Bonus park day

Our original plan for our last day in Zion was to hike a bit in the morning and then head to Capitol Reef with enough time to catch the sunset. Since we were both a bit worn out from The Narrows while we decided to head out of town early instead of hiking. We did get to have a bit more fun in the Mt Carmel tunnel on the way out and maybe there are a few more 5 cylinder fans out there now :-)

Since we had some extra time and since it was on the way we decided to stop at Ruby's Inn outside of Bryce for lunch and then do a quick tour of the park. Ruby's is always an interesting place to visit and they had a pretty decent buffet lunch too. The park was very crowded and the rangers were closing viewpoints as the parking lots filled up. We did manage to get in to Sunset Point and Fairyland. We hadn't figured on hiking much so just did a quick walk down the paths to get some pictures. Still though, it was nice to get back to see the Hoodoos.

Leaving Bryce we continued on Hwy12 through Escalante and the Dixie National Forest where we drove through alpine passes as the red rocks gave way to aspens. As we got closer to Torrey we ended up in a pack of sport bikes and got to play with them through the twisties for several miles on the way down Hwy12. I think they were surprised that they weren't able to pull away from us and we got several thumbs ups as we pulled in to town. It was a very entertaining end to the drive.

We checked in to the Best Western in town, again with fantastic canyon views from our balcony and then went to get food. We were using UrbanSpoon for recommendations and had picked out the Rim Rock restaurant. After heading towards town we decided we should call them and it turns out they were right across the street from the hotel, yay technology! We ate outside with views of the canyon with the early evening sun and the food was outstanding too.

We headed into the park and eventually found the Sunset Point trail I had been to last time and settled in to take pictures. Even after the sun had slipped below the horizon we were still able to get some pictures on the way back to the car. We capped off the day with a return trip to the Rim Rock for some apple pie desserts.