Capitol Reef

Thursday, August 28^th, 2014 – Day 79

Upon waking, we realized there was something wrong with the refrigerator.   It had been acting a little weird since filling it to capacity with organic meats, wonderful wild Alaskan Salmon, and other culinary delights from Wholefoods and Costco in Salt Lake.  The refrigeration system had a glitch in it unless it was plugged into power, so we were not too worried. We were booked into sites with plenty of power.  It needed to be checked out for sure, but it was not an emergency.  We proceeded to drive from Palisade State Park to Capitol Reef National Park in Torrey, Utah which was a pretty uneventful two hour drive.

Capitol Reef National Park, Torrey Utah

Wonderland RV Park, our headquarters for the next few days, is situated right at the intersection of the famous Scenic Byway 12, and route 24.  It is well maintained, full serviced, and about a 20 minute drive to Capitol Reef National Park.  Traffic, particularly motorcycles, can be heard throughout the day, and occasionally during the night. There is a lush, green strip of grass between campsites that appear to be watered 24/7.  This grass gives the campground a lovely, manicured look but at the price of having soggy ground around the motorhomes - soaking the chairs, tables, etc.  We personally would prefer a less manicured, but usable site.

When we plugged the motorhome into power, we were horrified to realize the refrigerator was completely dead!  We started calling the factory (which had closed due to the time zone difference), and frantically searched for a repair guy out here in no-man’s land who might help.  Time was of the essence, because of the food getting warm.

The dessert and distant cliffs of Capitol Reef National Park

There was a wonderful man just 8 miles down the road who was willing to stay late and have a look.  He was able to get it going, but due to the long weekend could not possibly get the needed part until after we had long-gone.  He fixed it ( by by-passing a safety switch which made me extremely worried ) and now our food was safe, but are we? We looked ahead, and the only place where there is an authorized Norcold Refrigerator service center was in Las Vegas – a week and a half away! Are we feeling lucky? I sure hope so! 

This internet photo is of the "Waterpocket Fold" geological phenomenon unique
to the Capitol Reef area. It extends for a 100 miles

Capitol Reef National park lies in the heart of Utah’s canyon country.  It has a strange, beautiful landscape of multi-hued rock layers. This area is known for a geologic phenomenon neither Norm nor I had ever heard of.  A “Waterpocket Fold”.  It is a giant buckle in Earth’s crust stretching across south-central Utah.  It was made by a warping of rock, created 65 million years ago by the same great forces later uplifting the Colorado Plateau.  This area is a jumble of cliffs, giant spires, monoliths and graceful arches.  Dirt roads that wind either into the horizon or twist their way through canyons; beckoning the adventurous who don’t mind getting their car a little dirty.  Norm and I, of course, just had to see what lies beyond the pavement.

Due to our having played 9 holes of golf before we left Palisades State Park that morning, we only had time to gas up (at an outrageous $4.29 per gallon) and do some laundry when we arrived.

Friday, August 29^th, 2014 – Day 80

The Hickman Bridge, a "natural bridge" viewed on our hike

We got up and out fairly early to get to the Visitor’s Center by 8AM and develop a plan for the next few days. We had armed ourselves with plenty of water, a picnic lunch (getting really tired of these), and necessary hiking gear, sans bear spray.  Yeah!  We traded it for the lighter and easier to pack, snake bite kit.

After speaking with the Park Ranger, we decided to do exactly what he suggested.  We hiked a mile to the Natural Bridge (actually called Hickman Bridge) which was much more difficult a hike in the intense sun and high (about 90 degree) heat.  Perhaps it was the fact that we have had virtually no exercise in the last month while traveling and the higher altitude has made it a little tougher. (Boston and Florida are nearly at sea level).

My goodness, there are a lot of apples!

