Hiking Moab

We're done with National Parks, at least for now. We were growing weary of following tour buses into viewpoints. Turns out, this is the busiest time of year for these southern Utah parks now that the weather is cooling slightly (although yesterday it hit 100). It is actually not difficult to get away from the crowds since most of the tour bus people don't leave the asphalt, and there are tons of good hiking trails. Our problem was only The Dog, who was not allowed on the park trails.



In the photo of Ruby, she is asking us to please find a hike suitable for her. So we looked, and discovered that God did not put all the cool sights inside the park boundaries...there are plenty outside too. We also found shade. In three days we have done three hikes, up canyons with water for swimming (dog swimming, at least), plenty of shade and not too difficult. I am not good at hiking. I am physically reasonably fit, so it's not that. I find it mentally difficult to focus for long periods of time on where to put my feet, which rocks to step on in which sequence to cross the creek beds without falling on my head, how not to trip over tree roots, etc. After spending countless hours the last couple of years with my friend and personal trainer, well, more of a body coach, really, I have gained some control over my almost freakishly long limbs, as well as better balance, more core strength and greatly increased confidence. I fell two times today, only.


We're still basically in Moab. There's more here than first meets the eye. Did I mention there are petroglyphs everywhere? And we just saw some dinosaur tracks. All out in the open, not behind glass or fences and no admission charge.   

More national parks in Utah: Canyonland and Arches

Just when you think you've seen all the red rock formations you can stand, another comes along that takes your breath away. My photos, all taken with a tiny Canon SD600, don't convey the scale. Amazing. And each turn of the road or corner of the trail brings something completely unexpected.
Slight complaint: we're hot and shade is a rarity. Hard to believe we were worried about encountering snow in the high country. It's early, though. This is Day 20 of 60! Relaxing in an RV park in Moab today - laundry and housecleaning and maybe a dinner in a restaurant tonight for Mark's birthday!

Sometimes you just need to look closer

The very day following my comments about local grocery shopping, we happened upon this place. Miles from anywhere, all by itself on Highway 24. We stopped and found amazing goat cheese made on the premises, tomatoes and purple basil to die for, homemade pesto, bread baked in a wood-fired brick oven and salad greens as fresh as they come. And shade-grown coffee, roasted nearby and preparedi however you like it. Oh, and freshly baked cinnamon rolls. Uh-huh.

It certainly didn't look like a Seattle-style natural foods store or farmers market. Sometimes you just need to look a little closer. In all honesty, we wouldn't have stopped, but we got an e-mail at just the right moment from a good friend who recommended it.

Capitol Reef National Park, Utah

Definitely feels different than other national parks. More homey, less National. Fewer people visit here, and it feels like it. Most of Capitol Reef has gigantic canyons and impressive rocks, but the campground is in an area called Fruita, and is truly an oasis in the desert. It's next to the Fremont River and there are orchards all around. We picked apples for our breakfast!

It's an interesting little spot. This valley was inhabited by the Fremont indians (who may have split off from the better-known nearby Anasazi) for around 800 years, ending around 1275. They farmed here, growing corn mostly but also beans and squash. When the Mormon settlers arrived around 1880, they actually reused the Fremonts' irrigation ditches, and planted the fruit trees along with other crops. As for the gigantic canyons, if you've never walked down a narrow gorge, flanked on both sides by 800 foot cliffs, I highly recommend it. And it's SO easy here...no climbing down and back up...you can literally just stroll down the canyon bottom. Amazing.

Where ARE we?

I'm a small town girl.  The town I grew up in had a population of 2,000 and was pretty isolated. No McDonalds. No mall. One movie theatre screen, sometimes. No traffic light. So I swear I'm not a fancy, big-city girl. But here, following our map, we eagerly await the next town hoping to replenish our stock of groceries and cash. Many towns listed on the map end up not being towns - I guess they were just "places"? Okay, the next one will be bigger. Yippee, it has a General Store that says "Groceries" AND "ATM." Hmmmmm. Is there something in here we want to eat? A lot of white bread and hotdogs and not-very-fresh-looking iceberg lettuce. Seriously, this is THE grocery store? Where is the sockeye filet? On what aisle can I find the rice milk? Broccollini? Bulk almonds? Okay, never mind. Let's just get some cash. The ATM is dial-up (dial-up????), has a $40 limit ($40????) and, as usual per the person in front of me, is out-of-order. I'm not complaining, mind you. Just an observation. I am actually relieved that there are still boondocks and that all of America has not been paved over and that there is no Internet access to be found for days on end. It's great. Really.   

Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah

We traversed the 80 miles to Bryce from Zion in two days. A running joke is that we use Google Maps' "by foot" rather than "by car" when we calculate how long it will take us to reach our next destination. One reason is that we're not in a hurry. Another is that, because we are in the middle of nowhere in the off-season, campgrounds are closed already or closing tomorrow and we end up doing a lot of back-tracking. Also, we find Internet access only when we get somewhere and don't need it anymore. Fortunately, we have our kitchen and bedroom with us at all times and pretty much only need a flat spot to park. We are learning about "boondocking" as we go.  

