The last of Utah

From Mt. Pleasant we traveled to Duchesne, Utah and the Lakeside RV Park.  We crested a peak at 9115 feet above sea level on the way there.  It is not getting any easier to breath up here folks. LOL.

Dennis’ birthday was the day we arrived in Deuchesne and, as usual, his birthday fell on PIZZA DAY!  So we went in search of some pizza and were not disappointed.  There aren’t many restaurants in this small town, but this pizza was superb!

The lake is actually a reservoir, Starvation Reservoir.  I would love to know how that name came about. It is a beautiful body of water.  The RV park is on the lake, but above it, so you have to drive down the hill (a very steep hill) to their boat launch.  They have a nice clubhouse here but it was still closed due to Covid.  Strangely enough, we haven’t found that at all in Utah.  They are wide open everywhere else - even in town here.  Dennis told me the office was a wreck (glad I didn’t go in with him, I would have starting cleaning up).  I just think they are too lazy to have to start cleaning that room again.  The park is nothing to write home about but we had a storm come through just north of us our last night and it dumped a ton of snow on the mountains and gave us a beautiful sunset.

We did not have the best of weather here either.  It was rainy and cold most of the time.  We even bought a puzzle at the grocery store and put it together.

The view of Starvation Reservoir from the graveyard adjacent to the RV Park.  

No worries, it wasn’t haunted.

It was freezing cold and Dennis went out to watch the sun set.  I did not follow.

The shot I got from the camp site was beautiful.

The mountains when we arrived compared to the same mountains after the storm. 

They were totally covered with snow when we left.

We did pull out our AllTrails app and found two nearby trails we were gonna hike.  We got to the first one beside a river and they had fenced it off and had cattle on the property so we took off for the other trail and found it fenced off as well. In all the time we have been using this app we have never found a trail closed.  I suppose we will need to start checking the dates of the reviews from now on.  There are an awful lot of new homes being built around here.  I guess the new land owners just don’t want strangers trekking through their property.  Can’t say as I blame them.

The town wasn’t much to look at either, but they had a really nice Veterans Memorial.

We have one more stop in Utah before we head into Wyoming.  A friend of mine mentioned how beautiful Flaming Gorge was so we booked a spot near Dutch John, Utah at the Pine Forest RV Park adjacent to the Flaming Gorge Resort.  This place had grass everywhere - I couldn’t believe it.  But they also have a check-in time of 4PM.  So I called and found out why and all that grass is why.  They water constantly and water between guests at the RV sites.  But we were able to get in early anyway.  They were the nicest people on the planet.  We visited with them quite a bit.

Look at all this beautiful grass! I have missed grass so much!

This park is between a national forest and the Lodge.  There are trails that lead directly to a portion of the Flaming Gorge and it was spectacular! 

Beside the pond there was this tiny little cabin.

This is the pond the owners of the park said they water their land with. 

It is on national forest land, but if you don’t tell, I won’t tell. 

I just loved how the trees reflected in this picture.

The Green River flowing through the gorge.

We never stay on track in our hiking anymore.  We hear a bird or some critter and scurry off to see if we can figure out what it is or get a picture.  But never have we seen a ribcage in the distance.  We had to check this out too.  It was a pretty spooky feeling.

 

They also had a trail over to the Lodge where they have rafting tours, guided fishing trips and all kinds of other things to do.  The fishing, I have read, is some of the best in the US.  We did not book a guided fishing trip, but one day I would like to learn to fly fish.  I think that would be fun.  The restaurant at the lodge was pretty amazing.  We ate there twice.  

We had a fire pit here, so we built us a big fire, cooked some steak and really enjoyed the cool evening air.  We had intended to finish off the wood we bought the following night, but then those dang lawn watering kids watered down our fire pit.  They did move the unburned wood before starting the sprinklers, but there were two good logs in the pit sopping wet now.  I made Dennis pick it up and bring it with us to our next park.  I am gonna burn that some day.

