Zion National Park

We are staying at a RV park in Hurricane, Utah, 35 minutes from Zion.  It is a very nice park. Serves meals twice a week, which you know, we go to every one. Any time I don't have to cook is wonderful.  There is alot to do and see in this area.  In nearby, St. George, they had the Huntsman Senior Games.  It is like the Olympics, except for the Senior set, 55 and older.  They expected 10,000 people from around the world.  There were quite  a few at the park. We were going to go but that didn't happen.

Went to Zion. You have to take a shuttle to see most of the park. It goes to all the sights and you can get off and on at your leisure. Saw some rock climbers while we were on the shuttle. It was straight up and down. Can't imagine doing that. Looks so scary and dangerous. 

Zion is very beautiful. Very majestic.  Hard to descibe, especially since I don't have any pictures to show you yet. The Virgin River runs thru it.  Like Bryce, all this was created from water. Millions of years ago, immense pressure  and heat turned all the sediments beneath the water to stone. Volcanoes pushed up over 130,000 sq. mile mass of rock to the surface.  Rainwater  caused a series of cliffs to form, starting at Bryce and ending at the Grand Canyon.  This is a very condensed version of what caused the Grand Staircase, which is what this whole area is called. If you look on the map, it is one long range of mountains and canyons from Southern Utah into Arizona.

Another day we went to East Zion. It looks like a completely different park.  Reminds me of soft pudding that is gradually falling down a mountain. One layer starts and then another layer and then another layer.  All of the sudden it stops and there are layers upon layers of rock.  To get to the east Entrance, you have to go thru a mile long tunnel.  There are no lights. Makes you a little nervous. If you take an RV thru, you have to pay $15 and have an escort. It is only 13' high at the top.  Even regular cars and trucks go in one direction at a time.  They stop traffic, let one side go, then the other. Before the tunnel, you go thru a series of the steepest, most curvy hairpins we have ever been on.  Can't imagine taking an RV on either the  switchbacks or the tunnel. We met some people that have done it but it would be very hard on the RV.  The switchbacks remind me of the ribbon candy you buy at Christmas. It was just one after another.

After we got out the East Entrance, we went to the Pink Coral Sand Dunes. Couldn't believe there would be sand dunes in Utah, let alone pink.  They were very unusual. Started to take a short hike, but it was too hard in the sand.

I wrote a much longer blog but it was more like a book. Way to long.  We went to alot of different places but  I'll do a little at a time. Don't want to bore you too soon.

Bryce Canyon

I have given up on downloading any pictures until we get  somewhere the feed is better. It took 10 hours to do 2 pictures. Very frustrating.  I'm going to chat about our travels, so I can at least catch up.  If I waited for pictures, that would never happen. Whenever  we get to a better feed, I'm going to download all the pictures at once.  You'll probably get tired of pictures.

I do have to say I miss my old camera. I originally had a 35mm SLR. I bought just before digitals starting getting reliable.  I then went to a Canon digital. I liked it but I wanted something smaller so I could put in my pocket when hiking. I really, really miss my viewfinder.  It is so bright sometimes, that I can't really see what I'm aiming at.  I think I'm going to breakdown an get a digital SLR.  They are spendy, but I'm not happy with my small camera.

After 6 days at Moab, we went to Bryce. It was a short drive.  Of all the National Parks we have been to, I think Bryce is my favorite.  The views are breathtaking.  The rock formations are a vivid red. My camera certainly doesn't do it justice.    

 Our campground was 5 miles from  the entrance. We felt like we were in Washington. There were trees everywhere. Not Douglas Fir, but Pinin Pines. That is the tree that you see everywhere.  We could even build a fire. It is rare for us to be able to have a fire. Since we usually can't , we had no kindling or starter. We bought firewood, $6.00 per bundle.  No ax to chop into kindling. Bought charcoal starter and it worked like a charm. Went thru 3 bundles. Seemed strange to buy wood.  We have a freestanding 12" round gas fire pit. It works, but isn't as good as a real fire. 

 The 2nd day we went for a drive on Highway 12. It is an All American Highway. There are a lot of Scenic Highways, but very few All American Highways.  It has to be  so scenic that it is a destination in itself.  I was a tad disappointed. Parts of it were very scenic, but  we thought the rest was just okay. Washington has alot more beautiful highways  than what we were on.

The Red Rock Canyon leading to our campground had a couple of short tunnels. We had to go in the middle to make sure we got thru.  Glad there weren't any cars coming the other way.  The sides really sloped down.  The top was only 11' 6".  Very tight!  Picture of it will have to come later. 

Now we are up to Sept. 23rd.

