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Published: August 25th 2012
On the drive from Moab to our next port of call we stopped off at Goblin Valley State Park. That place is seriously awesome. It's where one of the scenes in Galaxy Quest was shot so that gives some indication of the bizarre landscape. The Lonely Planet guide had this introduction for it: 'A Salvador Dali-esque melted-rock fantasy, a valley of giant stone mushrooms, an otherworldly alien landscape or the results of an acid trip the creator went on?' The sun was scorching but nevertheless we enjoyed ourselves climbing over and around the little rocks which, as you may have guessed, are said to resemble goblins. At one point I recall thinking to myself how great the place would be for a game of hide-and-seek. Within a few minutes of this thought passing through my head it occurred to me that I could neither see nor hear my parents anymore, and thus had found that we had, quite inadvertently, become involved in said game. Needless to say we found each other again eventually. Mum didn't seem to find it as funny as dad and I did...
We said goodbye to the Goblins and drove onwards to our next destination; Caineville,
Dad Surfin' USA
At Capitol Reef NPUtah. Now, in our booking confirmation at the Rodeway Inn, it noted that we had a room with a mountain view. Pretty cool, we thought. Upon arriving at the hotel, however, we realised that a mountain view would be pretty much impossible to avoid. It turns out that the 'town' of Caineville consists of two things: (1) Mountains; (2) The Rodeway Inn. Slightly bemused by this situation, we spent the rest of the afternoon by the pool before heading to the nearest town (Torrey) to find a restaurant for dinner.
The next day, which was Saturday, we visited Capital Reef National Park. I suppose that by now the cynical part of me had expected that I would have grown slightly tired of National and State Parks. Don't get me wrong, I love rocks as much as the next person, but part of me did think that by this stage I might have been experiencing rock overload. (Actually, that's a bit of a lie, because I love rocks a
lot. Probably a lot more than the next person. My parents originally mocked me for this love, particularly as I often feel overcome with the need to hug the rocks, but
they've now grown to respect the love). Anyway, the point I was trying to make before I so rudely interrupted myself there is that I was yet again impressed by this National Park. The area is a bit more lush than some of the previous Parks, and we all enjoyed seeing a bit more green in the landscape. Capital Reef is home to quite a variety of natural phenomenons from (of course) funky rock formations, canyons and monoliths to the Fremont River. In the morning we took a couple of short walking trails to view the panoramic views and river. Again, we spent most of the afternoon back at the hotel swimming, before returning again in the early evening to drive through the designated scenic drive in the Park. As is to be expected, the views around us as we drove were wonderfully picturesque. The unpaved road at the end culminated in Capitol Gorge Pass, so we disembarked and followed the walking trail through the high-walled canyon and visited the 'Pioneer's Register', an area of particularly flat rock where some of the early pioneers had signed their names. The earliest recorded person signed in 1871. By the time we'd turned
around to come back, the sun was setting and the bats were starting to come out, so that was a slightly different and interesting sight!
On Sunday we left the Rodeway Inn (which, if anyone is interested in visiting, I would thoroughly recommend - even despite the fact that it's in the middle of nowhere). The journey to Tropic, our next destination, was brilliant. Highway 12 which connects Caineville and Tropic is categorised as an 'All-American National Scenic Byway' as it goes through National and State Parks and a National forest, so the scenery is fantastic. Now, in a previous blog I suggested that our sat-nav might possibly have been trying to kill us. I'm not longer sure whether this is the case, or whether it was just a bit special. Either way, it decided to direct us on to a different road which was not, as we had expected, the scenic byway, but instead was an unpaved road that runs almost parallel to it. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise. The unpaved road led us through cute old-fasioned farms and countryside, before entering the huge Dixie National Forest. After spending so much time in relatively
Strange Petrified Wood
At Escalante Petrified Forest dry and arid landscapes it was great to drive through the verdant forest. Even better, we found ourselves at one point by Posey Lake, a large expanse of still water surrounded by tall trees. We were the only people in the vicinity, so it was beautifully peaceful and calm. We spent some time there before heading back on the road. At the town of Escalante the unpaved road we were on terminates and melts into the prodigious byway 12 which we had been looking forward to. Before joining this road, however, we spent a bit of time at the Escalante Petrified Forest State Park. Now, I've already mentioned that I have quite a fondness for rocks. I'm also quite a fan of trees. This Park is basically a combination of the two. I won't pretend to completely understand the process, but my basic understanding is that the trees had become buried underground and deprived of oxygen, which preserved them. Minerals were then deposited into the trees which, after a long enough amount of time, replaced the original plant structure with a stone structure. The end result are essentially trees which are made of stone. You couldn't quite tell from looking
at the trees whether they were a rock or a tree. It was awesome!
