Detour! or Scenic Route!

Our friends let us stay one more night after they left so we could get an early start in the morning. It was a lazy Sunday, so we decided to take a detour on our trek up to Northern Utah. At the last minute, I picked a dirt road that was supposed to eventually get us to Bryce Canyon, but we weren't too sure...

Oh well! Here we go!

There were some awesome stops along the dirt road, like this canyon out in the middle of tousands of acres of sagebrush. We were also glad to see other humans after three hours of driving alone on dirt roads, hoping that the Ox kept to its guns. 

We were greeted around every corner with a breathtaking view. How does one small area of the world contain so much grandeur?!

And then thankfully, we found pavement again and the scarlet orange hoopdedoos of Bryce Canyon. We were running a little late so we didn't actually go in the National Park, but the kids were still in awe at the road side pinnacles. 

Annabella, Utah

After about three more hours, we reached our destination for the night--our friends' sheep ranch in Annabella, Utah, which is about an hour south of Provo.

We've been meaning to visit the Lawyers' sheep ranch for years. Literally. Like since 2001. Oops. We should have come sooner. We could immediately tell that it was a place we could have spent weeks. Not only are the Lawyers the very best hosts, but they run a full working sheep ranch, with sheep camps, working horses, sheep dogs, and all the big farm equipment. Plus Annabella is just lovely (at least, it is in the summer... I could guess that it maybe wasn't so in the winter).

They even have Adam's family's original cabin still there on the land. Stay tuned for future visits here, and hopefully there will be photos of us on horses up in the hills herding the sheep.