Utah and New Mexico road trip, Part 3

**scroll down to read parts 1 and 2 before reading this**

WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 9, 2013
Today we planned to drive through Zion National Park and ultimately end the day in Gallup, New Mexico as we were to meet Hanna's brother in Albuquerque a little after noon the following day.  We approached the park gate at Zion and were graced with a park entrance completely devoid of tourists. With the park closed due to the federal government shutdown, the $25 entrance fee was waived and the ranger informed us that we were not supposed to stop and get out of our car or we risked a ticket.  But then she went on to say that it was highly unlikely we would be ticketed as long as we didn't take off and go hiking or sit in one place too long.  Cool.

Instead of following a train of RVs and tourists through the park, we basically had it to ourselves and were able to stop and make our own turnouts right in the middle of the road due to the complete lack of traffic.  We certainly took our time and were able to stop and get photos that probably wouldn't be possible on a normal day.  The turnouts had cones setup to discourage you from stopping, but the park service was nice enough to have arranged them in a manner that still allowed us to make quick stops for photos. 

Zion and car-free roads

Tunnels bored through the hardrock

Hanna reacts to the Federal Government shutdown notice

Highway 9 through the park terminates at Highway 89, we then turned south briefly before turning off to visit Coral Pink Sands State Park.

Coral Pink Sands is more of a "quick get out and look," rather than a destination, unless you have an ATV.  Apparently there are miles of trails you can ride and there is a campground on-site where you can stay and ride multiple days.  We continued down Highway 89 until we reached Glen Canyon Dam, where we stopped to look around and take some photos.

Putting the new 10-24mm wide angle lens to use; this dam is huge.

Glen Canyon Dam and the Navajo Bridge

Rafts that won't be going anywhere with the federal government shutdown

And speaking of shutdowns, here is a sign blocking off access to Lake Powell because it is part of Glen Canyon National Recreation Area

The Colorado River downstream of Glen Canyon Dam

We continued over the dam crossing into Arizona and passing through the town of Page before we saw a sign indicating the remaining section of Highway 89 was closed for unknown reasons.  Gee, thanks for the heads-up on that one.  Just like the federal government shutdown, this road closure ended up being a blessing in disguise.  The GPS routed us southeast down Highway 98, then northeast on Highway 160, southeast down Indian Route 59 (I never knew Indian Routes existed, except in the game Oregon Trail--even the GPS was reading out "Indian Route 59"), and south on Highway 191 past Canyon de Chelly National Monument.  The entire route between Highway 98 and up to Highway 191 were incredibly scenic; I found myself shooting photos out the window of the moving car just so I can remind myself to return to this location for hiking and four wheeling.  Once you hit Highway 191, both sides of the highway are littered with Indian residences.  The word "littered" is used quite appropriately here, there is garbage everywhere, and I'll just leave my comments at that. Canyon de Chelly was an absolute treat though, and once again, we were the only people there.  The park was not labeled as being closed, no gates were closed, so we helped ourselves to the view.

I want more of this national park closure stuff.  Look at that parking lot--that white car is ours in the front row spot!!!

After basking in the glory of the lack of people, we decided to leave just in case we were not supposed to be here.  Highway 264 led us to Gallup, New Mexico for the evening.

Utah and New Mexico road trip, Part 2

**scroll down to read part 1 before reading this**

TUESDAY OCTOBER 8, 2013
St. George is a place I have heard my family speaking positively about for years, and now I see why.  I guess I could summarize it by saying it was a cute town surrounded by redrock bluffs.  Our goal for today was to visit Snow Canyon State Park just north of St. George, however the park was closed until 2:00 p.m. for the "World Senior Games." I had never heard of such of thing and the first thing that came to mind was a bunch of seniors playing boggle and bingo. At breakfast we overheard some of the seniors talking about their roles in the Senior Games and was surprised and impressed to learn they were cycling, running, playing basketball, soccer, etc. Truely incredible! We passed some time in the morning by looking at model homes, something we both enjoy doing when we have free time. These were some pretty incredible model homes though, nestled into the redrock mesas with really cool desert architecture. I fell in love with one of them, which had the indoor/outdoor living concept I like so much. It had a man-made waterfall in the backyard, a stream, beautiful landscaping and every wall that could be glass, was glass. On top of this, it had a separate casita for guests inside of the most interesting entryways I have ever seen.

