It's August Already

We can't believe that it's already August, summer is sliding by quickly, as is our time at Bryce. That makes us aware that we have to start thinking seriously about where we will go after Bryce. We know we want to spend October doing some more touring out west. We have a permit for backcountry in the Grand Canyon towards the end of October, then there are numerous other parks/forests we want to visit. Plus we need to get back to NY for a visit sometime and Kathy needs to get down to Florida to see her Mom. We got to the Nankoweap area of the Grand Canyon last weekend, the trail there kicked our butt, and we only did 5 miles before we turned around, but probably did close to 2500 feet elevation gain. Again, we didn't see any Condors but saw a Golden Eagle (our second). Yesterday we visited and hiked in the Fishlake Forest near the Beaver Lakes Recreation Area. That trail was recently maintained and was easy, there were several long vistas in high meadow areas, but didn't see the elk we were hoping to see. Earlier today we took Mike (who was here for the past week running a survey) to Willis Creek, a canyon in the Grand Staircase Esclanate. See photo.

Things have been hopping at Bryce, visitation is up and we were given extra assignments handing out visitor surveys as well as the work we did with fire displays. This past week, we 'went out' three nights in a row, amazingly enough. We checked out the western show at the new Ebeneezer Barn & Grill, the food was good and the music by the Bar-G Wranglers was excellent. Then there was a meal put on by our big boss Dan in appreciation for the help we gave on the survey and a 23rd birthday party for one of our SCA's. We're sure the birthday party went on long after we left, they were mostly a bunch of young people.

August is a traditional vacation month, especially for Congress, therapists and Europeans. We will see how that affects the visitation at Bryce. Vacation can be a stressful time for many people. We just heard Garrison Keillor say that vacations are usually the low point of the year for Norwegian Lutherans. We hope we don't get too many of them here at Bryce, no offense. So a word of friendly advice: enjoy your vacations and make them stress free, it will help the workers and volunteers at the parks.