The weather wasn’t cooperating in Zion so we left two days early. We drove northeast to Bryce Canyon National Park hoping for sunnier skies. We didn’t find any.

I put up our tent in the rain and the downpour forced us to a nearby hotel restaurant for dinner. Apparently, every single other tourist in the area did the same and we waited nearly 1 1/2 hours to be seated. I wasn’t complaining though – we were warm and dry.

During the night our tent kept us dry but the temperature dropped down into the 30s. When we woke up and stepped out of the tent we were surrounded by a thick fog. After breakfast (in the car with the heat on), we drove to several different lookout points over Bryce Canyon. The rain and fog made visibility terrible and I was able to grab a couple shots at one of the points when the mist cleared for a few minutes.

We then headed to a hotel just outside of Capitol Reef National Park to wait out the storm (and since we hadn’t bathed in 5 days). We enjoyed the hotel’s hot tub, soft beds, TV, and wireless internet but I was a bit bummed out about the weather.

Southern Utah was the area I had been looking forward to the most on this trip and the weather was ruining it. In hindsight though, I can’t complain that during our 45 days of travel only three were rainy. That’s not bad at all.