Bryce Canyon

Today we came to Bryce Canyon NP. It's icy cold and very windy here. Yesterday when we fallen into the Hatch hotel in shorts, outside was snowing. Fortunately room had very good heater and it got warm pretty fast. In Bryce, besides very low temperatures (sometimes even less than 28F), cold wind is still blowing. But let's be honest - it's about 3000m over the sea level. I'm not ready for such weather and even though I've t-shirt, two fleece jackets and regular jacket, I feel cold. This is probably because I don't have hat. Luckily there's a very good gift shop/trading post where you can buy everything, starting with groceries, through gifts to clothes. They've everything except... winter hats that I heavily need. They of course have a bunch of summer hats against sun - these guys probably mixed up seasons. I quickly figured out that the only solution is to buy hooded jacket and use it instead of hat against wind and cold.
Equipped in hoods we go photographing Bryce Canyon. First the Rainbow and Yovimpa points. Here we found snow, because it's the coldest point in the whole Bryce Canyon - temperatures are about 20F. We can't stand here for a long time, so we get back to Bryce Point, Inspiration Point and Sunset Point for sunset pictures. It's getting late and light is changing for the worse. We are completly frozen.
Fortunately we reserved a cabin for a night - this is a kind of wooden house in the campground. Luckily we discover that there's power and heater in the cabin, but we have to use our own bedding - sleeping bags act well. The decision is to prepare some kind of supper very quickly and eat something hot, so we fire up our MSR burner (thanks Michael!) and cook some instant food. By chance we just checked if we can see any wireless networks in our cabin, and... BINGO! - our laptop found 4 wireless networks! In the campground located in the wilderness - it's just America. Tomorrow we are going to sleep in a tent in Canyonlands NP - if there'll be Internet, I'll make sure that Poland is backward country...

Last days in Poland

After about half year of preparations, plenty of webpages browsed, books read, magazines flicked through, mails exchanged, we finally hope to catch the plane that will take us to Phoenix this week. Now it's the last phase - packing everything up. This is one of the most difficult part of the trip preparation so I'll try to summarize what is essential for phototrip to Southwestern part of US.

First things first, so we can't forget to take:
1. Passport and valid US visa (polish citizens are second category citizens of EU and need visas)
2. Photocopy of passport and visa
3. Money (US dollars)
4. Tickets
5. Printouts of all reservations and important data
6. Credit Cards
7. Driver's License
8. Airline loyalty card (to count miles)
9. Insurance

Now let's enlist toiletries and medicines:
1. Toothbrush
2. Toothpaste
3. Toilet paper
4. Deodorant
5. Shaving accessories (optional)
6. Biodegradable Soap
7. Something for food poisoning
8. Some antihistamine for scorpion/snakes/spider bikes (for example Benadryl)
9. Painkiller
10. Something for insect bites
11. Sun protector
12. Bandages/bandaids/etc.

Next, camping equipment:
1. Light tent
2. Sleeping pad
3. Sleeping bag
4. Backpack
5. Headlamp
6. Matches
7. MSR stove + fuel bottle
8. Pot
9. Light cutlery
10. Bowl
11. Dishcloth and towel
12. Kitchen board

Other stuff:
1. Photo equipment (body, lenses, filters, photobags, tripod, batteries, memory cards, card reader, backup drive, battery charger)
2. GPS with spare batteries and loaded topo maps
3. Paper maps (in case GPS will break)
4. Binoculars
5. Mobile phone+charger
6. Electrical converters (110V<->220V)
7. Sunglasses
8. Clothes (including water shoes and classic hiking shoes)

As you can see this is a lots of stuff and you've to pack almost all of it into checked luggage, so weight is limited. Hope I'll be able to pack all into my red Samsonite suitcase. Of course, there's an option to have two pieces of luggage, but we've to remember that later, in the US, we've to put all of this staff in car trunk - another space limiting factor... Wish us some luck please!


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