We wandered around the Park for a while before, finally, joining Scenic Byway 12. We drove through Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument, a huge area encompassing almost 2 million acres of land. On the way we attempted to listen to the radio. Unfortunately the radio options in Utah seem to only consist of the following: (1) Bible readings and hymms; (2) a pretty poor selection of country music; or (3) stations which appear to be exclusively dedicated to advertisements. We generally stuck with the second option, although once we realised that the songs we were hearing had already been played earlier we drew the line and turned the radio off. We arrived in Tropic around 4.30pm and were pleased to find that this was a genuine, legitimate town, which contained more than just a mountain and hotel. It's still really small (a trend which seems to be recurring in Southern Utah) and tied to every lamp-post is an American flag. Gotta love that. The first evening (Sunday) we had our first visit to Bryce Canyon National Park. We took a short trail to Mossy Cave
and waterfall. At the risk of repeating an overused word of mine, this place was
awesome. Some of the earliest pioneers hand-dug a 10-mile stretch to alter the course of the river, so that they could gain access to the water in an area which, naturally, is deprived of it. We followed the river up to the waterfall which was so beautiful. Just beyond the waterfall is the Mossy Cave. The rock is permeated by the rain so that water trickles down through the cave and also feeds into the river, so that was another different and interesting sight for us. After our walk we returned to the town of Tropic and the cute little log cabin that we were staying in. Rustic though it is, it does contain a TV, and it occurred to me that I hadn't yet made use of the hotel TVs. I was in luck as, being Sunday, I managed to catch an (American) football game. I doubt whether anyone's particularly interested but the Indianapolis Colts put up a pretty good fight against the Pittsburh Steelers. The Steelers won in the end, but only by 2 points!
On Monday we went back to Bryce
National Park. Technically I don't think that the Park actually has any canyons. Instead, it has tonnes of red, orange and white hoodoos, which are tall spires of rock protruding out of the earth. The Park is relatively small, at least in comparison to most of the others that we've been to, but the elevation is between about 8,000 to 9,000 feet (or 2,400 to 2,700 metres) so it's slightly cooler there. I still managed to get some fetching patchy sun burn though. To be fair, I really should have realised it would happen. The sky was mostly clear apart from a few of those cute little fluffy clouds and that, combined with the pure blue of the sky, made it look like a child's drawing of the sky. With the towering multicoloured hoodoos below, the landscape had a pretty arresting bneauty. But yes, unfortunately because of the elevation which made the temperature slightly lower than I'd grown accustomed to, I failed to put sun-tan lotion on. The result was that for a couple of days I was sporting a lovely red-and-white patchy look which is so popular this season. Deep joy. Anyway, at the Park we followed some of
the Rim Trail to take in the views of the hoodoos below, before hiking down into the 'canyon' itself. This was a lot of fun, because it gave us the opportunity to get a closer look at the groovy spires. We retired to our cabin for a couple of hours before jumping back into the car to return to the Park yet again. (It's difficult to say, but this Park has got to be one of my favourites of the trip. Those hoodoos are just otherworldly). Later in the day we went on the scenic drive through the park, which leads all the way up to Rainbow Point which is over 9,000 feet. We got out at all of the overlooks along the way and the views were incredible. I have to say though that I was feeling the altitude. Not in a bad way, just in that slightly strange way where you feel slightly light-headed and serene. At one outlook (Ponderosa Point) we befriended a crow who dad named Russell, who was also enjoying the view.
OK, so I've written rather a lot already and I still haven't got to our last town, Springdale, so I'm going to
make this bit short. We left Tropic and headed to Springdale which is next to Zion National Park. We actually experienced our first and only rainy day whilst here (on Wednesday). This turned out to be quite a good thing, as we took a few of the shorter walking trails in the morning whilst it was rainy, and somehow the rain made the place look even more dramatic. We walked up to Weeping Rock waterfall in Zion which was beautiful, and I particularly liked the views from underneath the waterfall. With the noise from the waterfall and the rain, the place looked almost like a lush tropical rainforest. The rain cleared up by midday and the sun came back out, so next we went on a longer walk alongside the Virgin River which runs through the park. On Thursday we had to get up early to head back to Vegas and catch our flights. My parents had to head back home whilst I was headed to my next destination: Nashville, Tennessee! After saying our sad goodbyes we went our seperate ways so I am now writing this from sunny Tennessee.
Thanks again for reading if you made it through this whole essay. Speak to you again soon to update you on this amazing city of Nashville!
Laura P
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