Greetings from Torrey, Utah #3

Did you miss me?  Thursday was a day of rest so I should have had time to write but we met a very nice couple and went to a stargazing program and did not get home till very late.  Chris had a chance to look through the telescope and the stars were incredible.

On Friday we took our jeep rental and our new friends to Gobblin State Park.  It is a very interesting place with thousands of rock formations that look like toadstools or gobblins.  We took lots of picture and had a great time roaming through the formations.  Children were allowed and encouraged to run and climb through the rocks.  Then we went out to dinner and again got home very late.  I  never thought I would enjoy meeting people in the campgrounds but it was really nice to spend the day with other people.  It turns out they are going to be in Moab while we are there and we plan to get together then.  

We were busted again--this time for the barking dogs.  We had left the windows open so the dogs were barking all day.  We were called while at dinner.  Seems like the dogs take after our children only instead of the principal calling it is the camp host.  

Today we went real 4wheel driving on a trip through Cathedral Valley.  This 60 mile loop is 4 wheel drive only.  There are so many warnings that I was afraid to go--take food and water for two days, no cell service, and no way to get help if you break down.  But everyone at the camp ground said the view is incredible and they were right. The trail was dirt, sand, and boulders.  We only saw three cars the whole time.  Chris had a blast but the dogs and I held on for dear life.  The trip was awesome, I am glad we did it, I do not want to do it again.

By the way...when we returned the jeep we got busted for the dog hair.  We took the dogs so they would not bark but we could not get all of the dog hair up so they wanted to charge $40.  Can't win!

  

Tomorrow is another off day.  

Greetings from Torrey, Utah #3

Greetings from Torrey, Utah #2

Just a short note to let you know we survived our back road adventure.  Our 3 hour drive turned into an 8 hour journey going 20 miles an hour at times.  We found a slot canyon where there was just enough light to let a few trees grow.  I will post that picture and others.  I am getting tired of sight-seeing so tomorrow we with take a day off from vacation.  The lady in the RV next to me said she didn't think she could look at another rock.  I am beginning to feel the same way.  Tonight we went for a walk to see the stars and they are quite majestic.  It looks like twinkling Christmad lights when looking through the trees.
We will be in Torrey until Monday.  We have several hikes and two more jeep days ahead of us.

Peace to our family and to all of  our wonderful friends.  Barbara

Greetings from Torrey, Utah

We are in a small town just 6 miles from Capital Reef.  The view here is beautiful.  Guess who we ran into as we checked in?  Our German friends, Theio and Susan,  they left Bryce the night before us and went somewhere south of us before coming to Capital Reef.  We have asked them to join us tomorrow on our jeep ride.  I don't know why they keep crossing our path but it has been nice company.  The night we went to dinner Chris asked how long they had been married.  They weren't married.  Awkward moment. Well through the night Chris would say more things about marriage and they would laugh.  Chris offered many times to marry them.  They have been together 14 years and are in their 50's.    Tonight when we ran into them the first thing they asked was had he married anyone since we had seen them.

The driving is so slow here even when going fast.  We left Bryce at 12:30 for the 95 mile trip.  Even with no turn outs, no overlooks,  no photo ops, we did not arrive till 5:00.  The only pictures I took were out the window.  I am sure I will lose my cell phone out the window one day.  I just hold it out as far as I can and snap as many pics as possible hoping one will be good.  Boy do I wish I had a good camera for this trip.

There was this one moment when my life flashed before my eyes.  We were driving along at a reasonable speed when we saw a car pulled over on the opposite side of the two lane highway and people taking pictures.  This always means there is something interesting to see.  Well Mr. ADHD decides to pull over.  The only problem is there was no pull out and I am looking down a cliff as he is pulling onto the gravel shoulder.  I screamed so loud that I got his attention and he was good the rest of the trip.  I really could have used a drink after that but since we are 'alcohol free' I just waited till we parked at our campsite and took a long nap before dinner....my way of relaxing.

Other than the cow that decided to run across the road at the last minute we had a pretty bland day.
Hope you enjoyed the sunset pictures.

Peace to all of my family and all of my friends.  Barbara

Greetings from inside of Bryce Canyon National Park

I only have one thing to say about Bryce Canyon...Awesome.  It is the most incredible place I have ever seen.  We spent 5 hours hiking the most strenuous trail ever.  We down to the bottom of the canyon floor and then back up again many times.  Thank goodness for the walking sticks.  Near the end...when we were out of water...and going straight up...I wondered who we thought we were to take on such a journey.  We did a combination of three trails marked STRENUOUS.  There were several easy and moderate but we thought we were advanced enough to go to the bottom because we now had trekking poles.  We could not have gone 10 feet without the poles.  It was steep up and down, very primitive and we still managed two slips.  Chris went down pretty hard in an area with loose gravel.  There was a nice couple that stopped to help and wouldn't leave till he was able to stand.  We still had about 2 miles to go.  He is pretty sore.  I just had a slip-slide.  No injury but my trekking pole took a little damage saving me from the fall.

I think Chris and I have a misconception about many things.  One--we think we are young and athletic and two--he thinks the RV is a 4 wheel drive vehicle.  Actually it is 4 wheels in the rear ...that is his explanation.   We will never grow up.  Even with the aches and pains, we are having the best time of our life.  An older than us lady was complaining to us about her husband.  She wanted us to take him on our hike because she won't go with him and he has a bad heart.  He was moving faster than us.  I thought about how we protect our loved ones as we age and came up with this:  I would rather die living than to live dying.  Let's have fun as long as the heart is beating.


