Bryce Canyon half marathon

Over the course of our lives Claudia and I have made the drive along I-15 from northern to southern Utah many, many times—some of them before there even was an I-15. Most were a part of the regular trips to southern California when Grandma and Grandpa Lange still lived there. Nowadays a trip to California is more likely to be by airplane, particularly since there are just the two of us and not a whole carload of kids too.

In more recent years trips to southern Utah were exactly that: trips to southern Utah, for such things as visiting our daughter and hubby when they lived in Hurricane, or watching various of our children run in the St. George Marathon a couple different times, or more recently visiting my brother and his wife first in St. George and now in Hurricane.

The past two days took us to southern Utah again, this time to the Bryce Canyon area, where our youngest daughter was running a half marathon. We left midday on Friday and headed south through the various familiar counties—Davis, Salt Lake, Utah, Juab, Millard, Beaver, Iron—that I-15 runs through. We took a short break at Scipio and continued on until we exited the freeway south of Beaver on Utah highway 20, which happens to be just twenty miles long as it heads east from I-15, through some mountains, and ends at U.S. 89 of the other side. A pleasant, scenic drive.

With the high price of gasoline (at now over $4.00 a gallon), I decided to employ some of the elements of hypermiling that our younger son uses so effectively to boost his gas mileage in his ten-year-old Saturn. I decided to drive only 65 miles per hour while still on the freeway, even after the speed limit increases to 75 south of Spanish Fork. Most cars were going faster, but I was surprised to encounter an occasional fellow traveler who was driving slower like we were.

Once we were on U.S. 89 we continued south to Panguitch. About seven miles south of there, we intersected with Utah highway 12, the route that runs toward Bryce Canyon. We turned east onto highway 12, and near the intersection of 89 and 12, perhaps a third or half a mile east of the intersection, we found our motel, Harold's Place Inn, and checked in. The entire drive from Bountiful to our motel had taken only four hours and fifteen minutes, including our brief stop in Scipio.

After we had made our original reservation at Harold's Place, my assistant at work (whose grandparents live in nearby Tropic) told me that there were many places much closer to Bryce Canyon and gave me a list of ten other motels to try. I called every single one of them, and none had vacancies for this particular weekend. That is not surprising, given that July has to be the normal height of the tourist season for the Bryce area, not to mention all the additional people in town for the half marathon.

We then drove the seventeen miles or so on to Bryce Canyon. The road goes through the very scenic Red Canyon, and we greatly enjoyed the drive, which incidentally only took us about fifteen minutes rather than the half hour my assistant had suggested.

Near Bryce Canyon we called Mary on her cell phone, and she directed us to where they were camping in the large campground just south of Ruby's Inn. She and Vince had driven down this morning to make sure they were early enough to find a suitable campsite before the campground filled up. There were two other couples staying with them. The husbands were friends that grew up with Vince.

After visiting a while, Claudia and I went to eat dinner at the Ruby's Inn restaurant. We had the cowboy buffet. The restaurant was very crowded, and we heard a lot of tourists speaking German, but the whole arrangement was very efficient, and we did not have to wait long to be seated. After we ate, we looked through the general store and some other little shops trying to find some balloons for the race Saturday morning, but apparently balloons don't sell well in such touristy places.

We returned to the campground, and Peter and Anna had also arrived, and we visited briefly with them before driving back to our motel. The drive through Red Canyon at dusk was also very pretty.

We watched the first episode of the new season of Monk on the TV in our motel room. It was followed by the first episode of Psych, but I fell asleep and did not see much of that.

The alarm on my cell phone went off at 5:00 Saturday morning, way too early for anyone to be up, except that we had to pack up our things, check out of the motel, and drive back through Red Canyon to Ruby's Inn for the 6:00 start of the half marathon. Mary was running with the wives of Vince's two friends. The elevation is above 7,000 feet, and it was downright cold at 6:00 in the morning. (On the drive between Red Canyon and Ruby's Inn we passed a sign saying "Summit 7,777 feet.")

We watched the race start, and then drove part way along the race route and parked to wait for the three girls to come by, and held out our signs that Claudia made many years ago when we watched Anna and Eliza run in the Lake Tahoe Marathon. It was in a gorgeous setting as we watched the sun come up and spread across the intricate red rock formations. We listened to a new Tabernacle Choir CD, "Called to Serve," that Claudia had given me before we left the motel as my birthday present. We were somewhere between miles 4 and 5 of the 13.1-mile course when Mary and her two friends passed.

When the traffic was allowed to continue in an eastbound direction along highway 12 (police officers alternatively piloted east- and then westbound traffic along the half of the road the runners were not using), we continued down through Tropic and beyond to Cannonville, where the finish line was. I say down because the elevation drop from the start to the finish of the race was some 2,000 feet. It's hard to image a marathon route with more breath-taking scenery than this one had.

We parked within a block of the finish line in Cannonville and waited for Mary to come in. Pete and Anna had joined us, and Vince and his two friends were there too.

After Mary finished the race, Mary and Vince, Peter and Anna, and Claudia and I went to breakfast at a restaurant back in Tropic. Pete and Anna treated Claudia and me for my birthday. We all had some sort of omelet, except Anna who had pancakes and scrambled eggs on the side. The service was exceedingly slow; it appeared they were severely understaffed. So it was late morning by the time we finished eating.

We drove Vince and Mary back to their campground, said our good-byes, and we headed for home, a final time through the beautiful Red Canyon, and back to Panguitch, where we stopped to fill the minivan with gas. Rather than travel back along the familiar I-15, we decided to stay on the more scenic (and for us different) U.S. 89. I was glad we did. This route took us through parts of Garfield, Piute, and Sevier counties.

Around Marysville (and just before the battery on my cell phone died) Camilla, Chris, and Sam called from Everett to wish me a happy birthday. Camilla had just returned herself from a week of training at the Great Harvest headquarters in Dillon, Montana. She finished Friday afternoon and drove to Spokane, where she stayed overnight, before waking up early Saturday morning and continuing on home to Everett.

We traveled north on U.S. 89, Claudia sleeping much of the way, until it merged with I-70 heading eastbound. We exited at Salina and continued northward on U.S. 50 until we came to Scipio and rejoined I-15 northbound.

And then on home, with a brief rest stop in Nephi, continuing at our 65 miles per hour. I was very tired by the time we reached home. Claudia felt it took us forever to drive just through Utah Valley.

Interestingly, our return trip from Panguitch to Bountiful took only four hours and five minutes. So, both routes—our more conventional I-15 and the more scenic combination of U.S. 89, I-70, and U.S. 50—were fairly comparable in terms of distance and time.