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Canyonlands, Island in the Sky & The Needles

I gave up on pictures from the Arches, so I'm on to the Canyonlands. Hopefully I'll have better luck.  Only 30 miles from Arches  is Canyonlands Nat. Park. It is the largest National Park in Utah, but many people don't even know about it. The Arches is so much more famous. People that don't go are really missing out. It is so big that it has 3 distinct areas that have 3 separate entrances. Can't go in on entrance and see all 3. We went to two, Island in the Sky and the Needles. They are 65 miles apart.  The Maze is so remote it only is for hikers or bicycles.   Very unusual to have 2 so close together. Even tho they are very close, the terrain is completely different. Arches had huge rock formations high into the sky. The Canyonlands are deep, deep canyons.

Remember the movie, 127 hours?  It was about a climber that got his arm stuck between 2 rock cliffs. He sawed his arm off with a pocket knife and hiked out.  It took place in an area of Canyonlands that you can't drive to, The Maze.    The same time we were there, they had to rescue a 53 yr. old man that was so inspired by the movie, he hiked to the same area.  He got lost.  He was inspired, but not enough to go with a partner.   Also a long distance runner (woman) had to be rescued. She had been badly injured and wouldn't have lasted another night.  What were these people thinking by going alone?

 Denny walking out to an observation point.

We went for a short hike.  This group of hikers passed us up like we were standing still. The leader was carrying a pizza  for everyone to share.  As you can see there were no guardrails. They certainly got close to the edge.  The leader even told them to stand back.

Remember the movie Thelma and Louise?  The famous last scene where they drive off the cliff rather than go to jail was filmed in Canyonlands.   To see the exact place, we would have had to take a jet boat ride down the Colorado.  We didn't realize this until we were already on the Light and Sound Show tour.

I wanted to show a lot more pictures, but I have again given up.  Took many, many hours to download just these 4. I think I'll have to wait until we go to the another place.

Arches National Park

At one time the two sides of the highway were the same. Millions of years ago, the tectonic plates shifted and the right side, which is Arches National Park, is now about 2000' lower.  The highway in the picture leads into Moab. The building below is the visitor center to Arches. I was only a little way up when I took this picture.  You go much higher to see the park.

Arches national Park is beautiful and indescribable. Even pictures don't do it justice. I took about 100, but I won't show them all. Here are just a few.

You can take hikes to get closer to the Arches.  Denny's hip is bad so we couldn't walk too far

This rock formation is called "The Elephants"  Can you see them?

So many rocks balance on top of others. They really look like they would fall any minute, but have been that way for millions of years

Denny checking out the info and view

The Internet speed is so slow that it has taken me several hours to upload these photos.  I had planned on showing more, but finally gave up.  If it gets better, I might do more.

On the road again--Moab, Utah

After 2 weeks at Blue Mesa, the road was calling again.  It was a short driving day to Moab, Utah. There were 3 National Parks and One State Park that we wanted to see. Just driving into Moab was beautiful. On our way there, we stopped at a rest stop that showed the canyons Butch Cassidy and his gang hung out in to avoid the law. You could certainly see why they chose that place. Very desolute with very steep canyons. Can't find the picture I took of it.  The home he grew up in wasn't far.

When we were in Moab, we went to a Light and Sound Show. They serve dinner on land, then you get into a boat that cruises the Colorado River.  At dusk , they light up the rocks along the way and put it all to music.  All of the time, they are talking about the history of the area. The night sky was beautiful. Being away from cities, the stars are very bright.  Seemed like the whole sky was lit up with stars. We saw the Milky Way clearly.

We also went to 2 wineries. They say the climate is a lot like Eastern Washington for growing grapes. The wine was very good.

This is the view from our campsite

When we went on the light and sound show, they pointed out several rocks that look like people.  They said this was some cartoon character that I can't remember, but I think it is the Pope.

The dark streaks are called rock varnish, but it is from water flowing down. It hardens to a slick surface.

If you like active sports, Moab is the place to go.  We saw more biking, hiking, boating and ATVs than anywhere we have been.  If we had stayed longer, we thought renting a Hummer to go ATVing would have been lots of fun.  Always have to leave something for next time.

This is an overview of the rocks along the Scenic byway

On our cruise, it was getting dusk. Almost ready for the light show. The Colorado River is always brown, even on a sunny day. It is always filled with silt.

Salida and Aspen

We went to visit Teresa and Tom in Salida, Co. Teresa is our good friend, Larry Sleeth's, sister.  We have known her for years but haven't seen her for  a long time.  Salida is 92 miles from where we were parked.  Had to go over Monarch Pass.  It  has an 11,500' elevation.  We crossed the Continental Divide at the top.  Even tho we saw a lot of Rv's on the road, we were so glad it wasn't us. The road is VERY steep and curvy.  We got there around 10:30 am and she took us on a tour of her town. Great, little, quaint town. LOTS of bicycles. Bought a few things at an antique store and went to lunch.  I'm not a beer drinker, but Teresa ordered a local raspberry beer so I decided to try it. I will have to say, it was quite tasty. It looked like red wine.

