Tuesday AM 6:55

Sheets shouldn't smell. They just shouldn't. I'm guessing that because our last place and this place were small B/B type places that the owners think it's a nice touch to use smelly laundry soap on the sheets. Well, it isn't. I'm in PAIN from sleeping in that bed.

Yesterday's drive was probably over 300 miles. We saw more kinds of landscapes than we could ever imagine possible. We drove through mountains where there was still snow on the ground. We stopped at an over look at a 9600 ft high summit where we could see clearly across to mountains that were over 40 miles away. We drove across the top edge of a cliff where the road dropped off either side for a distance that I don't want to even think about, but truly made my knees shake. I think they could have filmed countless episodes of Star Trek with alien planet landings in various Utah locations, and it would be more convincing than any stage set. We figure that the Star Wars movies, and the Mars Rover landing, and the Moon landing, all of them must have been filmed here. And Mordor, I swear I saw Mordor from several different angles.

We took lots of pictures, but I know that they won't tell the story of what we saw. And even though we were in a car, it was just so *good*, so quiet, so big, just endless....

The temperatures changed radically as we travelled yesterday, too. At the high overlook in the mountains it was a chilly 56 degrees. When we were walking around the ancient ruins at the Edges of Cedars State Part (or Edges of Development, as Rick nicknamed it), it was in the 80s. We saw all different kinds of plants and trees, too - forests of ponderosa pines and birches together, the birches giving the woods a ghostlike look. More shrubby rosemary and lavender, too. And now that we're here in Bryce Canyon country, the flowers planted in front of the cabins are pansies and snapdragons, just like home.

Today we will go horseback riding. I will be brave.