September 17, 2007

September 17, 2007

I watched the History channel on TV last night. They were showing a program called, “How the Earth was made”. When they started talking about trilobites and how animal life started to flourish 500 million years ago, Aimee and I were delighted to see paleontologist Paul McNeil being interviewed about the Burgess Shale. He was the one who took us on the guided hike to see the Trilobite beds in Canada’s Yoho National Park last month.

We got an early start today. We know the national park routine now. With no reservation, we need to get to the campground early. Aimee quickly made us some coffee and we drove to Arches National Park Visitor Center, where we were allotted a campsite. From the park gate we drove the eighteen miles to the campground, stopping only a couple times to take pictures of the early morning sun on the gorgeous scenery. We got a great campsite but it turned out we didn’t need to be so early. But better safe than sorry. We much prefer staying in the park close to the action. The alternative is commuting into the park everyday from a private campground that is basically a glorified parking lot with electrical outlets. With a campsite in hand, we relax and have breakfast.

Opposite the campground entrance is the trailhead to the Devils Garden area of the park. We decide to start our day there. There are seven arches along this 4.5-mile trail. We have seen lots of arches already but these were way more accessible. You don’t have to hike nine miles uphill to see one. I took pictures of the first couple arches we passed. I told Aimee I wasn’t going to photograph every arch. But I did anyway. Each one ended up being unique in some way. One was a window to the valley below, another was a double, another was close up, but the best was one called Landscape arch. It was a thin delicate strand bridging a span over 300 yards.

Arches has the same red colored rocks we have seen all over Utah. But each park has had a different twist. The red rocks here are like great slabs (called fins) stacked on end like rows of half-buried giant stone saw blades or LPs. The trail we did today went along the top edge of one of these slabs giving us great views of the area.

We are back at the campsite early so we have time to relax and enjoy the ambience. We love staying in national park campgrounds (when we can get in). The sites are almost always large, private, and abounding in nature. We relax with a good book surrounded by “red fins”. We are disturbed occasionally by a flock of Scrub Jays who swoop in and strip the local pinon pine trees of their nuts. Never having seen or tasted a pinon nut, I scare away the birds and go for a few myself. Inside each small pinecone are several nuts the size and shape of a shelled peanut. Aimee and I both bit into one, and subsequently spit them out. It is just a shell. Cracking another open we find nothing but a thin piece of paper-like nothing inside. I will leave these nuts to the birds.

As darkness approaches, Aimee and I climb atop “our” fin and watch the sunset. A nice way to end a nice day.

September 16, 2007

September 16, 2007

This morning we drove the ten-mile Scenic drive of Capitol Reef National Park. The route follows the line of red cliffs southeast. Along the way we stopped at Capitol Gorge, a steep narrow canyon that cuts thru the cliff wall. We walk down the gorge for an hour admiring the sheer red cliffs. Water unbelievably cut this passageway. Although dry now, regular flash floods ate away the sandstone. Apparently weakened sandstone cleaves off rock outcrops cleanly leaving sheer cliffs behind.

We exit the park east on Rt. 24 thru another water-carved passageway. There is a pullout for some Indian petroglyphs. The pictures carved in the walls are of alien-looking humans. Apparently the Indians here, like in Peru, were also visited by ancient astronauts from outer space.

Once out of the park the cliffs don’t disappear, they just turn color. East of the park the cliffs are an ugly brown and gray color. The whole area looks very industrial and man-made. It is so ugly and drab I find it fascinating. Aimee and apparently everyone else don’t though. If this area had any kind of appealing color, it would be a national park and somebody beside me would be stopping to take a photo.

We take Rt. 24 north and Interstate 70 east thru very desolate and mostly flat country. East of Green River, UT we head south on a busy secondary road to Arches National Park. We find ourselves suddenly back in red cliff country. At the visitor center we find, of course, even though a Sunday night, the campground is full. Shouldn’t all these tourists be home with their kids? We drive a few miles further south to Moab, UT where we spend the evening in a nearly full private park.

