Utah

Friday morning, July 18th, we drove through Zion Natl Park on Hwy. 12 and made our way to Bryce Canyon:

Here I learned a new word, Hoodoo. 

A Hoodoo, according to Wikipedia, is a tall, thin, spire of rock that protrudes from the bottom of an arid drainage basin or badland. There were a bunch here.

We did a hike around part of the canyon:

 And when we got back to the top of the trail, we saw a group of people pointing their cameras down at the ground right next to the paved walking trail. I thought, did they see a lizard or a squirrel? And we got close and this is why they were taking pictures:

Yup, one of these:

I have been wondering when and if I was going to see one since the rest stop outside of Spokane, and I was glad I saw it, or I easily could have stepped on it, like so many other people that were in that area. 

Anthony: and anybody knows that a rattlesnake would win out over a pair of crocs any day.

Lisa: After Bryce Canyon, we headed into the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Minument:

It was a beautiful drive and we stopped in Escalante and picked up a few supplies and ate at Subway, and we were so glad that we found those treasures in such a very small town.  The drive was amazing, and kind of reminded me of what I think driving through the Grand Canyon would be like. 

We came to an overlook that you could see for miles and miles, and you could even see below the overlook the road that we would be traveling. And we said, that would be a fun road to ride down on your bike, so he got on his bike and did it.

(He is holding up his handlebar tape showing me what my bike is doing to his bike. I told him to turn his bike the other way, but then he was afraid of what would happen to his Brooks saddle.)

And then he took off.

He is at the top of the road.

This is like Find Waldo.

Then I got in the car and chased after him. He had ridden 2 1/2 miles in just a matter of minutes. And then I caught up with him, and here he is chasing me, ha!

Please note that our cooler is located behind my seat. It slides forward when Anthony puts on the brakes and slams into the back of my chair. Maybe that's why I haven't taken too many naps on this trip.

We talked to a ranger about dispersed camping within the National Monument, and we found a really nice spot on this road:

That didn't scare off the only one other people who were tent camping there, so I felt pretty good about it. We parked and enjoyed a nice quiet sunset overlooking Box-Death Hollow Wilderness.

The next morning we woke up and decided that we were going to hike Peekaboo and Spooky, a really neat hike that our Canadian kindred spirits recommended to us. And we had to drive down a 26 mile washboard dirt road to get there. Thankfully I had phone service while we were driving down that road, and started pulling up information about these trails and was reading stuff like, need plenty of water (we only had our 20 oz. bottles), trails not marked well, need map or someone who has hiked trail already, (we had neither). And then I started thinking we were like novices hitting double black diamonds. So I stated my concerns to Anthony, and then I made a phone call to the forest service and got a really nice fella that highly recommended we not do the trail, but that there was a picnic area called Devil's Garden along that road with many interesting features to enjoy, so we cooked our breakfast there. 

I would like to say a few things about all these Park personnel who are so helpful. They are so gracious answering the exact same questions over and over again.  And they also wear many hats. There was one that I saw answering questions for one fella, next taking pictures of a family, and in the next minute, there was a woman showing him her two daughters' arms because they had some sort of a rash. Amazing. And I didn't even mention that all of this was done in the scorching summer heat. I have great respect for these public servants.

Our next destination on the map was Arches National Park, but we found another pretty interesting area before we got there:

We used their picnic area and Anthony got some use from their water spigot:

As we drove through, we saw Chimney Rock:

And twin Rocks:

And also had other pull offs to enjoy all the great scenery:

We picked up a tiny hitchhiker along the way:

I am not sure when he decided to join us, but he is not on there now. I think he hung on for a couple thousand miles.

Our only mechanical mishap (so far) on our van happened around Hanksville, Utah. We noticed that the clock wasn't working, and the adapter we had plugged in the power outlet (cigarette lighter), wasn't charging my camera battery and phone.

We stopped in one of the two service stations in town, and luckily they had some fuses. Anthony grabbed the ones he thought he needed, and came out to the van and pulled out the burned out fuse. That's when he noticed that he needed the mini fuses instead of the regular sized fuse. So he immediately turned around to trade the fuses and we heard a truck drive off. And in a matter of just a minute, that worker had locked up, put a sign on the door, and left. The sign said, "Return Soon (Post Office)." Well, the post office was one block away, we could see it, and he wasn't there. Meanwhile some motorcycle people from Ohio pulled up and we got to have an extremely long conversation with them. One of them said that he had been to Tennessee, to Nashville when it flooded. He was in disaster relief. I wish I had asked more questions. Anthony and I have talked about doing something like that.

Anyway, 45 minutes later the worker finally comes back and unlocks the door, and Anthony was able to exchange the fuses. It took him about ten seconds to do it.

On Saturday afternoon we made it to Arches:

Whenever we told someone what Utah Parks we were going through and what order, they said that we are doing them in the right direction, because one is even more spectacular than the other, and that we had to do the Delicate Arches hike because that was the best. We had gotten to the park late and it was hot, so we just watched the informational movie and left to find a place for the night. With it still being 90 degrees, thankfully we made our way to a hotel.

We woke up pretty early and made it to the park by 7:30. We put on our big boy shoes (meaning our crocs stayed in the car):

The hike is categorized as strenous and is described as open slickrock with some exposure to heights and no shade. And also, the trail traverses a rock ledge for about 200 yards. But I did it anyway. At one point, I really thought I was going to cry. They weren't lying about the ledge:

But when we got to the end of the trail, we saw this:

Aches National Park has over 2,000 natural arches, the greatest concentration in the country. We only saw a few, but they were amazing:

This one^ had bonus hoodoos. I think I am going to start using that word a lot. "Quit standing there like a hoodoo," or "you ain't nothing but a hoodoo." It's just kind of fun to say.

We left the park about 11 a.m., and it was already getting hot. Heed this warning: do not go to southern Utah in July unless you can stay in really high elevations. This hasn't been our smartest move, but this was our opportunity to go. And it must have been a lot of other people's also as there have been no lacking of people in any of these parks. They truly are worth it, tho. If I had to choose either the Grand Canyon or these Parks in Utah, hands down it would be these parks. After all this, the Grand Canyon doesn't seem as grand.

Right now we are heading kind of southeast. I think we are going to run by Santa Fe on our way home.