Route 12, The Most Beautiful Road in the Country

We ended the night in Bryce Canyon feeling the effects of being up at 10,000 feet. The pressure does something strange to your stomach. After we ate dinner, it was as if our intestines were trying to fit 10 lbs of bologna in a 5lb bag. As if the air pressure was taking a hold of our stomach by its own two hands and squeezing 'til there was no room left between hands. It hurt. Both of us were coupled over and moaning and groaning as if we were in labor. It became comical once we realized we were having the same problem. Once we became acclimated and laid to rest, the pressure seemed to let up.

We woke at the crack of dawn. It had been the first time that either of us had experienced the morning this early without it involving a late night and some drinks. We strolled over to the restaurant to find we were the only ones there. We were actually up before the hikers, bikers and normal folk.

The waitresses were sweet and the hostess warm. As we cashed out at the front register, I struck up a conversation with the middle aged hostess. She was sweet and interested as I described to her my journey away from LA. She proceeded to tell stories of how the women in Utah would never be able to take this kind of journey. She said she dreams of going away for a few days with a girlfriend, but would be quickly corrected by the gossip and shock that would follow from the other women placing a scarlet letter on her for doing so. She would never hear the end of it. She was eager and excited to hear of my blog. I could smell her enthusiasm at the thought of living vicariously through me. The conversation reminds me to be grateful of the freedom I have to live my life as I wish without judgement or influence of others.

We headed into the canyon to catch a glimpse of the magnitude of colors cast on the canyon at such an early hour. It was as if we had the whole park to ourselves. It was empty, except for the occasional park ranger and mule deer grazing on its morning snack. It was peaceful, quiet and cool. We snapped a few pics and proceeded to begin our journey to route 12.

This was it. This is what I had been waiting for for so long. Route 12 to the 24E was absolutely, hands down, unequivocally the most beautiful, scenic drive I have taken in my life. We passed through fields of daisies and at times, it was as if we had landed on several different foreign planets. For a moment, we were on Pluto, then it was Jupiter and eventually onto Mars.      I have never seen mountains of these colors and shapes. Every 30 miles or so the topography changed from one magnificent palette of color to a completely different scene of magnitude. Miles and miles of scenic landscape too grand to do justice in a picture. The camera didn't understand. It just didn't appreciate what we were experiencing with our eyes.

As we turned corners and topped hills, we would gasp with surprise and laugh at the mere disbelief of what we were experiencing. I began to wander why people don't talk about this place. Why don't people gossip about the trip they took through central Utah? Why isn't this the hotspot to tell all of your friends they must experience? Is this a secret amongst normal folk they don't want to spoil by telling the scenesters of LA? Why haven't I ever heard tales of the travels up Route 12 while having sushi at Koi? Or was I so tightly wound in my cocoon in LA that if I was told, I wasn't open to hearing about something so off the beat and path and remote as central Utah.

We took literally hundreds of pictures. At some point we stopped trying to get both of us in pictures together and just started holding the camera out and taking pictures of ourselves with the scene in the background. When you do this, you have to just shoot and hope you are framing it properly. It rarely happens that you get the right expression and framing with out taking about 15 to 20 pics for each scene. And then, if you happen to catch a shot with the right light....jackpot!

The light at some points became so golden and soft we had to take advantage of its polite way of erasing all stress and lack of sleep on our face. When we did find that light, we wanted to benefit from it and squealed to the other to, "Hurry....come here! Look at this light! Take a picture of me here!!!". It became humorous at one point as we made a turn and had to pull over to get a direct shot of a majestic red mountain. The mountain being to my left, I proceeded to shoot out of the car window.

Mapi, on the other hand, found that grand light, kept her back to the mountain and fell in love with her image on the camera as would Narcissus in her reflection in a pond. She gasped and raved about how the light was turning her into a supermodel. I had to, of course, lean over to gain a sliver of this light and take a shot. This moment would later be a moment that would bring us to tears in laughter and tighten our stomachs from merriment just thinking of how we stopped in such a magical, powerful place to take a picture of a mountain and all we could do was look at our image in the lens.