Our national parks are truly incredible. They are also (still) very busy and extremely dog-unfriendly. However, we wouldn't think of missing them because they are all  indescribably amazing or beautiful or deserving of some other grand description. Bryce lived up to expectations - as if you could ever expect this, no matter how many coffee-table-book photos you've seen. Next stop is Capitol Reef National Park, just 120 miles from here. In addition to Bryce and Zion, Utah has Arches and Canyonlands. In adjoining states but not far away is Grand Canyon, Mesa Verde and Great Basin. If you haven't been here, you should come. Nature adds much-needed perspective to our lives.
  

Zion National Park, Utah

On Day #11, we made it southern Utah. Finally. We greeted the "Welcome to Utah" sign with a high five. Utah was not all that welcoming, however.  The campgrounds at Zion National Park were full (it was Saturday afternoon, our bad timing) so we headed south toward St. George to a campground charmingly called Quail Creek. It turned out to be on a large lake, surrounded by some of those rock formations we had come to Utah to see - and they had an open spot for us. It was also 100 degrees. I'm not exactly sure how much it cooled off that night, maybe it dropped below 70 at some point before the sun came up, but at 9:30 the next morning it was already 93 degrees. That was too much for this Seattle trio, so we decided to do the short scenic drive through Zion's Kolob Canyon, then head for higher elevations. Kolob Canyon was impressive, but we were pulled over by a gun-toting ranger who busted us for not paying (but there was no kiosk and we have an annual pass!) and for not having a current insurance card. Ouch. Utah better make it up to us in the next few days or we're outta here. 

Last stop in Idaho and on to Nevada

At Twin Falls, ID, we turned off I-84 onto Hwy 93. Again, to find a campsite, but this time it was at least a detour in the right direction - south. We chose a BLM campground at a reservoir formed by a dam on the Little Salmon River, largely because we thought Ruby would like it. She loves to swim. It was a bit bleak, but beautiful in its way...and hopefully an indication that we were leaving the Pacific Northwest at last. I was feeling a bit under the weather, so after a nice dinner made from McCall farmer's market veggies we settled in for a popcorn-and-TV night (episodes having been preloaded on our IPad).

We decided to stay on Hwy 93 and go south through Nevada, rather than our planned route through Utah. Maybe I can sneak away for a few hands of blackjack while pretending to look for a restroom. And it will require sneaking - Husband doesn't love cards (see previous post) and considers gambling a waste of time and money (can you imagine?). We spent the night at Cave Lake, also a good swimming hole according to Ruby, but not a slot machine in sight.

Ruby vs VanMan

When John Steinbeck was traveling around the country "in search of America" he often sent Charlie out to break the ice. JS needed to talk to people in order to have something to write about. We do not have the same goals, and in fact we mostly try to avoid talking to anyone, but we have to admit there are people worth talking to, and particularly when traveling, more will be learned by conversing with locals. We are tip-toeing into the waters. In Joseph, Oregon we learned from one that the frost came early this year and killed the tomatoes, and another invited us to an outdoor party with music by the best band in the county, and believe it or not, we went. In McCall, we met an ex-forest ranger who lives off-grid and carefully tallies up each watt of his electrical use. Now, I haven't done justice to how interesting each of these people were [was?], but I mean it, they were, and we're glad we met them.

So far on this trip, Ruby and VanMan are about equal ice-breakers. As to VanMan, there are several RV companies using Sprinters in their "Class B" division but most of those have built-in coffee-makers and swirls painted on the side. Our Sportsmobile is far more hip, and seems to attract a lot of attention, usually from interesting people like the off-grid ex-ranger. As to Ruby, well, that's nothing new. She attracts a crowd wherever she goes; occasionally someone notices that one of us is on the other end of her leash.

McCall, Idaho

We were heading down I-84, making time, due to hit Utah in a couple hours. Yet here we are in McCall two days later, 100 miles north of I-84. Why? Well, we refuse to stay in freeway-close RV parks, so we left the Interstate to find a place to camp. I'm usually pretty good at navigating, but this time I did not account for the fact that since Idaho is twice as tall as WA and OR, yet is allotted the same one page in our Gazeteer, the scale is quite different. That inch was 30 miles instead of 15. We headed up Highway 55 because the map showed a lot of little teepees on it. Turns out, though that not only were they quite a ways up the road, they were all closed for the season. We were getting a little tired and cranky, having hit our 300-mile maximum. Ruby staged a sit-out, refusing to get back in the van after a potty break, so we stopped for the night.

The next day, we decided to continue north to McCall to find a laundromat and do some housecleaning. Charmed by Payette Lake, the state park with showers, nesting osprey, the FoggLifter Cafe and a local brew pub, we decided to spend two nights here. Tomorrow, we will get back on I-84.