Next we decided to check out the old Mormon settlement in the Fruita District on the banks of the Fremont River.  Here there are orchards containing 2700 fruit trees, including apple, cherry, apricot, peach and pear.  You could help yourself to anything you could eat while there, or pay $1.25 per pound for that which you took home.  There was a scale to weigh your fruit and asked to pay by the “honor system”.   What really amazed us was how these trees, with hardly any irrigation, could be so heavy with fruit without any fertilizers!  There is one pesticide applied once per year against a particular bug that they spray for and that’s it.

It amazes us how these trees flourish in this harsh environment.

Norm and I ate our fill and purchased about 5 pounds more.  Yumm…..

 When there is a road called “Scenic Drive“you have to drive it, right?  We did just that all the way to the end of the pavement, and then continued on to Capitol Gorge Road. This was a two and a half mile dusty, rutted road, lined with twisting, water-carved, sheer walled canyons. At the end was a hike to the Pioneer Register where the names of the canyon’s travelers after 1871 line a rock wall, as well as the Petroglyphs that interested Norm.

A lovely old wagon sitting in the middle of nowhere.

This is a road?  For cars?

 The sky was such a brilliant blue and with it came 97 degree heat and a sun intensity that was dangerous.  My body has a hard time regulating in this weather, but Norm has no problem with it, so he headed down the trail.  I happily stayed, seizing the opportunity to gab with other tourists in the shade.

About an hour later Norm returned, and we headed toward home taking yet another side trip up Grand Wash Road.  This area is plagued with flash floods, and we are warned NOT to take these roads if there is any threat of rain.  You can plainly see where water came through these canyons with such force!    What is amazing to me is how a storm 100 miles away can cause a tsunami–type surge of water- possibly sweeping you away in 10 feet of water!

It was a great and very long day - each bend of the road being more beautiful than the last.

Saturday, August 30, 2014 – Day 81

Today we will again follow the advice of the Ranger, which was to take a hike up a “wash”. ( Looks like a dried riverbed, but actually is a huge sluice way that rain from the hills runs through ). We started at what felt like the crack of dawn.  7 am must be pretty early, because there was almost no one on the road and certainly not on the trail at that hour.  We loved the solitude, but it was more about avoiding the sun.

Hey Norm!  Do you really want to be climbing over those huge boulders?

Norm and I knew this would be a long day, so we took not only lunches, but packed breakfast as well.  It took nearly an hour to get to the trail head down the nicely paved, Norton-Bullfrog Road.  We chose one of three recommend trails and hiked a couple of miles up a huge wash-out. 

Norm hiked out the entire way on the “riverbed” scrambling over huge boulders and climbing over fallen trees.  I, on the other hand, saw a trail leading high up along a ledge overlooking the wash where Norm was.  My trail was pretty scary in places due to the slippery nature of this red clay and the narrow ledge, but it was clearly less tiring. (I do not have a fear of heights, which helps in a lot of our hikes.)

This is the little ledge I was hiking on.  Norm would be traveling below.

I hope there aren't any snakes or scorpions in here!

This was a great hike, and we would have loved to continue (although Norm’s knee was starting to bother him) but looking toward the darkening sky it seemed prudent to hurry out of there.

This is a " wash".  You can see where the water had flowed through this for years carving these canyons.

Since we had driven quite a distance to this point, we decided to take our chances and trust the forecast of zero percent chance of rain, and continue on to the Burr Trail Road that would take us west to the beautiful (paved) Scenic Route 12.

Our car is not this bad yet, but we are working on it!

The road soon became a very rutted, washboard clay road.  I was driving about 10 miles per hour and still the car rattled and shook!  The poor little HHR! I had visions of the bumper and fenders falling off!

We drove through dozens of gullies and it was quite evident that this road would be so slick if wet even a four wheel drive would not get out!  What was most nerve-wracking was watching the clouds, and realizing if a storm came upon us we probably would not get out of there for a week!   I wondered if we should ration our lunches just in case……

TAfter two hours of rattling our teeth, we finally took a turn onto the Burr Trail Road.  It looked a little better, and at last we were making some progress!  All of a sudden, the views were unbelievable!  We wound our way through tight rock formations and headed up an incredible incline!  We could not believe that the road ahead was actually for cars!  These clay-based (aka slippery) switchbacks were extremely narrow with only a two foot soft shoulder between you and hundreds of feet down!  In fact, this road climbed 800 feet in only a half mile!  Trust me, that is steep!  But so much fun!    At this point we had the comfort of seeing a few cars.

