opposite to the 'canyon' wall or wishing that I had a really wide lens so I could just do a huge panoramic shot of the whole thing. I couldn't do either so the only other picture I took was of a natural bridge, a place were nature has carved out a huge window in a rock.

After I finished with Bryce, I headed off for a place name the Kodachrome Basin. It was given this name not by Kodak but by the founder of the National Geographic Society. For those of you who don't know, Kodachrome slide film is very well known for producing very vibrant colors.

Anyways, it was a really pretty place and all but not so much that it met the barrier for having me set of the camera, at least not this trip. Their was a double arch about 10 miles down a dirt road, so I decide to investigate it. I had to cross a small stream and go down some really bad dirt roads, but once I got there it was worth it. It is a really cool arch but unfortunately it is a sunrise place and it was near sunset. I'm sure I'll go back to it someday.

All in all Bryce and the surrounding areas were interesting but I always seemed to be in the right place at the wrong time of day. I think it would have worked out much better if I could have traveled east to west and followed the sun all day.

So next I headed off for Capitol Reef National Park, about 160 miles to the north. My plans are to spend the next two days there and at Canyonland and Arches National Park and then drop back down to Arizona and New Mexico. I figure I have nine days left before I have to start the drive back and I think I can make it.