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!