Interesting places where we’ve stayed
It was clear early on that there would be no time to visit all five of Utah’s National Parks before our visit to Arizona. No problem – we can stop at four on the way south, and the hit the last one as we head back north. Ah, but which one? Fearing increasing temperatures in June, we opted for the one at the highest elevation, and we’re very happy we did. Bryce is nice!
From Lake Powell we headed south to meet friends in Sedona for the weekend, so we had 2 days in which to wander, chill and move ourselves 4 hours on down the road. Hey Doug, did you know the North Rim of the Grand Canyon is only 2 hours from here? Squirrel!
Zion (pronounced ‘ZY-in’ by locals, not ‘ZY-on’) National Park is the most superlative of the National Parks we visited so far. It has the tallest and most dramatic cliffs, soaring 2,500 feet from the Zion Canyon floor. The most innocently named Virgin River continues to flow through the canyon years (ok, millions…) after carving those cliffs. Zion has the largest number of scenic roads with four providing views into the park’s most beautiful areas. The main road through the Zion Canyon features the largest fleet of tandem buses we’ve seen. Zion has the greatest number of elated day hikers anywhere (despite a limited number of day hikes available within the canyon).
Our friend Kat, who works for the National Park Service, told us that she believes Squaw Flats Campground in the Needles District of Canyonlands NP is the most beautiful campground. Apparently, others think so too – it’s typically booked solid 6 months in advance. As non-planners, advance reservations don’t work too well for us, but we’re becoming skilled at snagging cancellations. We scored big! While waiting for our site to open up we got to explore an unplanned, interesting loop back from Capitol Reef – I called it the ‘space between‘ – then we were able to spend a weekend at Squaw Flats. And we agree with Kat – best campground views yet!
Continue reading “Canyonlands National Park, Part 2 – Needles”
One of our goals was to explore the space between – between the National Parks. Toward that end, we stopped by a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) office and made one ranger’s day. We asked about maps, roads and campsites in the area between the NPs, mostly managed by the BLM. She was beaming! She went on to tell us all of her favorite places, potential road closures, and where campsites are plentiful or scarce.
If we ever had any inclination to refer to the midwest as ‘flyover states’ (we didn’t), our travels last summer would have changed that. We thoroughly enjoyed exploring the northern midwest, finding the region surprisingly beautiful. (If you have any doubt, check our blog posts from summer 2016.) We were glad that our ‘straight line’ to Utah this year would include a different path through the middle of the midwest.
An interesting phenomenon happens when you drive from Warren, VT to Pittsburgh, PA in 3 days – spring gets compressed. We left home with snow on the ground, noticed budding blossoms upstate NY and found color exploding – Bang! Screaming yellow forsythia! – over every hill crest and around every bend throughout north central PA. By the time we got to OH, the colorful part of spring was behind us, and farmers were busy readying their fields.
We accepted the trade off… Memphis jam and extra time in the south with friends and family would mean fewer, longer driving days to get back to VT before (or between) snow storms. Doug summarized his anticipated feelings for this last leg of the trip: ‘It’ll be like driving home late from the airport after a vacation.’
It was time for a different kind of adventure for us – chill. In the past month alone, we’d been awed and inspired by the beauty of Roosevelt, Badlands and Rocky Mountain National Parks as well as the Black Hills of SD and high peaks area of CO. We’re still giggling about our serendipitous and crazy visits to Carhenge and The City Museum in St Louis. We thoroughly enjoyed visits with old and new friends and family in SD, CO and MO. We were thrilled to join two jam sessions in CO. And we were acutely aware that a major, 3-day jam in Memphis was just 2 weeks away. We needed to take a short break from adventuring and take some practice time.
Drawing a line on the (virtual) map from St Louis to Nashville, where we planned to visit Doug’s cousins, we saw a major splotch of green – the Land Between the Lakes (LBL) National Recreation Area. Sounds nice. And the old man (Doug) gets a senior discount! We laid a course.
Kansas would be different. We don’t know anyone in Kansas. There are no National Parks. State Parks are all about fishing. It’s mostly flat farm country. Still, our memories of traveling through Kansas in 1984 is that every town has a town campground and that the locals are curious, fun to chat with, and friendly. We planned to drive back roads, reminisce and cross the state in whatever time it took, then visit family in Missouri.