Reply to Zion & Bryce w/3 kids in April

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[quote=Anonymous]Day 6:
At the lodge we got 3 rooms (two queens in each room) and I had one kid sleep in my parents’ room each night. 
This day some of us woke up to see the sunrise over Bryce Canyon (just a quick walk from the lodge!!).  It was pretty cool but also FREEZING and it turns out that I am more of a sunset over the ocean type of girl. After the sunrise, we went to breakfast at the lodge, which was pretty good.

Then we went to the visitor’s center for the first time and planned our day. 
There are 4 main lookout points in Bryce canyon - sunset, sunrise, inspiration and Bryce point. We could easily walk to sunrise and sunset, and we drove to inspiration and Bryce point. I think it is worth going to see the inspiration and Bryce point lookouts.  Bryce point was my fave.  
Then we saw a ranger talk on Hodoo geology and FYI learned that Bryce is not actually a Canyon (but Zion is).
Then we hiked Queens garden trail and I thought it was really cool to go down into the hodoos. We saw 2 groups of people we had met in Zion in Bryce. My 7 y/o complained about the hike back up. We left my 4 y/o with my parents who drove to 3 additional lookout points (swamp canyon, farview and natural bridge - others were closed), since my mom couldn’t do Queen’s garden and my dad did it on his own the evening before (and this evening again).  Navajo loop was closed.  
This day there was a 30 minute wait for lunch at the lodge. I’m speculating that since most people don’t stay in the park, and are in for the day, that lunch is the busiest meal of the day with fewer people around for breakfast and dinner. We didn’t want to wait, had big breakfasts and early dinner reservations, so we got the kids ice cream from the general store and rested for a couple hours, and DH did Tower Bridge trail on his own.

Based on a hot tip from a work acquaintance, we had dinner reservations at 5pm at Stone Hearth Grill (about 20 mins away in Tropic) and mossy cave trail was on the way. The mossy cave itself was a little underwhelming but we let the kids go down to see the waterfall which was cool. We should have left ourselves more time and / or not let the kids play in the waterfall before dinner bc one ended up a muddy mess and we had to go to a fine dining restaurant.  Pro tip - do mossy cave on your way home from dinner in Tropic if there’s enough light or make sure you have a change of clothes.

This was indeed a very hot tip. Stone Hearth Grill is definitely a must do if you’re a foodie (we are only aspiring foodies) - it turned out to be one of our fave restaurants anywhere!  It’s fine dining and you NEED reservations.  We had the kids with us for dinner and we saw other people there with kids - probably because of being on vacation like us.

While the morning was so cold, the day ended up warming up to 60 degrees. I didn’t get altitude sick but I think we were all tired (both actually tired and altitude making us tired) and probably not drinking enough.

Our tiredness this day, I think solidified for us couldn’t have added in Arches, Canyonlands, Capitol Reef, or the Grand Canyon.  I even really wanted to go to Snow Canyon - recommended in this thread and someone also recommended it IRL to my dad. But with 3 kids ages 4-9, we really pushed ourselves to the limit with this itinerary as it was!  We didn’t get to do everything but you really can’t ever do everything in one trip!  We have to go back!  Stay tuned for our last fun day when we skied out west for the first time! [/quote]

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