Utah

15th September

Today we are off to Salt Lake City. We leave the Painted Buffalo Inn around 8.30 and climb on board the bus

We pass through some beautiful countryside which is bursting with colours of Autumn there are a myriad of greens, yellows and bright oranges. The terrain is quite rocky.

We made a stop at the little town of Afton Wyoming its claim to fame is the really large Antler archway across the main road. Doris our tour guide went to great length to assure us these fall of naturally and no deer were killed to make this arch.

As we stepped off the bus right in front of a quad bike store which has some pretty cool quads for sale. Many of us wanted to take one for a blast.

The tiny shop we stopped at in Afton was over crowded as several tour busses had arrived within short time of each other, so Matt and I walked up and down the entire town of Afton looking for somewhere to buy some food and drink, it’s not a very big town.

Eventually we wandered into shop which turned out to be a little pub where some locals were already sitting drinking, seemed a bit early in the day for that, but thankfully they sold bottled soft drinks as well.

On the road again and the scenery outside the bus starts to get fairly unremarkable as we head toward Salt Lake City our lunch stop is Evanston near the border of Wyoming and Utah. Subway again for lunch, it’s become the lunch of choice in most places as a respite from big American food.

After lunch we had a look at Murdoch’s Ranch Supplies store, among other things they had an amazing collection of Gun Safes. All sorts of weird and wonderful farming, hunting and fishing supplies, this store would be a survivalist’s wet dream.

We cross the border into Utah shortly after getting underway again and then it’s on to Salt Lake City, as we near the city we saw the massive Ski Jump on the side of the hill, it’s not snowing here yet so it looks kind of odd.

We soon see the city and our first stop is the State Capitol building, what a magnificent building and it’s perched up overlooking the city so it has great views from the front steps. There was no one about and I was busting to go so I took a leak in the private bathroom for the Senators.

Back on the bus and off to check in at the hotel.

Later that evening we went with the bus group for diner at a swanky restaurant that was run by the Mormons, it was up on like the 20th floor and had great views of the city. There was a really good selection of food in a buffet style, but to be honest it wasn’t as amazing as Craig had made out and they kind of rushed you through, the sun was setting in the distance as

we ate which made for a nice site, unless you happened to be sat looking directly out the window as some of our travellers were, then you were near blinded while trying to eat.

After diner we walked to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir practice, wasn’t too sure about bothering with this, bloody glad I did it was quite an amazing experience, after sitting in the crowded lower deck for a while we followed Matt’s lead and went to the upper deck, great decision, the view and acoustics up there were much better. Stayed and marvelled for much longer than I would have thought I would.

We lost a couple of our travellers so had to wait on the bus for them to show up, noticed quite a lot of homeless people around and apparently it’s not the safest area so there was concern to find them rather than just let them find their own way back. Eventually they turned up and we headed back to the hotel.

16th September

Heading south today to Bryce Canyon, we stopped off at a truck stop in Utah, they had this little petting zoo, with a bunch of animas next door, including mules, sheep and such, amazing to me that such places survive and still attract visitors.

My jaw literally dropped when we arrived at Bryce canyon, it was like a scene directly out of road runner, with orange rock formations towering above, the salt and peppers were the first we saw and then we saw the main event the canyon itself it was breathtakingly spectacular. I would have loved more time here to explore and look around, I remember thinking to myself I want to soak this in and make it a memory I will never forget as the place filled my senses.

Our stop for the night is in Cedar City at the Best Western Town and Country.

We tried to find a place that Craig and Doris had recommended as having amazing food, but had zero luck, bumped into some of our fellow travellers also trying to find it and even went back to the hotel and asked reception, never did find it, seems the place no longer exists.

We spotted a shop called Gunjah the bead forest which had beads and hand glass blowing and went in for a look, turns out it was actually mostly a comic book store and out back some of the local teens were immersed in a game of something like dungeons and dragons. I picked up a Doctor Who comic here.