Valeria Out Loud

Hello friends! How are you? What a gorgeous week up in the Northeast. I am a sucker for hot weather, and Mother Nature’s really had my back lately.

Today I have a short n’sweet post. Why so short? Well, we woke up to colder temps than the other days and Bryce was to be twenty degrees cooler than that. Though I dressed for the weather, when we arrived in Bryce, I last minute decided to take a break from hiking to rest my wrist, it was achy, and I wanted to spare my family (more so myself) of my shivers. Our youngest daughter didn’t want to leave me alone, so we decided to make a fun hour alone.

Day 7

The drive out to Bryce was another awe inspiring drive. The landscape change from inside Zion to the outer town was like a movie set. Then into Bryce Canyon area, again, it just looked surreal. The mountains looks painted in the sky.

Once we arrived inside the park we drove around a touch to see some of the views. Gorgeous. Majestic. Too much to say and feel all at once. It was even more beautiful that I expected. The coolest part were the hoodoos all around. Hoodoos are the names given to the specific rock formations, that look like people to me. They are columns of rock, that have wavy bodies from the millions of years of weathering. It’s quite special.

After our drive we arrived to the Sunset Point trail parking lot. We walked out to view the canyon from that elevation, it was gorgeous but I nearly froze as we waved our family off to hike. They headed toward the path and we went to the store that was in the parking lot. It was a huge store. We grabbed surprise snacks for everyone, shopped and enjoyed the sunshine through the windows. I should also mention that we took a nap in the car soon after. I swear, I wasn’t even tired! But we hung out in the warm car for two minutes talking school, meaning boys, and before I knew it I woke up to my daughter snoring haha.

I’m not a napper, but breaking my wrist turned me into one for the month of April, and like clockwork. Every day at 2PM, I’d find myself taking on the couch to rest my wrist on a pillow. I’d pop in my air pods, put on a podcast …only to fall asleep. It was wonderful but I am so glad that is over.

Anyways…

My husband and older daughter had a great time on their hike, though they both said it was a tough hike and that I chose to sit out on the right one. They hiked the Navajo Loop Trail to Sunset Point to see the Queen’s Garden. It’s just shy of 1.5 miles, straight down and then up.

I was bummed to miss it but… My wrist thanked me for being cautious.

Then after the hike we drove around the area for a bit more before heading back to Zion. It was a beautiful adventure driving around, too.

After Bryce Canyon we headed back to Zion to hike a trail before heading to dinner. On our way to park, we saw some wild big horn sheep lounging in the sun on top of rock formations. As we were looking at them, we noticed sheep across the street grazing. It was so cool!

Right before entering the tunnel to travel back through Zion, that is where the Canyon Overlook Trail is located. Sounded innocent enough. But. What my husband didn’t tell me was that the entire trail was not made for someone with broken body parts. 😆

Scary!!

This is the dumbest thing I did all trip with this wrist. The trail itself is really cool. If I didn’t have a broken wrist, I wouldn’t have thought the trail was totally awful at all, but overall, the trail had insane drop off points that would scare anybody and even though they stated that it’s mostly fenced, it’s not fenced in the most crucial of areas. I needed to use my walking stick from the start so I didn’t fall off the sandy steep steps or the uneven trail. Dangerous stuff, kids! And I did have the walking stick for support- ThankTheLawd!

A funny thing that happened on the trail was we were making our way up to the first bend, and we noticed a woman leaning on the side with a bulky cast on. So, I asked her what she broke, if she was OK. Common chitchat. She was much older than us, and she told me how she broke her wrist from a fall. Also how she was not a candidate for surgery, which is why she had on a full cast. I felt bad for her. She continued on to tell us how she couldn’t make it around the bend ahead of her because the trail was unfenced, had no railings and was a foot wide. So I got real nervous.

I made it through to the cave pretty easily, just needed an extra eye on my footing, and then stopped. The next part of the hike was without a fence and open to an insane drop. I tried to make it across but it was way too risky for me. The best way for me to describe it is if there was a two foot ledge that had a one foot step below it that overhung a steep drop. (But scarier)

My husband and oldest daughter went on but returned ten minutes after because there were so many people, they weren’t sure how much further it went. We hung out a bit overlooking the mountains in front of us then headed back to the car. It was beautiful but seriously not like described at all. Just a heads up if you’re planning to go.

We had reservations back in Springdale at the Bit-&-Spur. The place was so cute but we opted to sit outside on the patio under the awning. It was great. Their food was authentic… and those beans! Man, so good.

Right after dinner we made a beeline back to our hotel to sit in the hot tub. We tried to hit the hot tub since we got there but we finally made it on the last night! It was chilly outside so the hot tub was the perfect setting to look at the mountains in the dark distance.

Felt perfect. ❤️

OK this post ended up being long! 😆 I’m wordy, sorry.

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There’s one more post after this one, when we head back to Las Vegas, then I’ll be all caught up with April vacation. That will definitely be a short one! I promise.

Well, it’s time for me to skedaddle. Have a great long weekend, guys! Hope you enjoy doing something fun. As always thank you for stopping by to catch up with me. I appreciate you all. ❤️

till next time xoxo