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Thanksgiving Road Trip, Part VII: Salt Lake City (2/2)

Posted on March 3, 2024 by Debora

Read Part VI here

So much going on, I almost forgot to wrap up this outing!

Over breakfast in the Park Cafe, we debated how badly we wanted to check the Great Salt Lake off our bucket list. We all felt like we’d already gotten our money’s worth from the road trip. The morning was grey and chilly, and the idea of backtracking to see a grey, chilly body of water was less appealing than the thought of heading back to our own warm, cozy house. We decided to save the lake for another time, maybe when the Temple renovations are done and we can do a proper tour.

We did stay long enough to check out Tracy Aviary at Liberty Park, right across the street from the cafe. Most of the birds were huddled out of the cold in their shelters, but the setting itself is a nice walk.

There is a pelican pond…

…and the enclosures are reasonably roomy.

Zoos make me sad. But at least the birds here aren’t in tiny cages.

Some of the larger birds definitely could have used more space, though.

After we left the aviary, we turned the Adventuremobile’s head toward home and hit the open road.

Again, Luke chose a more scenic and slightly longer route home, via US-40 through Dinosaur and Steamboat Springs rather than I-70 through Grand Junction. It’s a pretty drive, but honestly, I don’t think there are any nonscenic routes through the Rockies.

Ski runs carved out down the mountainsides. It’s been so long now, I don’t even remember where that was. Somewhere still in Utah, I think. I probably should have taken notes.

Here’s a pretty lake. Don’t remember which lake. Maybe Strawberry Reservoir? I definitely should have taken notes.

No idea which rest area this was. Might have been Pinion Ridge. It has a nice little trail to get out and stretch your legs on.

In the afternoon it started snowing again, and the road got slick.

We slid around a bit, but we made it through with only a couple of tense moments.

I wish I’d had a proper camera to capture that moonrise.

We made it home late that night, and I slept like a rock in my warm bed. We all agreed that future road trips would be in warmer seasons, at least until that camper shell window gets replaced.

Unless we’re visiting more national parks, because I love having those mostly to ourselves in the off season. I’d like to see Yellowstone and Glacier soon.

And that was our November trip! Only took me three months to get it all blogged, and now spring is only a few weeks away.

I am very much ready for spring.

 

 

 

 

 

Categories: A Plethora of Parks, Animals, Family, Holidays, kids, Life, Road trip, Travel, Weather, Wildlife, Winter | Tags: | Leave a comment

Thanksgiving Road Trip, Part VI: Salt Lake City (1/2)

Posted on January 21, 2024 by Debora

Read Part V here

Luke chose old rural highways on most of the drive from Bryce Canyon to the Great Salt Lake. His reasoning was twofold: one, the scenery would be better on the backroads than on I-15; and two, the Adventuremobile tops out around 65–70 mph anyway, so we wouldn’t really be saving any time by taking the interstate.

The scenery was indeed better.

Our highway met up with I-15 in Nephi, Utah. We were all hungry, so we stopped there for supper.

On this trip we mostly ate food we had packed for the road, or picked up at truck stops and gas stations. But we did have two meals that were good enough for a proper mention. One of them was at Lisa’s Country Kitchen in Nephi. I recommend it if you’re ever passing through there.

Back on the interstate, the views got kinda boring again.

The most interesting part of it was all the Mormon churches.

Our plan was to spend the night at Great Salt Lake Campground. But when we got to the entry road, the gate was closed and there was some kind of big event going on at a nearby venue, with some guys directing traffic and us right in their way. They told us that the only way to get the campground gate code was to have reservations, which we would have to try to get online. They told us to pull out of the way on the side of the road and figure it out. We decided to get out of their way completely and go find a truck stop and regroup.

Saturday night in Salt Lake City is a crowded, trafficky place. We fought our way to a Love’s Travel Stop, thinking that we’d spend the night there and go back to the campground when it opened in the morning, only to find it jam-packed full of disgruntled truckers who had discovered, like us, that you can’t spend the night in a travel stop that close to the city center. We had to drive out to the outskirts to find one that allowed overnight parking.

That was the only part of the trip that was really unsalvageable. We settled into the travel stop around 5:30 or 6 pm. It was already dark, and cold, and there was nothing to do but scroll on our phones until we got tired enough to sleep.

I found out much later that you can get the Salt Lake Campground gate code anytime just by calling the camp office and asking. Reeeaallly wish we’d known that at the time.

In the morning we sorted through our options. Dealing with city traffic and spending the night in a truck stop instead of a lakefront campground had made us grumpy, and we were starting to bicker amongst ourselves. Not a good start to the day. We’d had a particular breakfast cafe on our itinerary, so we decided to go there, have breakfast, and then decide how badly we wanted to see the Great Salt Lake.

Driving through Salt Lake City on a Sunday morning was easier than driving though it on a Saturday night. My impression of it improved slightly.

The Temple was completely covered in scaffolding, I guess the renovation is still in full swing. Saw some other interesting buildings in there as we drove past.

You can sorta see the Salt Lake City Union Station in the next pic. I think Denver wins this one.

When we got to the cafe, the line was out the door. They took our names and gave us a buzzer, and we went for a walk around Liberty Park across the street. Here we discovered the Tracy Aviary, and decided to visit it after breakfast.

Liberty Park is pretty, even in late fall.

Just as we were finishing our lap of the park, the buzzer buzzed and we headed back to the cafe.

