Tour of Beehive State

View of Arch from trail
Originally uploaded by zenhikers

My grandfather on my Mom's side was very into geology and I can't go to Utah without thinking of Papa Allison. Rocks, rocks, and more rocks...truly a geologist's dream can be found in the backcountry of Utah. This past week we ventured to a whole slew of places, including quite a few of the National Parks and some rather sketchy 4WD roads.

In addition to meeting some friends,chilling at the river, and having some laid back downtime outside the Silver State we also hit four major sightseeing destinations on our tour around. We stayed a couple nights at Kodachrome State Park, which was a nice jumping off point for exploration of Grand-Staircase Escalante National Monument and the Paria River country. This was some of the toughest driving for the vehicle, but gorgeous scenery and a nice campground with showers, rock spires, and a mountain-biking trail (where I took my first bloody bike crash).

We also went to Bryce Canyon one of the days and did some walking and lots of picture-taking. There were tons of Europeans in the parks and Bryce was lovely and cold, with snow still falling at night. We also took advantage of the awesome paved bike trail through Red Canyon where I took the world's longest coast through beautiful scenery. Now, that is my kind of biking!

After these two sites, we drove through Southern Utah on Highway 12 which is by far one of the most amazing scenic drives I have ever done. We even got into a snowball fight on the freezing cold summit of Boulder Mountain. We met the nicest couple ever at the forest service cabin...I can only hope Aaron and I are doing that kind of work later in our lives.

We stayed a night in Capitol Reef, which has to be one of the best small national parks with a historic area and some beautiful orchards. We are planning to go back and pick some apples and make a nice cobbler with our dutch oven. The park is pretty small, but there are more of Utah's infamous 4WD roads that we ventured short distances on to see more of the scenery. It was great to be able to grill out every night on our Cobb grill and we ended up meeting lots of nice people in our adjoining campsites. I even took in a campfire program on astronomy and got to see some awesome Hubble telescope images of the skies. Torrey, UT is definitely a nice place and I wouldn't mind living there one bit.

After our time on the river, we thought it would be nice to check out a hot springs we heard about in Richfield, UT called Mystic Hot Springs. The pools looked pretty nice, but it was a bit of a let down after the sprawling and peaceful campsites of the Fruita campground.

On the last leg of the trip back to Vegas we stopped in Springdale, UT and stayed at Zion. We shared our campsite with a really nice Dutch couple and shared a nice meal and conversation...at least until the ranger broke it up after "quiet hours" began. There is a great pizza place in Springdale and despite the surly service at the Mean Bean, we grabbed a cuppa joe on the way out of town.

Vegas re-entry was as hard as always, but the mild temperatures and the anticipation of a day at the movies today made it easier. It is good to be home, but we are going to miss our friends and neighbors that are returning to Montgomery, AL today. As we return from our travels, we wish them a bon voyage!