Bryce Canyon

We left LA and drove to Utah. Our first destination was Bryce Canyon National Park.

It was a full-day drive, made longer due to road construction and accidents, and heavy traffic all the way to Las Vegas. But all in all the drive was smooth as far as Kai was concerned. At least it was until late in the afternoon when we hit some thunderstorms.

Kai's anxiety doesn't seem as severe these days, but it does kick up when there is a thunderstorm. He kept talking about how we were in danger. He even looked up on his phone that a tourist at Bryce Canyon was stuck and killed by lightning in 2012. I told him that I had never heard of lightning striking a moving vehicle. But when he gets like this, it is hard to reason with him.

But we made it to the lodge inside the National Park and the rain stopped. Kai finally settled down about the lightning.

But that wasn't the only thing to bother Kai.

Kai generally doesn't like to go to National Parks, especially when we stay inside the park as we did at Bryce. Wifi at the lodges are notoriously bad, and this place was no exception. He went on and on about how this was a terrible place to be. Even after we all went to bed, he was still grumbling.

The next morning he seemed to accept his circumstances, a little bit anyway. I told him that I put a lot of effort into planning our trips, and we always include things that we think will be fun for him. We also include other things that he might not choose for himself, but we hope he would find interesting. This was one of those places.

We had breakfast and went out to see Bryce Canyon.

From the first time we saw the Bryce Amphitheater, as it is known, we were in awe.

The amazing thing was that Kai enjoyed the sights as well.

We hiked from the rim of the canyon down to the floor, and then walked around some of the most popular areas of the amphitheater.

Kai told me that he really liked this park. He said that this was his favorite National Park, along with Muir Woods.

The hike back up to the rim was tough, but the sights were constantly spectacular and Kai did not complain at all.

After lunch we drove to other parts of the park and saw more great sights.

We even saw several wildlife including this mule deer buck that was grazing at the side of the road.

We also saw a large herd of about two dozen elk from a distance.

In the evening, we went out to Sunset Point. The sun actually set opposite the canyon so it wasn't so noteworthy, but we did get to see this beautiful rainbow over the canyon.

Kai had discovered earlier in the day that some of the best sightseeing spots in the park also had cellular service so he spent most of our time at Sunset Point catching up on the various games, videos, and other things he does on his electronics.

We enjoyed the sights at Bryce so much that everyone agreed to wake up early the next morning to see the sunrise.

I need to learn the photographic techniques for taking good shots of sunrises.

The rising sun lit up the canyon and we did get some great pictures. Here's one I asked a another visitor to take of the three of us:

And that wrapped up a pretty terrific first stop on our roadtrip back. There is still a long way to go, and I do worry that it will be too long for Kai, but hopefully the fun times will continue.