I had coffee in one of the little coffee shops on the main street, then I set off back into the park to get onto the route 9. There is one section here that goes through a series of tunnels and only cars can travel through as they are narrow. However, they are not as narrow as the Rotherhithe so I felt ok to travel through.

At Mt Carmel Junction, I turned north onto the 89 which was a long narrow road that had loads of large trucks travelling very fast. Its also fairly high, so there was loads of snow around. I passed more of those deer, as well as a restaurant that had buffelo in their grounds... huge beasts. Some of the little towns along this route were no more than a few houses with more people living in trailers/caravans. I turned onto the 12 which runs through Red Canyon. This has fantastic red boulders & structures and at one point the road runs through one of the red arches created by the weather. At Rubys Inn, which is really no more that in Inn, petrol station & general store, you enter the Bryce Canyon National Park.

There was a huge amount of snow covering the ground and I am sure more of the trails were closed. I decided to drive to the end of the scenic drive and then take it slow back to stop at all the lookouts. German lad (probably called Hans hee-hee!) was doing the same & he kindly took some photos of me. The strange structures stretched for miles & were a great colour of red. At each of the lookouts, there were a few crows hanging around begging for food & they were really noisy. It was still fairly early by the time I got back to the visitors centre so I did not know where to stay overnight. I decided to head back out on the 12 to Panguitch. The motels here looked fairly awful and there did not even appear to be somewhere to eat, so I decided to move on. I was going to take the 143 south, but there was a sign on the road stating that the road further on would be closed (this is a steep road), so I took the 89 north, joined the 20 and then got onto the 15 south.

I decided to stay in Cedar City for the night and checked into the Stratford Court which is a fairly shabby motel, but is has wi-fi and breakie is included. I went out to look for a place to eat & ended up at Sizzlers which is a bit of a dive and attached to a chain hotel. Dinner was steak & baked potato, with no alcohol on the menu - this is Utah after all.