On the way back from our hike we found a family of Yellow Bellied Marmots - I didn’t get any good shots of the two babies, but the mom wasn’t too worried about us at all.  In the shot below she is watching Dennis and having lunch.  We had seen one of these in Maple Canyon and all I could compare it to was a nutria rat - they gotta be kin. But the owner of the campground came out to visit with us while we were admiring these little guys and he said they were the marmots.

We also took a scenic drive while we were there and I could never properly explain (nor do these pictures show) the extreme beauty of this place. It almost wears you out gasping at all the beauty all day long.

We started off at the top of the gorge.

Drove down into the gorge at one point.

This beautiful stream is just meandering through.

I wish this picture showed the depth here.  It was amazing.

When I saw this sign I made D turn this truck around. 

This is on the opposite side of the highway from the amazing views of the gorge.  

I guess in a place like Utah it is all so very beautiful and you gotta put you garbage somewhere. 

Our next stop will be in Wyoming.  We will be checking out the Western part this time around and be close to the Grand Tetons.  I let you know what we think when we get there.

Hasta Luego, mi amigos!

Mt. Pleasant, Utah

 May 13 2021

We arrived at Mt. Pleasant and found our RV Park, Pleasant Creek RV Resort, way off the beaten path, but also among many new homes being built. On the way in we saw these kids walking home from school and I almost went back to pick them up when we found how far from any homes they were.  They turned around and waved at us as we drove by and I was wondering if they were hoping they knew us and we would take them the rest of the way.  That bus needs to redo its route to include their house.  It had to be 2 miles from any other houses.

The park is a very clean place. It is part of the Escape group of RV Parks.  We are in the back against the woods and have seen many mule deer milling about. They have a Pavillion, a nice lounge area and plenty of space between sites.  As a matter of fact, our site has two picnic tables and two fire rings.  I guess if we start needing some alone time we can just have our own fires and separate for a while.  LOL.

They had someone carving up tree stumps here. 

 

We mostly had the place to ourselves

We made the drive to Salt Lake City with the intention of seeing the Mormon Temple Square.  Well, of course, the massive temple is being renovated and is walled off so you cannot get close.  The other buildings that you would normally be allowed into, not including the Temple - you never get to go in there - were closed due to Covid.  We just walked around the grounds a bit and then found a really neat spot to relax.  Gracie’s is a restaurant and bar with outdoor seating. It was a great day, so we sat outside and enjoyed a snack and a beverage.  We had paid for two hours of parking or we would have stayed a lot longer.  We got back to our car four minutes prior to our time running out.  Funny thing is, we actually paid for the spot behind us, not our spot at all.  So I guess it really didn’t matter what time we got back, cuz our spot was not paid for.  LOL - some day we will get the hang of this.

The Temple is under massive renovations.

Not like they would let us in there anyway, right?

This is the Tabernacle. They hold all kinds of recitals and of course the 

Famous Tabernacle Choir can be heard here.

This is their Assembly Hall.  Beautiful building and we could have gone in except for Covid.

Here is the Salt Lake City visitors center.  All those signs are so funny.

We found a really cool restaurant and bar, Gracie’s, down from the visitors center and had a cold one and a snack before heading back to Mt. Pleasant.

A couple more things I should say about Mt. Pleasant before we move on.  We had dinner at Rodger’s Dairy Freeze before the drive in movie and there were signs everywhere telling you that you were still in America and if you didn’t feel like putting on a mask nobody there was able to tell you any different. He also had several epic signs about freedom and the constitution, some of these were hand written and others he printed off the computer, obviously.  I ate the very best Patty Melt of my entire life there that night!  Another thing was on the side of the road there was a truck bed made into a trailer that was full of firewood.  There was a phone number on the side of the trailer and we kept an eye on it the whole time we were there.  I can honestly say not one piece of wood had been disturbed for the 5 days we were there.  These people are the best of the best.  They are nice, fun, honest, considerate people.  I am so in love with this state I may never leave.  Well, I will leave, but I will be back!

