Bernie and I headed up to Utah for the long weekend.
We drove late into the night on Friday, entertaining ourselves with silly songs. If we ever had kids, we would be THAT family that sings on long car rides. Finally, we found the cabin we wanted to camp near.
We spent a long time driving on dirt roads on Saturday.
We stopped when we saw a herd of wild horses. They came right up to our car and let us pet them.
We took advantage of the $5 all-you-can-eat buffet at Lotsa Motsa Pizza and headed down Skatumpah Road to Bull Valley Gorge.
I've been wanting to do this canyon since I saw it on my last trip. It's deep and dark and narrow, and a truck crashed into it in the 1950's. The bodies were extracted, but the truck remains, and a bridge was built on top of it.
We hiked up canyon and saw big, deep pools. Yuck. I wasn't in the mood to go swimming. We decided to drop in towards the end and explore up canyon as long as we felt like it. On our way back, we ran into a really cool couple on motorcycles. We enjoyed our chat with them for a while, but then it dragged on and on and by the time we could extract ourselves, it was too late to hike. So I STILL haven't done Bull Valley Gorge.
We camped at Kodachrome Basin State Park for the next two nights and spent all day Sunday hiking the trails there. What an unexpectedly beautiful and unique spot!
At first I was disappointed about not doing canyons. (They were all located off of Cottonwood Wash Road, which was impassable due to rain.) But this ended up being such a fun day! Bernie feels that it should be named Dildo Valley, and I would agree. This area used to be like Yellowstone, with lots of geysers. They hardened into stone, and the earth around them eroded away, and now it looks like penises everywhere.
We woke up to a heavy fog on Monday morning. "Did we get teleported to San Francisco overnight?" Bernie wondered groggily. It was really unexpected! We started the day with a search for Elijah Averett's grave. We read about it in Kelsey's book and thought it would be cool to find it. Averett was in the military, and he and some other troops were sent out to kills some Blackhawks. Unfortunately, the Blackhawks got them first, and Averett was killed and buried where he died. His grave and memorial are still there.
Our next stop was the Toad Stools, outside of Page. Even more phallic shaped symbols. Oh, and on the way we passed Mollie's nipple, named after a guy's wife. Poor Mollie. And I feel like it must have been even more embarrassing for your husband to do that to you in the 1800's, when she lived! There's Mollie's Nipple, Nipple Lake, Nipple Ranch, etc.
Anyway, the hike to the Toad Stools was SO hot. The best area was a longer hike, so we opted for a short hike to just a few of them.
We enjoyed ourselves despite the heat. We read about the Toad Stools in our Michael Kelsey books, and we were laughing about how Kelsey always seems to have the same pose in his pictures. So, we took a bunch of pictures (like the one above) in the Kelsey pose.
After the hot hike, Bernie suggested a dip in Lake Powell to cool off. It was delightful.
We stopped at the Elden Pueblo Dwellings in Flagstaff on the way home. Not too exciting, but we took turns reading the information at each stop on the tour, pretending to be guides. Being with Bernie makes boring things fun.
Our last stop was Rock Springs for their famous pie. Not as good as Bang Bang, but that coconut cream was pretty delicious.
I can't wait to get back to Utah next month!
We drove late into the night on Friday, entertaining ourselves with silly songs. If we ever had kids, we would be THAT family that sings on long car rides. Finally, we found the cabin we wanted to camp near.
We spent a long time driving on dirt roads on Saturday.
We stopped when we saw a herd of wild horses. They came right up to our car and let us pet them.
We took advantage of the $5 all-you-can-eat buffet at Lotsa Motsa Pizza and headed down Skatumpah Road to Bull Valley Gorge.
I've been wanting to do this canyon since I saw it on my last trip. It's deep and dark and narrow, and a truck crashed into it in the 1950's. The bodies were extracted, but the truck remains, and a bridge was built on top of it.
We hiked up canyon and saw big, deep pools. Yuck. I wasn't in the mood to go swimming. We decided to drop in towards the end and explore up canyon as long as we felt like it. On our way back, we ran into a really cool couple on motorcycles. We enjoyed our chat with them for a while, but then it dragged on and on and by the time we could extract ourselves, it was too late to hike. So I STILL haven't done Bull Valley Gorge.
We camped at Kodachrome Basin State Park for the next two nights and spent all day Sunday hiking the trails there. What an unexpectedly beautiful and unique spot!
We woke up to a heavy fog on Monday morning. "Did we get teleported to San Francisco overnight?" Bernie wondered groggily. It was really unexpected! We started the day with a search for Elijah Averett's grave. We read about it in Kelsey's book and thought it would be cool to find it. Averett was in the military, and he and some other troops were sent out to kills some Blackhawks. Unfortunately, the Blackhawks got them first, and Averett was killed and buried where he died. His grave and memorial are still there.
Our next stop was the Toad Stools, outside of Page. Even more phallic shaped symbols. Oh, and on the way we passed Mollie's nipple, named after a guy's wife. Poor Mollie. And I feel like it must have been even more embarrassing for your husband to do that to you in the 1800's, when she lived! There's Mollie's Nipple, Nipple Lake, Nipple Ranch, etc.
Anyway, the hike to the Toad Stools was SO hot. The best area was a longer hike, so we opted for a short hike to just a few of them.
After the hot hike, Bernie suggested a dip in Lake Powell to cool off. It was delightful.
We stopped at the Elden Pueblo Dwellings in Flagstaff on the way home. Not too exciting, but we took turns reading the information at each stop on the tour, pretending to be guides. Being with Bernie makes boring things fun.
Our last stop was Rock Springs for their famous pie. Not as good as Bang Bang, but that coconut cream was pretty delicious.
I can't wait to get back to Utah next month!
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