On Wednesday, May 18 we left Wyoming and headed to Utah. We arrived in Provo on Wednesday afternoon and planned on staying at the Elks Lodge. They have 5 full hookup spots and 3 dry camping spots, we thought we’d be fine, but got there to find out all sites were occupied. Luckily, they have a large parking lot, and we were able to just pull to the side of the building and stay. Wednesday was the first day we needed to use the air conditioner since leaving Texas since the temperature in the 80s! It felt so good to wear sandals and put the jackets away. However, with no hook ups we wouldn’t be able to run the air conditioner and it was going to be a warm evening. We did what all good Elks do, we opened all the windows and went into the lodge for dinner and drinks! As usual to Elks Lodges, the food was good as were the cocktails.
On Thursday morning, we left for Thompson Springs, which is about 30 minutes from The Arches National Park. The 80-degree weather turned to 60 degrees and the wind gusts were around 60 mph! Wow, that was a short-lived summer! Once we were settled at the campsite, I looked into going to the Arches and realized I needed reservations! They have a system of timed entry, and you need a reservation for a certain time in order to get in. The good news is that at 6:00 p.m. each evening times are released for the following day for those people who didn’t get reservations 3 months in advance! I already had the Recreation.gov app so at 6:00 I signed on and there were plenty of reservations available. We got a reservation for 8:00 a.m. on Friday.
The wind blew hard all night, and Friday morning it was still pretty breezy. I’m beginning to understand that 20 mph winds is just a breeze! We left for Arches and got there about 7:45. Because there was no one in line, we got in a bit early. I have learned that getting to National Parks early is a good idea, we were able to hike to many of the arches and although the sky looked threatening it never rained. It did stay pretty windy all day.
By 1:00 we were finished and left arches and drove to Moab for lunch. We found a cute little restaurant named Zax and had a really good “linner” (not quite lunch, not quite dinner). After getting up at 6:00 am we turned in early as we had plans to go to another national park on Saturday. Canyonland National Park is not a park I had ever heard of, but it was only a 40-minute drive so we planned to go on Saturday
Following our own advice, we got up early and arrived at the park around 8:30 a.m. There was no line so getting in was not a problem. The National Park is sort of a mini Grand Canyon, plus had an arch that we hiked to. Today was brilliant sunshine with bright blue skies but still cold. An interesting thing about this national park is that there are 3 sections which are not connected internally. You need to decide which part you are going to visit. Since “Islands in the Sky” was the closest entry point for us, that is where we went. We packed food and water as there are plenty of places to hike. What we did find out is that although there are many hiking spots, there are very few parking spots. After making the short hike to Mesa Arch and spending some time taking photos and talking to fellow hikers, we went in search of a longer hike. The one we were interested in, Murphy Point, had a full parking lot so we decided on Grand View Point which took us along the ridge of the canyon to a lookout point about 1 mile in. The views were stunning, and the hike was good, not too much climbing over rocks, which is not my favorite part of hiking as we all know what my balance is like!
By a little after noon, we had finished the Islands in the Sky portion as we try to keep to the easy hikes, so we decided to drive to Green River, Utah an hour or so away and have lunch at Ray’s Tavern. Why would we do that? Well in 1978 Tom and his rowdy friends took a white-water rafting trip down the Green River and Ray’s Tavern was the local bar/restaurant they hung out in the night before the trip. Once we got there, we made our way past the dozens of bikers who were just leaving and found a seat. Amazingly, the hamburgers were great, and the beer was ice cold! Other than the bikers it was a pretty family friendly place with lots of people there with little kids. It was, however 2:00 on a Saturday afternoon so I’m not really sure what Friday or Saturday night look like!
On Sunday we left Thompson Springs and headed to Virgin, Utah and Zion National Park. The campground we stayed at was great and only about 15 minutes from Zion National Park. The campground has a shuttle that takes you to the walk-in portion of the park.
We booked a 7:30 time on the shuttle from the campground, with the only caveat being that you need to be back at the shuttle at 1:30 p.m. so you have to watch your time. It’s pretty amazing how each national park operates differently. If you want to hike in Zion you walk into the park and take a shuttle which has 9 stops. There are hiking opportunities at each stop, and they handed out maps at the entrance that indicated the difficulty of each hike. We chose to hike the emerald pools, which was listed as an easy hike. Well….once we reached the lower pool, we decided to keep going without looking at the map and it was quite the hike! Once we made it back and checked, it was listed as a medium hike which made us feel so much better, because if that was an easy hike, we were in really bade shape!
We had packed a small lunch, so we had a bite to eat at some picnic tables and there were deer roaming around, they were not at all afraid of people and were all around our table. We decided we didn’t really have time for another long hike, so we headed back to the shuttle. The fun thing about Zion is just outside the park entrance, in the parking lot area, there is a gift shop, a place to rent e-bikes and a restaurant and micro-brewery. Being Utah, you can’t order a beer with lunch, but you can drink in the beer garden and order food “to go” which they will deliver to you! Since time was short, we decided to return the next day and take another hike and then finish with lunch.
The couple parked next to us at the campground, Kim and Bruce Goff were also on the shuttle with us. After hiking we agreed to meet at 5:00 for drinks and visit some more. We had originally met Kim at the laundromat the day before so meeting for cocktails was a perfect idea. They are from Massachusetts and were a lot of fun. We decided to take the shuttle the next day and then meet for lunch. We shared address and phone numbers and will keep in touch with them and hopefully either we’ll get to Massachusetts, or they’ll get to California.
Wednesday morning, when we got up Tom was lightheaded and nauseous. He did not feel well enough to go hiking so I cancelled the shuttle. Tom slept most of the day and I hung out at the pool. Tom felt a little better in the evening, but if he’s still feeling lightheaded tomorrow, I’ll be driving to Pahrump, Nevada! Guess I won’t get too much sleep tonight! Update Tom felt somewhat better and was able to drive to Pahrump.
Tom and Patti's RV Adventure 