One last day of fun

Last night we went to goblin valley state park. The place is full of hoodoos and you can climb on them. The kids found this to be quite the attraction. Although some of them were quite tall, for the most part the ground was not rock hard, so after 2 weeks of trying to get them to not jump off of canyons, we let them loose here. It was a blast! 














Nate and Bennett May be a little crazy. No casts and no caskets when we left :) 

The sunset was amazing!!

Today we went back to capitol reef national park. 

The theme for all of our trip has been (red) rocks, canyons, arches and Mormons.  We had all of that today. But to start we went to Mars.  The Mars research station was 3 miles off the highway we were driving so why not. They choose this location because of how well it mimics Mars. Judy did make the trip but is not well suited for Mars. 

Our first hike was to a large natural bridge (which is an arch which sometimes has water flowing through it)

Before the land was a national park, it was settled by the Mormons who planted lots of fruit orchards. When in season you can pick and eat the fruit. Since it isn’t in season, we purchased pies from the little store they have in the park. They are no Sara Berger pies, but pretty good. 

More junior ranger and wilderness explorers. 

Another hike to some petroglyphs and a place where early settlers wrote their names on a wall. 

The towns one room schoolhouse. This hasn’t been used since 1941 and held up to 17 students. 

When we got back to the campsite, we made the kids dinner and they watched a movie. Mary and I went to a local steakhouse that you could walk to. The wind is blowing again tonight but not terrible. 

We have had an awesome time. Tomorrow we set off for home. Not sure how long the next 1,036 miles will take us but probably a few days. We will see what distractions we have along the way.   

On to Mars

Today we turned in the kids’ junior ranger books and night explorer (or something like that) at Bryce Cannon. 

They now have junior ranger badges at:

Glacier

Arches

Canyonlands 

Grand Canyon 

Glen Canyon 

Zion

Bryce Canyon 

And they are almost done with capitol reef.

The junior ranger night explorer is all over and is a patch. The older boys are working on a wilderness explorer patch which is a little more intense. 

After turning in the books we hit the road. It was pretty windy today and the road was fairly steep. I am told the scenery was amazing but again it still looked like a yellow line and a white line painted on asphalt to me.  

We got to capitol reef but basically went right through. There are no camping spots so we went to the other side of the park and will drive back in tomorrow. 

As we entered the national park, there some cool red cliffs. Most of the drive we saw trees which was a change from the rest of the trip. The park has lots of fruit trees and rocks and cliffs. As we drove through everything changed and then again. More and more strange.  Eventually I was pretty sure we were on Mars. Sure enough we are only 5 miles from the NASA Mars - desert research station. I’ve got not pictures because - Ain’t nobody got time for that. Plus did I mention the wind, and narrow road, and hills?

When we checked in tot he canpground the lady said we will definitely be back. I am not so sure.  Very neat place, but I think you would have to try to get here. It is the middle of nowhere. 

Having said that the compass in Judy now says NE. That means we are making our way back home. I think it will still be a few days but we are heading that direction. 

Side note both good cell coverage and WiFi on Mars. Just in case your travel plans bring you here. 

To hell and back

Yesterday we took an “adventure” and we went beyond thelocal  area. First we had bacon. We went to grand staircase national monument first. You may ask “what is the difference between a National monument and a national park.”  When you find out let us know. I am sure google can help. 

Here we took what they call a dirt road. It was pretty much driving across the prairie to a cool slot canyon. We did a hike there and took a very scenic drive. The drive is one of the most scenic in America. We drove across “Hell’s backbone”. Once we got to somewhere we turned around and drove it back. The road looked like most other roads I have driven. I am told the scenery beyond the road was amazing. I was able to see that there were drop offs of a few thousand feet on BOTH sides of the road in some places. Hence the backbone. By the way, hell apparently is quite scenic. 

We stopped at a state park for some fishing and a quick supper. We also visited a little roadside exhibit about hole in the rock. It’s a Mormon thing, you may not understand. 

We got back in time for a ranger program about the moon. 

Bryce canyon bound

After setting out this morning, we stopped for a couple hours of fishing at a state park... didn’t catch anything but a nice afternoon by the lake. After, we went to find some other “enroute activities” like a cool swimming hike but for one reason or another we just kept trucking on. After arriving at Bruce Canyon, the kids went straight for the swimming pool. I started supper and learned that I had brought a pork roast along instead of pork chops. So much for grilling chops. The electric frying pan to the rescue, and the kids seemed to think this was the best camping meal ever. 

This morning we took the shuttle into the park and did some hiking. We came back to the campsite for lunch and then drove back into the park. There are about 18 miles that the shuttle does not drive to so we drove the rest. The view from these altitudes is quite amazing. 

Some quick history here; although arches, Grand Canyon, Zion and Bryce are all essentially the same type of rock and kind of the “same thing” they are all at different altitudes and stages of their erosion. This makes VERY different scenery. The spires and hoodoos here at Bryce were once arches. Zion is much “younger” and doesn’t have most of these features yet but they can be found. Grand Canyon is much “older” and mature. Obviously the canyon is deaper and even the rock is a different layer and erodes differently. 

Zion

After leaving lake Powell we headed to Zion. I honestly have no clue where we are, what day it is, or what time zone we are in, but so far we are enjoying our trip. The weather has been perfect! After getting setup at the campground, we took the free shuttle into the park and went on a couple of hikes. Nothing intense... this park seems smaller than the others we have visited. The narrows was a hike that we hoped to go on, but many of the trails are closed because of the late spring melt. Currently the river is 450 cfs but they will not allow you to hike it when more than 150 cfs. 

We did hike a few other trails and took in a couple of ranger programs. None of our hikes were too strenuous or long but very enjoyable and great scenery. Although arches, Canyonlands, Grand Canyon, and Zion are all the same rock, formed the same way, etc. they are all VERY different parks. Zion has more vegetation then we have seen.  

The little kids are now junior rangers at a minimum of 6 national parks. They really enjoy the program and getting the badge. 

At the end of the day, we took a little trip to Grafton which is a ghost town where they filled butch cassidy and the Sundance kid.