Games

One or two of my avid followers are wondering why they haven't learned as much about the Husband as they have about the Van and the Dog.  Husband's essence will be revealed over time as the journey continues, but I will give you a bit of background. In many ways, we had similar childhoods: small towns, hard-working parents, modest lifestyles, church-going Lutherans, no-nonsense attitudes. But there were some big differences too, one of which I discovered the very first time Husband came with me to spend time with my parents. After dinner, mom said, "Want to play a game of Hearts or Cribbage?" Deer-in-headlights look. "Scrabble or Big Boggle?" More deer-in-headlights. 

To Mark, it was a foreign language and he hadn't studied it.  Trump? Suit? Face card? Shuffle? 15-4? What?? To my parents' credit, while they didn't let him off the hook entirely, they did try to focus on his many other admirable qualities. To Mark's credit, he gradually gave in and faced his fears, and it touches my heart to be able to tell you that already on this trip, we've played three games of Scrabble and one of Cribbage. To my credit, it bothers me only a little that Mark won 3 of the 4.

We're on I-84 now, trying to make time to Boise and beyond.
     

We're making good time

We're making good time. No, no, I mean we're having a good time. At the end of Day #4, we had traveled 533 miles, which would be considered making good time only if we were riding bicycles. Clearly, we're not going to have much trouble with Rule #1 (No More Than 300 Miles Per Day).

Friday, we went to a goat farm/fromagerie near Dayton, WA. Check it out: monteilletcheese.com. Amazing cheeses. We're going to apply to be interns there next summer, seriously. After a wine and cheese-tasting, we decided to skip the Johnny Cash sound-a-like contest at the Dayton County Fair, but we stuck around and spent the night at a nearby state park.

Yesterday, we actually made it out of Washington, through the lovely Blue Mountains, into the Wallowa, OR area. We found a no-fee, 8-site campground on a creek and settled in for a game of Scrabble (more on that later) before dinner. We were the only people there. Ruby was beside herself - no leash, no one shushing her (she doesn't bark but she bays, howls, and carries on like the hound she is when she's tracking critters). Perfect.

The trip begins

To the extent we have a plan for this trip, here it is. There are a couple of ultimate desired destinations and a couple of rules. The destinations are: the Hopi reservation in AZ, Moab, UT, Durango, CO and Taos, NM. The rules are: no more than 300 miles of driving in one day, and at least two nights spent at each stop.

We left Bainbridge Island yesterday and guess what, we have already broken one of the rules. Since we were unable to make it out of western Washington before nightfall on Day #1, we decided to spend only one night before forging on over the Cascades, realizing that it would not bode well for the rest of the trip if it takes us a full week to get across our home state.

But here's the thing about our fairly pathetic first day of travel. We woke up this morning in one of the most amazing places on earth...Mount Rainier...wondering why in the world we hadn't been there before, exploring hiking trails, drinking in the incredible beauty, and all so close to home. Thinking maybe we should stay longer after all...but after promising ourselves we would return some other time, we traveled on.

So, after two days of travel, we have driven 349 miles and are in Walla Walla. Which is a wonderful town. We could live here. The wine and food are great, the old buildings lovely, the surrounding foothills beautiful. We got here at tea time, otherwise known as happy hour, and settled in at a sidewalk table for a couple of appetizers and a glass of wine at the Merchant's Deli on Main Street, recommended in the nick of time by a former colleague who was once a Whitman student. Perfect.

The blog begins

I am fighting intimidation. I have friends who are well-read and articulate. I have friends who are clever and funny (although usually not as funny as they think they are). And I have a friend who will argue about a single punctuation mark for hours. I can't compete with any of those things, but in the end I am comforted by the fact that it unlikely that anyone will actually read it; I am writing it for myself because reflecting on our travels in writing as we go will add to the experience, not to mention assist my failing memory.

Today I introduce the supporting cast of characters. First, the van. We bought it in July 2009 and it has already been well broken-in, with 16,304 miles on the odometer. It's a 2008 Dodge Sprinter van, customized by Sportsmobile in Fresno. It has a comfy bed, a small refrigerator, a two-burner propane cooktop, a microwave, a 20-gallon water tank, a propane heater. It's tall, for a van, 6 feet 3 inches inside. Tons of storage. A Mercedes diesel engine that can get 22 mpg on a good day. It's only 18 feet long, so you can drive and park it anywhere.

It has hot water on demand (no hot water tank, in other words) but only when the engine is running or has recently been running. There's an outdoor "shower" but no bathroom facilities. Pretty basic - you know, like the old VW vans from the 60's. It's NOT an RV; it's a van, man.

Now, the dog. Ruby is many things we're not: outgoing, fearless, open to any new experience, a lover of ALL people, places and things. She is 19 months old. Ruby loves everyone and nearly everyone loves her back. She's also extraordinarily beautiful and that's not just my own opinion. You'll see.