Comment by waitress is no brag — it's a fact

Editor's note: Columnist Lee Benson is bicycling through Utah's five national parks, beginning at Arches and ending at Zion. His columns will chronicle what he sees, hears and avoids along the way.

BRYCE CANYON NATIONAL PARK — Since she lived just around the corner, the woman could be excused for exhibiting a certain amount of hometown bias, although it should be noted she did not start off with any qualifiers such as "In my opinion ... " or "I've heard people say..."

She simply stated, in an entirely unsolicited comment as I ordered toast and orange juice at a restaurant in downtown Torrey, Utah, "You have come to the second most beautiful place in America."

I responded with the obvious:

"What's first?"

Without missing a beat, the waitress — her name was Jenny — replied, "Switzerland."

Ignoring geographical nuances, I moved on, inquiring as to the exact source of her pride.

She said it is not just the surrounding national parks and monuments, the white rock, the red rock, the slick rock, the picturesque towns, the rivers, the canyons and towering pine tree-covered Boulder Mountain that combine to make this place so awe-inspiring, adjective-defying beautiful — it also has a lot to do with the jewel of a road that connects them all.

Namely, that would be Utah state Route 12, also known as National Scenic Byway 12.

S.R. 12 begins, or ends, in Torrey, just beyond the boundary of Capitol Reef National Park and in front of a go-cart track called "Malfunction Junction." (You can't miss it.)

It extends from there for 124 miles in a south-by-southwest direction until it ends, or begins, 14 miles beyond Bryce Canyon National Park at the junction of U.S. 89 and Red Canyon.

Besides being bookended, more or less, by two of Utah's five national parks, the road carves its way through Boulder Mountain and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, offering spectacular views of both.

In some sections, as it ascends and descends the Grand Staircase, the two-lane road is barely as wide as the ridge it sits on, offering equal-opportunity 3,000-foot drop-offs either way. Around nearly every curve, Hollywood could have shot the final scene of "Thelma & Louise."

Get too absorbed in the fabulous view and you can soon become part of it.