By Skittles
By the time we left our adventures in SLC, it was hard to believe that we had spent a whole month there! As much as I had enjoyed our time playing in the mountains and bonding with our friend Clint, I was eagerly awaiting some play time in the sun. So promptly after our Sportsmans show, we “hit the road again” - headed due south. According to the directions via Google Maps in the iPhone, it had us driving thru Vegas en route to Phoenix. However, after waking up from a nap, I found we were minutes from Bryce Canyon! Ok, so maybe we weren’t going to hit Vegas after all - talk about last minute changes in direction!
It was actually quite cool to visit Bryce while there was still four feet of snow on the ground. The contrast between the white snowy ground and the shades of orange in the rock towers were beautifully amazing and the temps were perfect for a day hike thru the snow! Despite wishing we had a pair of snowshoes to trek into the untouched rolling hills leading down into the canyon, we had a great time following the packed down trail in the snow. 
Torr had a great time too bounding into the snow fields chasing snowballs.
Following our very brief visit to Bryce, we figured that since we were going to drive right past it, that we should stop at the Grand Canyon. The Grand Canyon, is well, … grand. Large. Expansive. Impressive. For the middle of winter, it was also pretty busy and didn’t have enough signs (or maybe we are just prone to getting lost everywhere!). Since, again, our stay was going to be brief, we decided that we would just do a short hike down into the canyon to see if the view got any more impressive. At the trailhead, I was very surprised to learn that a Boston marathoner had died on the same trail we were about to explore because she was unprepared for the heat and didn’t bring enough water. I guess we all need to be careful, no matter how many miles we can run! The hike proved to be a lot of work to be able to see the same thing we could from the parking lot, so David and I 
both decided that the only way we would want to see the Grand Canyon again is from the river below on a raft!
At this point, our travels to Phoenix were starting to feel like a whirlwind tour of Arizona! We continued south hitting up Flagstaff and Sedona on our way. After pulling into Sedona around 4:00 in the afternoon, we jumped on our bikes and did a quick bike ride around the infamous red rock towers. Our brief trail ride left us hooked and wanting more (unfortunately unbeknownst to us, it was going rain the next day). We’ve had the great luck on this trip of meeting some super friendly folks. That night was no exception! Not only did we meet a fellow biker on the trail from California who invited us to park in his driveway anytime we were coming thru town, but a super cool group of riders just getting done with their weekly group ride. We would like to holla at our friends at the Bike & Bean bike shop. Thank you so much for the beers and camaraderie and also letting us park behind your shop! If anyone is ever in Sedona to ride bikes, please stop by and support this cool shop.