Front yard and entryway

Love the floor to ceiling glass!

View from the kitchen and great room

Best entryway I have ever seen

Following lunch and a drive around St. George and the adjacent town of Ivins, we entered Snow Canyon State Park to hike. Snow Canyon is a park that is often overlooked due to the proximity of the popular national parks that are nearby, but this park is not to be missed.   I could say the same for Kodachrome State Park.

Kodachrome State Park from the Highway 18 overlook

Petrified Dunes at Snow Canyon State Park

 We hiked the Petrified Dunes and 3 Ponds trails.

After our hike we took Interstate 15 to Highway 9 and stayed in Hurricane, UT for the night, putting us closer to Zion National Park for our next day of activities. 

Utah and New Mexico road trip, Part 1

Hanna and I are taking some time off work this month to travel. We are starting with a road trip to Albuquerque, New Mexico to visit her brother Eric and his fiancee Serena, but we are taking time to stop and see some fun places along the way. Our original plan was to visit some of Utah's national parks including Zion and Bryce Canyon, however the government shutdown started a few days before we left. We weren't about to let some Republican games ruin our vacation, so we headed out despite the shutdown.

SUNDAY OCTOBER 6, 2013
We left home Sunday morning with the lawns mowed, cat fed and a full tank of fuel and headed up Interstate 80 past Truckee and Reno to the bustling town of Fernley, Nevada, then continued east out Highway 50. The quick route to New Mexico is Interstate 5 to Bakersfield then route 58/40 east, but I would rather poke myself in the eye with a stick than drive the I-5. Highway 50 is a little circuitous but offers great views along the way. We left Hwy 50 a few miles east of Ely, Nevada and turned south onto Highway 93, then east on Highways 319/56, crossed into Utah and continued on to Cedar City, Utah for the night. We covered a total of 638 miles today, most of which was very scenic and very enjoyable. 

Nothing but wide open highway out here!

Made it to Utah

Caught some good light in the 30 miles before reaching our hotel

MONDAY OCTOBER 7, 2013
After a night of good sleep, we left Cedar City heading east through a really beautiful canyon on Highway 14, north on 89, then east on Highway 12, stopping at Red Canyon for a hike.

Highway 14 east of Cedar City.  This is a must-do route, it is beautiful!

 

Highway 14

We were learning pretty quickly that the national park closure was not about to lock us out of seeing beautiful redrock country.  Red Canyon looks like a miniature Zion, with trails that follow the contour of the mesa, with hoodoos and rock spires similar to what you find at Bryce Canyon.  And yes, 'hoodoos' really is a word.

Hiking in Red Canyon, near intersection of Highway 89 and 12 in Utah

The parties involved

Continuing east on Highway 12 toward Escalante, we stopped at Kodachrome State Park for a 6 mile loop around the Panorama Trail. Along the way were offshoots to Panorama Point and back to Cool Cave, which, as the name suggests, was very cool. The last 50 feet of the trail was narrow and ended at a cave with a giant natural skylight in the ceiling.

Random photo taken off Highway 12

 

Hiking to Panorama Point

Mesas along the Panorama Trail

The name says it all

After using up the day, we turned around and backtracked west along Highway 12, turned north on 89, west on Highway 20 and down Interstate 15 past Cedar City. We had an open itinerary with no advanced reservations, so we continued on to St. George, Utah for the evening to get us closer to parks we wanted to see the next day.

