UTAH 2015

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By mid-March we were in Glendale, Utah, half way between Zion & Bryce National Parks, at a charming RV park (Bauer’s Ranch) nestled in Apple Valley. We spent 2 weeks here so we could visit Zion & Bryce Canyons. After being in the somewhat lower elevations in Arizona, Karen was in for a shock the first time she went out to do her run/walk. The elevation was over 6500 ft & she was really huffing after her first couple minutes.

  By most standards, Zion is a small National Park but, at the end of the day, we agreed that it had to be one of the nicest, locations we have visited in the last 5 years.        

The black streaks are caused by water

               

 

 

               

 

These are known as basket weave mesas

 There are no words, nor pictures, that can express what ones’ eyes take in. We would recommend everyone put Zion in the top ten “bucket” places to visit. If you are class A or larger class C RV’ing, do NOT try to go thru the park; the narrow switchback roads, as well as minimal tunnel’s heights, just don’t cut it.  If you enjoy hiking, there was a lot of that going on in Zion.

Snuggles enjoyed her own ice cream after our trip to Zion

 


One afternoon we took a trip to  Coral Sands Dune Park, which wasn’t far from where we stayed.               

 

The red sand is so fine it clings to you like graphite. Snuggles thought running through it was great fun until we got her home & it took two baths to get her clean.      

             

 The colors in the rock formations were amazing. Some looked like a paint brush had swirled the colors together, while others looked like colors were dabbed on the rocks.

   Bryce Park is even smaller than Zion, but the rock formations there are like nothing we’ve seen anywhere else.        

I thought they looked like back to back Indians

 

The deep red colors amaze, as do the balancing act of huge boulders, as if numerous tea cups and saucers have been placed one upon the next.

 

And mixed in with all of this are the hoodoos & spires, appearing as numerous medieval castles.             

                

              

              

While Zion is a full day trip, Bryce can be done in just a couple hours.

After our 2 weeks in Glendale, we moved on to Torrey, Utah. From here we were able to visit Capitol Reef National Park.

This is named as such because several of the rock formations resemble the rounded tops of the capitol building. 

View from our campground

View from our campground

 

Looks like a castle

 

Capitol Reef encompasses the Waterpocket fold, a warp in the earth’s crust that is 65 million years old.  The fold forms a north-to-south barrier that even today has barely been breached by roads. Early settlers referred to parallel, impassable ridges as "reefs", from which the park gets the second half of its name.

Also in that area is Scenic Byway 12 which spans a route of 124 miles, and travels through some of the most diverse, remote and ruggedly beautiful landscapes in the country. 

Scenic Byway 12 takes visitors through memorable landscapes, ranging from the remains of ancient sea beds to one of the world’s highest alpine forests, and from astonishing pink and russet stone turrets to open sagebrush flats. 

The Anasazi State Park Museum, which is off RT 12,  is located on the site of an Ancestral Puebloan habitation that archaeologists believe was occupied between A.D. 1050 and 1175. 

 

 

 

 

 

This partially excavated and reconstructed village consists of almost 100 rooms.  It was very interesting to see how the Indians lived in that area. 





By walking into some of the rooms, you knew they were short people. 



Remnants of Indian Buildings

We had climbed pretty high

The colors & formations were fascinating



Interesting colors

Be sure to stay only on Rt 12. 


Having traversed the front half we decided that a return shortcut would be enjoyable, even though that road was clearly marked as part gravel.

What they failed to say was that most of it was gravel & the reason it wasn’t paved, and in fact had no gravel, was because only mountain goats could safely travel it. The dry washes cutting across the road regularly brought us to a screeching halt, if one could actually screech when traveling at 10 MPH. What should have been a 2 hour return trip was, while very beautiful, 5 hours.



Waterpocket Fold

We did have some nice views tho & were able to see the Waterpocket Fold quite well.   Although we are staunch believers in the “it isn’t the destination, but the journey” mentality, this time it clearly was the destination.










After a week in Torrey, we were off to see the Arches & Canyonlands National Park.  We stayed in a very small RV park right off the highway & not far from the exit to Moab & those parks.  We were able to take a day for each park, with a few days in between as “lazy days”.

Arches is known for containing over 2,000 natural sandstone arches, including the world-famous Delicate Arch in addition to a variety of unique geological resources and formations. 

We spent the day driving thru the park & stopping to view some of the more obvious arches. 

We did not see anything close to 2000 arches.

This was known as the Fiery Furnace

Some people hiked to the top



See below

Beautiful snow capped La Sal Mountains

Collins had his own name for this one

The coliseum

Canyonlands Nation Park was also very interesting.  It preserves a colorful landscape eroded into countless canyons, mesas, and buttes by the Colorado River, the Green River, and their respective tributaries.  It’s divided into 4 districts. 

The Island in the Sky district, which is the most popular,  is a broad and level mesa to the north of the park between Colorado and Green river with many overlooks from the White Rim, a sandstone bench 1,200 feet (366 m) below the Island, and the rivers, which are another 1,000 feet (305 m) below the White Rim.

Surprisingly, all of the parks in southern Utah offer their own unique characteristics. It seems incredulous how dissimilar each is from the next, even though they may only be 60 miles apart. There just aren’t enough words in the English language to express all of the different sites, from towering polished sheer cliffs to multi-colored valleys looking out 50 miles (& 170 million years back in time), as well as incredible stone monuments mother nature designed.

Finding our awe & wonder fully charged, we proceeded to Grand Junction, OR for a couple weeks of relaxation. As I’ve said some many times before, Man plans & God laughs. Collins decided this would be a great time to “try” & pass a 7MM kidney stone. Ten days later & after several trips to the local VA, & plenty of fine drugs, the stone is still securely tucked away, just like a stubborn unborn baby.  After 3 weeks of much pain, aggrevation & conversations with the VA & a local urologist, they finally came to an agreement to do a procedure called Lithotripsy, which blasts the stone into tiny pieces so it can then be passed.  Since he was in pain most of the time we spent in Grand Junction, we really didn’t do any sightseeing.

We left the RV in storage there as we proceeded on our next journey.  We drove the car to Florida for a family wedding, & a visit to our daughter, Collina, granddaughters & great grandson. 

Collins also had a chance to slip in a visit with his best friend Pete, whom he’s known since high school.  From there we drove to IL, where we’ve been spending a few weeks.









Here comes the bride

We attended the wedding of my nephew, John- son of my sister Colette.  His lovely wife is Tracey.  Six of my seven siblings & my almost 90 year old mother were able to attend.  It was really great to see everyone.  We had a great time.









I want to get this posted & since we're finishing our European River Cruise trip, I'll just give you a quick post script.  We almost didn't get to take the European trip.  The Thursday before our Wed departure, Collins had his annual Dr.  appt.  He proceeded to tell his Dr about having shortness of breath & some chest pains, which he hadn't mentioned to me.  He had been cutting trees & limbs at Pam's house the day before.  She did an EKG & to make a long story short, after having a conversation with the cardiologist, he was told to go to the ER at the VA hospital.  They proceeded to take blood & do some more EKGs.  At 9:30 that night they decided to do an angiogram & ended up putting in a stent in a 100% blocked artery.  He has another with an 80% blockage, which they will stent next month.  They wanted the first to heal.  After a lengthy discussion with the surgeon, he was given the ok to travel if the incision was healing ok & he felt alright.  Thank god, all was good & we were able to leave.

I will add some pics of our daughter, granddaughters & great grandson from our FL trip in the next blog since I don't have those pics on this computer.

Our next blog will be all about our wonderful European trip.