Today we drove through Utah from Green River to Panguitch, headed for a hotel located about 15 minutes outside of Bryce Canyon National Park. We opted for the longer scenic route that took us down Route 12, and also planned a short detour to visit Goblin Valley State Park.

We arrived at Goblin Valley before noon, and found that there was an ultra-marathon race event going on. So the parking lot was considerably more crowded than usual, and there were a lot of participants (many costumed!) running the course that had been set up in the park. Moving onto the trails or the valley, the crowds pretty much disappeared—we were mostly alone while exploring the hoodoos.

The park is really unique. I’d never heard of it before this trip, but immediately recognized it from a scene in Galaxy Quest, because I’m a huge nerd. Standing in the middle of the valley floor, hoodoos of all shapes and sizes stretch out in every direction, seemingly numbering in the thousands. We enjoyed a fun couple of hours walking around, deciding what different hoodoo formations resembled (we settled on “a frog” for a surprising number of them, oddly).

After leaving Goblin Valley, we drove about four hours to Panguitch via Route 12. Most of the trees on the route had already completely shed their leaves, but the drive was still quite scenic. Somewhere around Escalante, we passed a food truck selling pizza and ice cream, and I made Lori turn around so I could buy a vanilla cone. It was delicious.

We arrived at our hotel in Panguitch around sunset, and found our room to be a significant upgrade from the cell that we had in Green River. We even have a sweet tube TV here (it mostly displays static and infomercials, but we were able to get it to show a few minutes of an old X-Files episode, too)!

Photos from today (click for larger images):

Hoodoos at Goblin Valley State Park.

Lori visiting the hoodoos on the valley floor.

Heading out of Goblin Valley on the park road.

Utah’s State Route 12 as seen from the Head of the Rocks overlook.