 

We spotted a drive in theater in town and checked on it.  They are open!  We went and saw the Wonder Woman 1984 movie.  It was okay - but it was at the drive in.  We saw so many families and teenagers getting their spots ready with blankets, blow up mattresses, chairs - just like we did in the old days.  I mostly people watched.  I am obsessed with this idea of many wives.  So I was trying to see if any polygamist families were out there.  We got there really early - we were pretty excited.  But this way we got to see all the people set up.  It was pretty crowded. An excellent night!

I cannot imagine a polygamist situation, but polygamy has been decriminalized in Utah so these people are not as ostracized as they have been in the past.  I swear some of those houses they are building out by our RV Park are for multi mother households. They have this one house that has four garages, four front doors - you get the idea.  I just know there is one poor man there with 4 wives and too many kids.  Anyway, did I tell you about the Vodka?  We went down to the liquor store to pick up a few things and we starting talking to the people working there about Tito’s Vodka, you know, the vodka flavored vodka (have you seen that billboard?) and they told us about a Utah vodka called Five Wives.  What?  

One month a year they change up the label and call it Five Husbands. 

Look at these labels closely. I laughed out loud!

The girls at the liquor store also told us about Maple Canyon.  They said it was a great place for ATVs, rock climbing, and hiking.  We looked it up over a beverage when we got home and decided to go on the Maple Canyon Loop Trail because, according to our app  - AllTrails  - it has the most beautiful view. It is only 2.8 miles, but the elevation gain was 1335 feet.  We thought we were up to it.  We never get in a real hurry leaving the house, so we didn’t get to Maple Canyon until after 2pm. We finally found a parking spot and headed off to find the trail head.  About a quarter to a half mile down the road we found the trail and signs that said it is $5 day use fee.  Dang.  Why did we not see that when we parked back there.  We almost turned around, but the day was moving on and we were not even on the trail yet.  So we just took off wondering if our National Park Pass would cover us on this one.  We started up the trail and as we got about 1.2 miles into the trail it got very narrow and overgrown.  We were beginning to worry that we got off course somewhere.  We pulled out our phones to check AllTrails and we had no service.  It can keep track of you, if you leave the app open while you hike so when we had service again higher up, we left it open.  We were at about 1.6 miles when we came to a flat trail that went to the overlook that we had been looking for.  Remember this trail is 2.8 so the majority of the hike was behind us, but we had to go down 1335 feet in 1.2 miles.  On that side of the hike there were stairs and everything was so obviously a trail, I don’t think many people use that other side like we did.  My legs got scratched up by the bushes covering the trail, seriously.  And now we know why.  We were completely worn out by the time we hit the bottom of this mountain, but it was well worth our effort.  Check out this view.

 

Those stairs on the way down went on forever. My knees were dying when we finished.

About the time we leveled off on the trail we saw a good number of rock climbers. 

We got back to the truck and were actually talking about why we didn’t see a pay sign when we saw the one right behind the truck.  AND that is about when we saw we got a citation for not paying the $5 day use fee.  So, it cost us $80 and a set of knees to see that beautiful view at the top of that mountain.

Weather was not our friend for the next couple of days.  Wind was crazy and the drizzles set in. We practically stayed inside for 2 days - only ventured out to do laundry.

We set out for our next location on Dennis’ birthday, May 20.  Coincidentally, this also happens to be Pizza Day for the Gillenwaters - so we had already scoped out a place to have our monthly pizza fix and set up camp and headed that way.  This pizza was amazing, Aunt Nee’s Edible Platter Pizza was exceptional!  We ate it for two days and would have eaten it for four if there had been enough. This is the reason we have pizza day once a month. BECAUSE WE COULD EAT IT EVERY DAY!!! We have to control ourselves sometimes.