We stayed overnight and went to Aspen the next day. I wanted to go to the Colorado Rockies that you always hear about. Teresa even drove, which is a real treat for Denny.  He usually drives so he can't do as much sightseeing as me.  We went up Independence Pass.  It was also very steep and twisty. In fact, they close this in the winter. To go to Aspen in the winter, you have to go a long way out of your way.  Again, we crossed the Continental Divide at the top, 12,000'. You go down 2000' to get to Aspen. The closer you get to Aspen, the more Aspen trees you see.

 Aspens as far as you can see

 Lucky we brought sweaters. It was cold and windy

We took a gondola . It took 20 minutes to get to the top. Even during the ski season, it cost $25 each time you go up. No day or season passes for the gondola. Would be a tad expensive. They were getting ready for 2 weddings later in the day.  Can't imagine the logistics to having a wedding up there. And everyone would have to pay $25 to get there.   The views were spectacular.  There was disc golfing tournament going on. That is what they called throwing frisbees into a net. They went all over the mountain.

After we got back town, we decided to walk around town. Ran into their Sat. market. It was fun to see locals selling all their wares. I bought 3 bottles of wine from a winery in the next town. Also a necklace and earrings  from an artist 2 towns away.  It was a fun time.  Went back to Teresa's and stayed the night again. It was too late to travel over that pass after dark.  We left the next morning.  We really had a good time.  Teresa and Tom made us feel very welcome.

There's that good looking couple again

Isn't this a spectacular view for the wedding

Disc golfing-looks like fun

It's a long way down

This is an overview of the Aspen ski runs

 Even tho I had looked around twice before we left, I forgot 3 things. At first, I thought no big deal.  I'd have her mail them home and get them when we got back.  Then I realized my camera battery was in the camera bag. It is not the type of battery that you can buy anywhere. I found it online.  We were going to go back and then decided to pay her to mail it to us overnight. Looking at 108 miles, at 9 miles per gallon, that looked like the best way to go.  Because they wanted to see our Rv, they made the trip  and back in one afternoon.  That's a lot of driving. it takes 1 1/2 hours each way and they stayed 2 hours.  Unfortunately, it was raining all the way.  It was good to see them one more time.

Blue Mesa --Gunnison, Colorado

Over Labor Day, the park had it's last potluck of the season. They supplied ham and pork roast and everyone brings something. Over the season, alot of parks have these.  They were selling raffle tickets. At the very last minute, before the drawing, I bought 6. I couldn't believe they were giving so many things away. I was beginning to think I wasted my money when our ticket number was called. It was the 2nd to last prize. It was something for the RV, but we can't use it so will give it to Darin. Barely sat down when they called the last number. I wasn't really paying attention when the lady next to me yelled that it was my number AGAIN!  Lots of people couldn't believe it was mine, 2 times in a row. I couldn't either. We got the grand prize-the food box.  It had some oatmeal, powered and brown sugar, pinot noir raspberry jam and chocolate chips. PLUS, a ticket to pick up 4 steaks and 2 pounds of ground beef. SCORE!  Everyone was jealous.  For $6.00, we got almost $75 worth of items.

 This picture is to show you that Denny really did put shorts on. After I took this, he took his socks off and has been wearing  sandals without socks ever since. YEA!

Our campsite, with Denny relaxing in the background

This is next to us.  It is 38'long. He also hauls his quad behind the RV. Notice the big truck he hauls everything with. Some states don't allow you to pull anything behind your 5th wheel , so  then his wife drives the car with the quad behind.  That must be quite the site going down the road. They are full timers.

This is an overview of our park

Every state has different liquor laws. In Colorado and Utah, you can't buy wine in the grocery stores. At the Safeway in Gunnison, you could even only buy cheap beer. For quality beer you also had to go to the liquor stores. 

We were  told to drink alot of water because of the high elevation (7700')  or else you can get really dehydrated. It didn't really effect Denny, but I'm a another story. I was so thirsty, I always had a bottle of water with me. I'd finish it and then fill it again.  I was never without my water bottle.  I usually do drink alot of water, but nothing like I did there.  Eventho I was constantly drinking water, my mouth felt so parched, like I hadn't had a drink in days.

 If you aren't used to the high elevation, you can get very winded and out of breath walking around.  Scarttered around the park are wrought iron metal benches with roof overhangs so people can rest.  Also have pots of flowers around  them.  I thought it was a very nice thing for the park to do.

Now that I have finally figured out what I'm doing, it shouldn't take me long to catch up on our travels. I only do this when we are traveling, so I forget each year. There is always a learning curve for me to get over. Mainly, how to get certain  pictures downloaded.  Not sure why, but I can't get the yellow out. Sounds like a detergent commercial.  I  guess I'm still on the learning curve.

Heather--HELP!

More catching up later......