We don't know what type of formation this is, we just called it "Unbelievably beautiful"!

We turned onto Route 12 and about 10 hours after we started we finally made it back to the campground.

 

This amazing group of French bicyclists started their trip
in Fairbanks, Alaska!  We have spotted them as far south as
Bryce Canyon.  They plan to finish in Chile!  Can you imagine?

Homeward Bound - 1st stop- Palisade State Park

Tuesday, August 26th , 2014 - Day 78

Now that we are done running around in Salt Lake City, it is time to move on.  “homeward bound” in a slow, touristy sort of way.  Some things you just can’t rush, and our seeing a lot of the country is one of them.

A beautiful site at Palisade State Park in Manti, Utah

Our next destination would be south, to Palisade State Park in Sterling, Utah.  After a 2.5 hour drive (108 miles) we arrived at the park’s campground.  Oh, was this pretty!  With only a couple of other rigs there we pretty much had the place to ourselves.  Norm had reserved a large, flat, full service site.

 The reason Norm chose this park out in the middle of nowhere was the golf course. We quickly set up and set out to play 9 holes on this beautifully maintained, desert mountain course.  In fact, Norm says it is one of the best he had ever played.

View from a Par 3 tee box to the green.  What?  Are they kidding? ( Actually, due to either the thin air, or Norm's
Herculean strength he over-drove the green )

 

Such a gorgeous course in pristine condition!  It only cost us $15.00 for us both to play 9 holes ( with cart ) in the afternoon!

Wednesday, August 27th - Day 79 

One of the many beautiful scenes we observed during the drive. 

This area of Utah is huge into ATV’ing.  Hundreds of miles of maintained trails run through here with campgrounds and B & B’s situated so riders can ride “Inn to Inn” for days.  We tried to rent one to take it for a probable body- pounding but exhilarating tour, but the place was closed.  On a weekday?  I guess we should have called ahead.

How in the world could this guy not have a clue where is was, or
where the next town might be? Doesn't he work on these roads?

   






The only other thing to do was to take the area’s “Skyline Drive” by car.

We had not learned of the recent floods that caused the closing of certain roads, so what we thought would be a couple of hour drive turned into a 6-8 hour one! (We had checked with the campground’s Hosts, and although they had given us a lot of information about the drive, they failed to mention roads closed).




Luckily we packed our lunches, so driving through miles of mountain range ( about 100 miles ) was only an inconvenience.  We did want to play another 9 holes, but it was too late by the time we got back.

It was a beautiful night as we cooked and ate outdoors, marveling at the absence of people and the scenic beauty of this little out-of-the-way place.

A Vacation from our Vacation - Boston to Florida

August 9th – 23rd, 2014 - Days 71 to 88

Readers, please note:  This particular post tells of our trip to Boston to see our new grandchildren, then back home to Florida to check on things and open a whole lot of mail.  It is not particularly interesting, but wanted to journalize it for our own memories. 

Oh, she's growing up so fast!

We were picked up at Logan International airport in Boston by our wonderful son-in-law, where both Norm and I spent the night.

 The next day I was brought to the car rental agency to rent a car for my use.

 That afternoon I drove Norm an hour north to Manchester NH  ( where we will fly out of back to Florida on the weekend ) to get him a car to enable him to drive 3 hours to Connecticut so he could work for the next four days.

Oh, Nanny loves her grand daughter!

 I returned to my daughter’s house and spent the next 5 days loving every minute with my absolutely adorable granddaughter, who is now 9 months old.  Oh, how she has changed in the last 3 months!
I had a fabulous visit with my daughter and her husband.

On Thursday, I met Norm at his daughter’s home and met his grandson for the first time!  Owen, at two months of age, is such a strong little guy!  He has a death grip with his hand, and very strong little legs!  He will be quite the athlete - like his parents!