This is the other restaurant that merits a mention: the Park Cafe.

They serve a serious breakfast!

Oh maple syrup decanter. You understand me.

More to come!

Categories: A Plethora of Parks, Animals, Family, food, Holidays, kids, Life, Road trip, Travel, Weather, Winter | Tags: , , , | 1 Comment

Thanksgiving Road Trip, Part V: Bryce Canyon National Park

Posted on December 29, 2023 by Debora

Read part IV here

After spending a chilly night in a high-altitude rest stop, we brushed the snow off the Adventuremobile and continued on.

We rolled past the park entry sign at 8:30 am.

The fresh snow had closed all roads into the outer reaches of the park. We were only able to access the main section, basically everything inside the black rectangle on the map:

Fun fact: Bryce Canyon isn’t actually a canyon. It’s a collection of big natural amphitheaters, full of hoodoos and other interesting geological features.

The most time-consuming part of composing this post was narrowing my huge stack of photos down to a manageable 25. The views here are spectacular.

Elizabeth is the only one of us who thought to pack snow boots. Without my usual weeks of planning and exhaustive lists, I had only grabbed trail runners and cozy sheepskin booties. The booties got soggy at Bryce, but my feet stayed warm!

We didn’t do any major hikes, just checked out the scenic overlooks. Did I mention the views are phenomenal?

This is another park we’ll likely revisit in a warmer season, but it was nice to experience it this time without crowds.

By 11:30 am we had seen everything we wanted to see inside the accessible rectangle, so we got back on the road, heading north toward the Great Salt Lake.

To be continued!

Categories: A Plethora of Parks, environment, Family, Holidays, kids, Life, Road trip, Travel, Weather, Winter | Tags: | 1 Comment

Thanksgiving Road Trip, Part IV: Zion National Park (2/2)

Posted on December 14, 2023 by Debora

Read Part III here

The last shuttle stop on the line is in a natural amphitheater called the Temple of Sinawava, carved out of Zion Canyon by the Virgin River.

From here you can follow the paved riverwalk for about a mile between the canyon walls.

I think my phone and my GoPro were competing to see who could do the least amount of justice to this spectacular scenery.

The pavement stops at the mouth of the Narrows, where the river itself becomes the trail. This is as far as we could go without getting our feet wet.

So we headed back.

I like the “hanging gardens” that grow straight from the weeping rocks.

By the time we got back to the shuttle, the afternoon was turning to evening.

We left the park through the South entrance.

Ideally it’s a two-hour drive from Zion to Bryce Canyon National Park. But the traffic was so bad on the normal route that Google took us on a more circuitous detour via Cedar City. In better weather it only would have added about thirty minutes to that ideal drive time. But the snow was starting to roll in for real, and the roads were getting slick.

That drive was so scenic that I wish we could have seen it in the daytime. Snow falling on evergreen-forested mountains as pretty as a Christmas card. Really lovely. We stopped for the night at a snow-covered rest stop not far from the Park entrance.

Gentle reader, it was cold. Temps down in the mid-teens, and with the camper shell missing a window it felt like sleeping outside. I’ve been saying I need to buy a proper sleeping bag, but I think this trip was the motivation I needed to finally do that. Definitely before my next winter trip. Brr.

More to come!

Categories: A Plethora of Parks, Animals, environment, Family, Holidays, kids, Life, Road trip, Travel, Weather, Wildlife | Tags: | 1 Comment

Thanksgiving Road Trip, Part III: Zion National Park (1/2)

Posted on December 3, 2023 by Debora

Read Part II here

The drive from Horseshoe Bend to Zion National Park is a pretty one that passes through alien rockscapes and cute little towns. Our weather alternated between heavy overcast, drizzling rain and snow flurries.

We crossed the border from Arizona into Utah a little after 11 am, and arrived at the East Entrance of Zion National park just before 1 pm. (Please ignore the nice windshield crack.)

I keep using the word “phenomenal” to describe the scenery on this road trip, and it keeps being the right word. I just wish I’d had a better camera to do it justice.

The texture of these rock structures reminded me of Mexican pan dulce:

Just a boy and his adventuremobile.

We pulled off the road at a random trailhead to stretch our legs with some rock climbing. That turned out to be one of our favorite parts of the trip. The high-desert terrain made us feel at home.

The views were great.

 

Got back on the road and continued on through the park.

We stopped for one more short explore, but the weather wasn’t right for creekbed hikes. We resolved to revisit this park in a warmer season.

The scenic drive down Zion Canyon Road was closed to cars for the season and only accessible by shuttle bus. So we drove to the museum, but this end of the park was crowded and we couldn’t find a parking spot. We continued on to the Visitor Center at the South Entrance.

We parked the truck at the Visitor Center and boarded a shuttle bus, which took us down the scenic Zion Canyon drive. Amazing scenery.

There are nine stops along the route, and you can get off and on at any of them. But by the time we boarded it was 3:30 pm, and the last bus departed from the farthest stop at 6:15. If you missed it, you had a looooooong walk back to your car. So we stayed on the shuttle all the way to the last stop, and only got off to explore the trail that runs along the Virgin River to the slot canyon known as the Narrows.

And that is a post for another time, because I have a bazillion more pics and some of my readers live in places with Internet connections that struggle with massive web pages. So…to be continued!

 

 

Categories: A Plethora of Parks, environment, Family, Holidays, kids, Life, Road trip, Travel, Weather, Winter | Tags: | 1 Comment

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