We got busted by the ranger for leaving our generator on all afternoon.  We specifically parked in the loop that said generators from 8am to 8pm.  It was hot today and we could not leave the dogs without AC.  He said someone had complained.   You are supposed to turn it on for short amounts of time.  I think we are going out late tonight to let the air out of our neighbors tires.

I give thanks for my family, my friends, and Aleve.

Barbara

Greetings from Bryce Canyon National Park

What a day!!  It is late but I really wanted to post so forgive any typos.  We started out at 8:30 going 40 miles in the opposite direction from Zion to go to church.  Grace Episcopal was a beautiful new church with the design greatly influenced by Native American Culture.  The church is in transition with their priest leaving last week.  They have a retired priest in the church and Russian Orthodox deacon that was in the process of becoming an Episcopal Priest.  The service was the most un-energetic church service and it was hard to stay focused.  Church is supposed to be a praise party for God but this was dry and monotone.  The priest preached way too long and he told too many stories.  Glad we had communion.  As Chris always said, "even if you get a bad sermon you can always get good communion."

After church we headed back to Zion.  You are supposed to park outside of the park and take the shuttle to the park.  There was no place to park.  People everywhere.  It was like Gulf Shores during the Hangout Festival.  We had hoped to camp in the park but all campgrounds were full by the time we showed up.  We decided to drive through the park as we traveled to Bryce.  It was a beautiful drive but we had no time to stop because the tunnel closed at 7:00pm and we needed to get through the tunnel to get out of the park. Vehicles our size had to have the  tunnel closed to other traffic in order to pass through the tunnel going in the center.  There was a 15 dollar charge for this.  But it was worth it to get a chance to see Zion for a little while. 

The views in Zion were incredible.  The walls go straight up hundreds of feet and the boulders are bigger than our RV.  I snapped a few pictures as we drove but mostly I had to watch Chris to be sure he was not doing too much looking.  I have this rule that he can only look 30 degrees left or right of center.  I caught him doing 90 degrees and we were going around a curve with a sharp drop off.  It was a beautiful drive but harrowing.  One lady looked at us as we passed the pull out and her mouth hung open as she stared at us like we were crazy to be up there in an RV.  Maybe we are.

All of a sudden the canyons disappear and you are driving through flat lands.  We drove about 50 miles when all of a sudden these strange red hodoos appeared.   It is amazing how each area is so different in just a matter of a few miles.  As we entered Dixie National Forest all I could do is squeal like a little child going to Disney.  I could not believe what I was seeing.  There was a campground in the middle of this incredible beauty and it was about 5:30 but Chris wanted to get to Bryce because it would be so much better.  WELL...when we go to Bryce all of the campgrounds were filled so we had to turn around and leave the park.  We stopped just outside of the park and found a public campground but it was full.  All they had was dry camping for $30.  That means no electricity, sewer or water.  They were telling all of us late comers to go to the tent area and grab any site.  It took us about an hour to get leveled.  By then I was hungry and tired so we walked to the nearest restaurant.  As we waited in line, our German friends from yesterday walked into the restaurant.  Chris recognized them right away and started up a conversation and before I knew it he had invited them to eat with us and they accepted.  Now they speak a little English but to have a conversation is a little extra work.  However, we had a delightful meal together and it was nice to have someone to eat with.  I am still amazed that we ran into them again. 

Well the night stars are waiting for me to look at through the binoculars and Chris is ready to tell me all the names of the constellations. 

Peace to our family and to all our friends,  Barbara

Greetings from Virgin, Utah

Yes I did type that correctly.  This is a small town just 12 miles from Zion National Park.  On Friday we drove way too many miles. We arrived at our campground by 7pm but had been driving since 9 that morning.  Though we went to bed early, we woke up today, Saturday, too worn out to do anything.  So even though we were just 12 miles from Zion, we chose to take a day off from having fun and just stayed in our campround.  We did use this time to do some much needed cooking, French toast for breakfast and homemade spaghetti for dinner. Chris used the time to install two 12 volt sockets so that we could run our sleep machines without electricity.  This will allow us camping opportunities in the parks with great views and will save us lots of money.

We did take a dip in the pool which is something we have never taken the time to do in other campgrounds.  The pool was very cold even though today was extremely hot.  We have had such changes in temperature.  One day we wear long pants, sweatshirts, and socks and the next day we are wearing shorts, bathing suits, and staying inside the AC. 

We met our camping neighbors.  They are from Germany and he is an FBI equivalent.  We met a lovely woman from Japan that fell in love with the dogs.  She and her family are doing some kind of exchange with a family in Salt Lake City. It was hard to follow the conversation because her English was weak and our Japanese was nonexistent.  While we were at the pool  we observed  two Italian couples.   It is interesting to see so many foreigners traveling to our national parks. 

Chris found an Episcopal church about 35 miles away so we will be getting up early and heading to the town of St. George.  There we will get supplies and then come back to Zion.  I am not sure if this will happen but we hope to hike a riverbed that goes to the "narrows". 

I love all of the comments. It makes writing this blog worthwhile.  At first I thought it would be a great way to let my children know where we are each day.  Now I feel that the blog keeps us connected to our family and our church families--Holy Spirit, St. Georges, St. Stephens.  I don't feel so alone out here.  Thanks for sharing this trip with us. 

Peace to my family and my friends,  Barbara