The proud grandfather! 

Saturday we drove back to my daughter’s and babysat so she and her husband Mike, could take a motorcycle ride out to Mt. Greylock in western Massachusetts, where they got married one year ago.

They had a chance for a romantic anniversary, and Norm and I got 24 hours to spoil little Elena!  Or perhaps she spoiled us!  I have never seen such a good child!  She never cries, and will play in her crib until she falls asleep, and when she wakes up- plays some more! I have never seen a child do that – at least mine never did!

Laura and Mike met through motorcycling, so taking off for an overnight
on their bikes for their anniversary was perfect!

Sunday we headed to Florida where my other daughter, Jen, was waiting for us at our house.  We only had less than 24 hours to visit, but it was great to see her as well.

After a world-wind week of entertaining, having dinner at Norm’s sister Bernie’s, meeting with a half dozen contractors who should have, but didn't, take care of the house, we left to return to Salt Lake City only 6 days later.  Boy, we need a vacation!

August 23rd -Back to Salt Lake

We arrived after midnight, and Norm ( as always ) was able to instantly fall asleep. I, on the other hand tossed and turned until well after 2AM.  After having breakfast out ( the first of our trip ) we went back to the campground to get our RV out of storage.

We had completely cleaned out and defrosted the refrigerator, so we had no food.  Freezer was bare, refrigerator empty.  Time to do some serious shopping!  The trouble was, it would take 24-36 hours for the refrigerator to get cold enough to chill a large amount of food.  At home, I would have everything pre-chilled or already frozen before adding, but that was impossible here.

Norm and I did the Walmart run, and put off buying anything that needed to be refrigerated.( I was so surprised at how many Organic products they carry at Walmart!  I have not shopped at one in a while so I don't know if it is unique to Salt Lake, or if they have decided to capture more of that market share.) Since we still didn't have much dinner provisions, we had a great excuse to have a lovely dinner out.

On Monday we brought the RV to the automotive glass company to have the RV windshield replaced.  We proceeded to spend most of the day running back and forth from Costco and Wholefoods, and back to the RV to put the perishables in the fridge.

After 6PM, when the windshield sealant was guaranteed to be set, we drove back to the campground, set up, cooked dinner and fell into bed.

Salt Lake City

Thursday, August 8th,2014  Day 69

We have been traveling “the roads less traveled” and up to this point they have been pretty easy.  Until today.  A stretch of Route in Idaho became much more mountainous, than Norm predicted.  Oh boy!  After a very long, very steep climb up to a lookout turn-off, I had asked another RV’er (who had a very fancy, diesel motorhome coming from the opposite direction) how the road was.  He rolled his eyes, told us it was really bad, and that he would not be going home in that direction.  That worried me, but Norm said he wasn't worried at all.  This road was definitely the most challenging to date. Norm was up to the challenge! He took our motorhome up those steep grades and sharp S curves like a champ!

Over the past few weeks I had spent a lot of time on the phone arranging for the regular maintenance servicing of the motorhome, and the cracked windshield ( from a stone ) we sustained a couple of weeks ago.

 Arranging for the routine service was easy.  The windshield was another story. The good news is that our insurance will pay for it; the bad news is that they did not have the proper windshield in stock.  They found us a great glass company in Salt Lake City, so hopefully by the time we return, the windshield will have arrived.   I must say, everyone has been more than wonderful to deal with!


The campground we are staying here in Salt Lake is Mountain Shadows R.V. and Mobile Home Park.  The worst campground to date!  Totally unorganized, very tiny sites (forget putting out the awning), no water for most of the first day, and to top it off, people were partying just outside our RV past midnight.

 Many months ago Norm had arranged with this park to have the RV put in storage for the two weeks we were to be in Boston, but the site reserved by them was way too small.  It took many hours and many trips to the office for them to find a place we could safely keep it.  Their customer service was definitely lacking.
On Friday we left the campground, drove 20 miles for service, drove it back to put it in storage.

