Trip to Bryce Canyon Days 1 and 2

Thomas just finished his first semester of PA school and is on his two week summer break. Hooray!! At the beginning of the summer when Brooklyn and I were in Colorado for a family reunion my grandma introduced me to her cousin who is the general manager at The Bryce Canyon lodge.  We had been wanting to visit southern Utah and he offered to let us stay in the friends and family cabin at the resort.
We left Saturday afternoon and when we arrived Ken (my grandma's cousin) showed us the cabin and offered us a free dinner at the lodge restaurant.  We stopped by the visitors center and got a map and suggestions of hikes to go on. Our cabin was right next to the horses and Brooklyn liked going over to check them out.






































The next day, Sunday, we hit the ground running and spent the day hiking all over Bryce Canyon.  So much beauty! Brooklyn was a trooper for the most part. She surprised us with how much she actually hiked and when she got tired she would go in the hiking backpack.  Since Thomas has been home more for his break she has been ALL about her daddy.  She wants him to carry her, bathe her, sit by her, etc. They have a little challenge called "Hike the Hoodoos".  If you find three of the gold coins located along specific hikes or hike at least three miles of the specified hikes you get a Bryce Canyon post card and bookmark.  I liked it because it gave Brooklyn something to keep working towards throughout our hikes.  The first hike we went on with the gold coin was called Mossy Cave.  It was a bit of a drive north of the park so it wasn't very crowded and we really liked it.  There was a stream to follow that had an interesting history.  The Mormon settlers made it so that there was water in the area when they settled there.  There was also a little waterfall.  The whole trip Brooklyn was obsessed with picking up rocks and sticks while we were hiking and putting them in either her pockets or Thomas'.  When we got home and I was doing laundry there ended up being a load with a bunch of sticks in it. The next hike we went on was called Queen's Garden because one of the hoodoos looks like a stick figure with a crown on top and then there are a bunch of surrounding hoodoos.
This hoodoo is called "Thor's Hammer".
Brooklyn loved the tunnels. The last hike of the day was on the Rim Trail where we passed the Wall of Windows.