So in Duchesne, UT we stayed at the Lakeside RV Resort, another park in the Escape group.  Well, we got there and there is plenty of room between sites, it is another gravel parking lot, but the people are extremely nice and we settled in just fine.  It was another park that we were never crowded in.  Not many folks here at all.  This park actually has lake access, but the boat ramp is a little dilapidated.  We went out to hike two separate trails while we were here that are no longer accessible to the public.  We found them on AllTrails and both were fenced up when we got there.  Dang it. This is the first time in our travels that a trail was not where it should be and both here in Duchesne.  

Our last night in Duchesne, since we had the storms, it was an amazing sunset.  My baby was out there enjoying it even though it was COLD!!!!

The storm our last night in Duchesne brought snow to the mountains.  A photo I took before the storm and the photo taken the morning after.  You could see the mountain through the snow originally, but not this morning.

They were covered with snow this morning.

We spent our time relaxing a bit here as anything that interested us was an hour drive away.  We decided to take this time to gather ourselves and prepare for our next adventures.

Still loving Utah - Next stop Flaming Gorge, Utah!

St. George, Utah

 May 13, 2021

Leaving St. George is a little bitter sweet. This is one of those All American cities. Everything is so clean and manicured. Everyone is outside either riding bikes, the electric scooters that are placed all over town for your enjoyment, or just gathering in the open air. 

I was not real happy with our RV park, Hillside Palms, they tried to put us in a gravel parking lot with only electricity and they have no bathrooms or laundry.  So how were we gonna do a week there.  I finally asked about two open spots among the grass and the other, not in storage, RVs.  They let us have one of those, but they must have been built for RV without slide outs, because there was not gonna be enough room in the one next to us, we were definitely encroaching. We did have a great view of the city at night.  They light up the ‘D’ and the Temple in the city center.  Then  towards the mountain is this beautiful home, almost in the RV park, just up a driveway.  I found out this is a VRBO that the prior owner lived in, but the current owners inherited the park and home upon his death.

There are supposed to be two RVs - see the divider

That house on the hill behind the park

The ‘D’ lit up on the hill

The view of the city from our spot - the big white Mormon Temple

In this area they often put the initial of the town on a nearby mountain, but this is St. George, so why is there Dixie on the side of a hill? There is also a ‘D’ on another mountain that is lit up brightly at night. I discovered the reason for that.  When Brigham Young brought families here to settle they found that crops similar to the Dixie region of the southern states grew well here.  So this area became the Dixie Region of Utah.

Pioneer park is a public park at the top of the ‘Sugar Loafs’ above the city and specifically where the ‘Dixie’ is written on the tallest sugar loaf in the park. They have an amazing desert botanical garden and many amazing trails with bridge formations, narrows and some very spectacular views of the city.  They also have what appeared to be a large movie screen on a peak.  I never could find out when they would be showing movies so maybe that is not what it is?  As we walked one of the trails we kept hearing this loud rush that sounded like waves blowing out through holes in Cozumel.  We finally found the source.  It was a pipe coming out of the ground with a bowl underneath.  I went to investigate and the water was very cold.  I assume they put the water bowl there for parched animals to refresh themselves.  I just wonder if that would be a geyser had they not capped it with a pipe.

 

This thing looked fake

Who knew the desert had so much color. 

We saw some starting to bloom in Arizona, but these (and many others) were in full bloom

 

We actually had a rare sighting of a bird called a Verdin.  It is primarily found in Mexico, New Mexico and Arizona.  We saw one here in Utah.  He was a beautiful little guy.  We have really gotten into looking at birds and use a couple of apps to determine their identities.  One, BIRDNET, uses the sound to identify them while the other is AUDUBON and you can enter their characteristics to identify them.  We each have our own binoculars now and are really enjoying our birdwatching.  My only problem is remaining still long enough to have them get close. I guess my next purchase may have to be a fancy camera.

Rare sighting for the area - The Verdin

I cannot take credit for this photo, but isn’t he stunning.

Another cool sighting in this park was an endangered Mojave Desert Tortoise.  When I tried to get the selfie he turned his back on me, but he just kept on munching like he wasn’t bothered at all.

Just me and my endangered tortoise.