Weekend at Pismo Beach

The past couple of weeks have been all about travel preparation for our upcoming trips.  Our Europe trip is mostly planned, however we are leaving soon for Utah and New Mexico and literally haven't had a chance to plan any part of it.  Needless to say, we still have much work to make the most of our trip.  As far as Europe-prep, we hit REI pretty hard and bought the clothes we needed along with good hiking and city walking shoes.  Thanks to Adam, the REI friends and family coupon saved us $165!  We have been busy every night between trip planning, exercise, bbqs at friend's places, mobile food truck nights, etc.

Hanna's family sold their place in Los Angeles and found a house they loved in the Auburn area.  Timing worked out perfect, selling one place and getting the keys to the new one within 4 days of the old house closing.  They were staying with us while shopping for a home and during their 4 day homeless period, and we are happy to have them much closer to us now.

 Last weekend I went with the 4Runner group down to Pismo Beach for three days of playing around on the dunes.  Mike, Stuart and I caravanned down from Sacramento and met approximately 75 other 4Runner owners at the beach.  Many of them are close personal friends, so it was fun to visit and spend time out on the dunes.  This is the first time I have had my truck on the dunes with the supercharger, and it added a whole new element of fun.  Here's a video on the "sand drags."  It's uphill with plenty of whooptie-doos. 

Here are a few photos from the trip.

Part of the group photo

Mike

Me

If you haven't been to Pismo Beach, it's a fun place to spend an extended weekend.

Fall countdown

With summer ending, we are trying to squeeze in as many camping trips as possible before the rainy season hits.  (We were only partially successful at meeting that goal; more on that in a minute.)  We did an annual trip to Sly Park (Jenkinson Lake) with Hanna's friends and colleagues.  The location is close enough to home to not require much planning, the campsites are nice and the lake is perfect for watersports and running/biking on the trail around the lake.  I had never tried a paddle board, so we rented a gamut of watersport equipment including paddle boats, kayaks and paddle boards.  Of course, I loved it and I'm hooked on yet another sport.  Most people can barely balance on one of these things, but Hanna was immediately showing us her best hand-stand.  Bravo.

We had a brief thunderstorm over night, which I rather enjoyed.  I woke up to the sound of thunder, listened to about five or six rumbles in the distance and wondered when it was finally going to wake Hanna up.  A giant one hit nearby and lit up the sky, Hanna immediately sits up and says "did you hear that, thunder!"  haha.  She can sleep through just about anything.  Clearly she wasn't the only one though, at the moment, echoing off the adjacent lake, you could hear the sound of about a dozen tent zippers opening up simultaneously as people crawled out of their tents to put on their rain fly.  The rain was a nice change of pace.  In fact, we went running near our house a few days ago in the middle of a huge downpour and had fun doing it.

On the not-so-good side of things, I had to drive to work one day for a meeting that was scheduled to run late.  On my way home I stopped in traffic and the person behind did not.   A 2009 Scion sedan died on Highway 160 that night.  The 4Runner not only lived, I had the pleasure of getting to drive off of the woman's front end, which she had carefully wedged under my rear bumper and trailer hitch.  As I slowly pulled forward all you could hear was tearing plastic and broken glass hitting the ground (from her car), so hopefully that gave her something to think about next time she wants to not pay attention driving.  But alas, my truck was injured too.  It drove fine (I drove it around all weekend, in fact), but it needed a new rear bumper and some denting repaired at the bottom of the rear liftgate.  There was no frame or hidden damage and no one was injured in the crash, at least to my knowledge.

 
Her insurance admitted liability (I am not at fault) and it is currently being repaired at a local bodyshop.  Life goes on.

In more exciting news, Hanna and I are doing pretty well at our "work less, enjoy more" goal.  We are taking a full month off work and have two trips planned.  One to Albuquerque, NM to visit her brother and fiancee as well as experience the Hot Air Balloon Festival from a great vantage point..in a hot air balloon.  We are driving the car out so we can stop a few days in Utah and check out Arches National Park, Zion, Canyonlands, etc., the full itinerary has not been determined yet.  We will come home for a couple of days and leave for Europe.  This year it's Austria and Slovenia.  More on that in future posts.  :)