  We then drove back the 20 miles to the airport to check into a lovely Hilton where the first thing I did was draw a nice deep bath!  Ohhhhhh that felt good.  We had dinner out and the next day flew to Boston.

Grand Tetons

August 2nd  to 5th, 2014  Days 64-67

Just south of Yellowstone National Park lies the nation’s most iconic mountain range - Grand Teton National Park, where sharp peaks suddenly rise from valley floors.  These peaks, often reflected in the pristine alpine lakes, are most peoples’ image of picture perfect postcards of mountain splendor.  In fact, over the course of the next 5 days, I tried my darnedest to take that “postcard” shot.  During all times of day, and in all kinds of weather.

I think this is pretty close to a post-card, don't you?

 I am thinking (as I do each vacation) of taking some photography classes and perhaps learn how to capture those clever shots you see in calendars and coffee table books. I must add this to my “bucket list” under “things I never learned but wish I had”.

But between Norm and his trusty and amazingly capable iPhone and my modest Cannon Power-shot, we have managed to produce some pretty nice photos.  With scenery like this, how can you not?

After arriving at The Grand Tetons, we very quickly learned where all the crowds we heard were in Yellowstone.  Here! Everyone was parked in every parking spot or impatiently waiting for one.  The trails were as congested as the halls of a shopping mall in December.

During our stay at Colten Bay Campground located inside of the park, we did a lot of driving.  Similar to Yellowstone, sights in The Grand Tetons tend to be spread out, but wildlife sightings are more difficult to find.

Straight across the river is the awesome canyon we tried so hard to hike

There was a hike through a canyon that excited both Norm and me on the far side of Jenny Lake. It was a 13 mile hike that you could shorten by 4 if you took the shuttle boat before 8AM to avoid the huge crowds (which meant getting up and out REALLY early).








We were so proud of ourselves!  At 6:45AM  we were up and out with all our gear including  packed lunches and we even took our breakfast!   About 35-40 minutes later, Norm realized he didn’t have his wallet!

We went back to the RV, got his wallet then spent the next 9 hours driving around, exploring the dirt roads and hunting for photo opportunities.  It would have been too late to return and take the boat across Jenny Lake to go on the planned hike.  We had been warned in advance – get there early or hike with the crowds. We would never choose the crowds.

Finally, a moose!  

The next morning we set out again, ready to finally take that canyon hike, although unfortunately, it seemed like rain was imminent.  Sure enough, 30 minutes into the trip to the boat shuttle, it started to rain in earnest!  Hmmmm.  The fear of lightning and slippery rocks had us cancelling again!  We drove around some more, hunting for those elusive Grizzly, Moose and Beaver photos. Some places we visited multiple times hoping to find them.

The beaver's live here, but nobody home!

Very busy beavers taking down very large trees in the area.

May not have seen a beaver, but caught sightings of a Bride and Groom!

Well, by the end of the day we had pictures of a Moose and a wedding party!  Of all things! If our timing was better, we would have seen them together, I was told.

We found this herd of Bison when we were driving down some dirt road in the middle of Nowhere.

The rain and thundershowers came and went for the rest of our stay, but we managed to sneak in a narrated boat cruise of Jackson Lake, enjoyed cocktails and nachos ( which I have not had in years ) at the Blue Heron Lounge inside Jackson Lodge ( advertised as the nicest bar in all the national park system ). I tried a Huckleberry mojito which was quite delicious!

The weather on our last day here in the Grand Tetons again consisted of intermittent rain so we did the laundry and relaxed a bit, going to the office for what little internet was available.

An old barn on Mormon Row built in the 1890's

Wednesday, August 6th,2014  Day 68

It was time to leave the Grand Tetons National Park and we were ready.  We were beginning to tire of driving round, and after spending a couple of months on the road, we were looking forward to a little “vacation” from our vacation.

Next destination:  Salt Lake City airport, where we are flying out to Boston to see family (particularly the grand-kids).  It will be a two day drive to get there, stopping somewhere in Idaho for an overnight.