Snow Canyon State Park is another cool place we visited.  I wanted to walk the Scout Cave Trail because I really wanted to go into a cave.  We took off a little late in the day and it got pretty warm.  The first part of the trail is open desert until you finally get into the canyon.  Interestingly enough, the outer edge of the canyon is covered in beautiful and large private homes.  As we got to that side I felt like I was invading their space a bit. Can you imagine looking out your back door and constantly seeing strangers walking around?  Anyway, once we entered the canyon we lost the trail.  We went off in search of some strange bird calls and walked way to the other end of the canyon.  We saw a ton of quail milling around out there not giving us a second look.  We also spotted some other beautiful birds we had never before seen.  It was quite an adventure.  Dennis finally pulled out the  ALLTRAILS app and we found the trail.  I love that app too, but it will wear you phone battery out on the trail if you keep it on. I need to upgrade the app so we can just download the maps.  So, we had to turn around and go back through the canyon towards all those houses.   We got pretty lucky to get our bearings out there because we had very little service in this vast wilderness.  Finally, we saw the caves in the distance.  There were two of them and we kept on going.  We traveled through the canyon for some time before climbing back out towards the caves.  Suddenly we were faced with the tallest stone staircase I have ever seen.  I almost gave up and just went back, after all, we had walked the entire length of this canyon, by accident - remember we got lost.  But alas, we began the climb.  I had to stop a few times to get my breath. I don’t have very long legs and some of these steps were pretty darned tall for me.  When we got to the top of the staircase we realized we were not going to be able to get to the actual caves.  We just don’t have that kind of rock climbing skills.  So we turned around very disappointed - until we looked up and saw the reason these caves were called scout caves.  The view was spectacular! You could see forever.  So we stood and stared for a while before heading back down into the canyon.  We kept the ALLTRAILS app going so we could find the path back out of the canyon on the way back.  Then out of no where - another first!  There was a wild bee hive in a tree knothole. We heard the buzz for some time before we came upon it.  I took a picture but the bees really did not come out. I wish I had taken a video so you could hear that buzz.

One thing that makes this place so unusual is the lava rocks from ground fissures.  

Stark black against such red rocks

They gathered them up to line the first part of the trail

Beehive.  I should have videoed so you could hear that sound.

The stairs looking back down into the canyon

The two Scout Caves

The reason they were called ‘Scout Caves’ - What a view 

We had to be very careful out here because all of the trail markings had DNR on them.  We assumed that meant they DNR - Do Not Resuscitate - if they find you on the trail. LOL

One thing I really wanted to see while we were here was Zion National Park.  We discovered that a great deal of the park can only be seen by shuttle or tour service.  Tickets for the shuttle were available at 5:00 pm of the day before.  Well, we never were able to get tickets, dagnabit, but we drove through the park anyway.  The trails we wanted to take were all on the route we couldn’t go on so it was a bit of a disappointment.  We did see some pretty terrain, but that has been the case throughout Utah.  As a matter of fact, I believe this is my favorite state so far.  Even beating out Arizona.  Similar views here without the dust in my eyes and mouth.

 

This tunnel is a mile and a half long through the mountains

We found a brewery, but but then discovered it was also a Distillery, Silver Reef Brewing Company.  They also served a few local wines.  I had the spirits flight while Dennis had the beer flight.  The brandy was light in color which I found unusual, but it was really good.  The bourbon I could do without, but the others I would buy if I were in the mood.  The tasting room was just a couple of tables in the workspace surrounded by barrels and stainless vats.  They are building an outside area that overlooks the beauty of Utah for future visitors.

These guys have quite a fun senses of humor

‘What would Chubacca do?’ ‘ Red Rum’

 

Another thing I found interesting is the enormous number of Teslas you see around here.  Almost as many as in Vegas.  So I had to look up the prices of homes and they are pretty average, $300,000-400,000. I cannot believe that some of those houses on the hills were in that range, but whatever.

Our next stop is in Mount Pleasant, Utah and we hope to get to Salt Lake while we are there.  

Until next time.  Hasta Luego!