September 15, 2007

September 15, 2007

In the morning we drive into Capitol Reef National Park. We go straight to the campground where there are several spots available. We take the first one we see. We are not taking any chances. While we are setting up camp, a couple hikers walk by and let us know a trailhead is right across the street from our site. It looks like a longer route than we are used to but it seems very convenient. After donning our boots and fixing a trail lunch we head up the Cohab Canyon trail. It winds its way up a hill and into a small canyon with a floor of red sand and rock walls so full of holes they look like Swiss cheese.

The canyon walls are topped with white mounds of slickrock. These white dome shapes gave rise to the “Capitol” part of the park’s name. The “Reef” part alluded to the barrier to travel that the 100-mile-long cliffs meant to early pioneers. This long barrier is supposed to be a bulge in the earth’s crust caused by the Pacific plate running into the Continental plate.

Climbing out of the canyon we switch to the Frying Pan trail that takes us across a rock wilderness very sparsely vegetated with stunted junipers and pinon pines. After much up and down travel we eventually come to another slickrock area adjacent to a huge chasm that slices thru the middle of this ridge. There we take a short trail that takes us to Cassidy Arch on the canyon edge. At the edge we think we lost the trail until we notice we are standing atop the arch. Aimee steps back from the hole. I coax her back to take my photo with the arch. We make the long journey back to camp. Although convenient, this nine-mile hike turned out to be a couple miles too long for our aging bodies.

September 14, 2007

September 14, 2007

From the Petrified Forest State Park, we drove into the nearby small town of Escalante, UT, where we stopped at another visitor center for Grand Staircase National Monument. I had seen some pictures of very narrow slot canyons and wanted to know where to find them. The ranger said we would have to drive twelve miles down an unpaved road to the trailhead for that hike. Aimee immediately vetoed that. Not with our home on wheels! Grand Staircase is a very large and remote park with beautiful scenery. We will have to come back at a future time with a jeep to explore this park. Talking to the camp host this morning, she said that she and her husband had put 2500 miles on their truck doing just that.

Continuing east on scenic Rt. 12 we pass thru a particularly pretty section. The terrain is almost solid slickrock in all directions with deep stream gorges cut into it. We stop at a nice pullout overlooking a canyon and have our lunch.

The Grand Staircase ranger did tell us about a mini-slot canyon hike we could do from paved roads. In the town of Boulder, UT, we take the Burr Trail road southeast. Near mile nine it plunges into a stunning red rock canyon of high sheer cliffs. At mile 11 we spot a narrow crack in the left canyon wall. It is only some ten feet wide at the mouth but quickly opens up almost cave-like inside because of rock falls. It is only 100 yards deep but still pretty cool. It is also somewhat claustrophobic because of the high walls and little sunlight. Neither Aimee nor I particularly like caves.

Back in Boulder, UT, Rt. 12 turns north and climbs over 9000-foot Boulder Mountain. Like Cedar Breaks, the summit is covered in a forest of Quaking Aspens. After descending to the other side we run into the imposing red cliff of Capitol Reef National Park. Southern Utah has impressive scenery that just won’t quit. We have to stop at the vistas and take more pictures. We arrive at the Capitol Reef visitor center around 4pm where we learn the campground is full. I should know better than to go to National Parks late in the day. National Parks absolutely refuse to knock down a few trees to meet the needs of visitors. We backtrack 11 miles to the town of Torrey, UT where we spend the night at a private campground. It is not a national park but I do get a view of the cliff walls from our window.

September 13, 2007

September 13, 2007

Last night we attended the ranger talk at Bryce National Park. Once a month the Utah NASA ambassador speaks here. He gave an enjoyable talk on the solar system and the spaceships enroute to the planets and what they have been finding. Afterwards we all went to a darkened parking lot and did some telescope viewing. We saw Jupiter and a bunch of fuzzy nebulas and galaxies. Travelling in an RV, you learn how big the US and the earth are. Looking in a telescope, you realize how little the earth really is.

In the morning we left Bryce heading east along scenic Rt. 12. In the town of Cannonville, UT, we stopped at Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument visitor center. The BLM Bureau of Land Management runs it. I don’t understand the government politics of having different branches running these parks. This park is relatively new and most of it is fairly remote. The ranger suggested continuing on scenic Rt.12 for some of the best views.

Before doing that we drove ten miles southeast to Kodachrome Basin state park. It is a small park with some badland cliffs and red monoliths reminiscent of Jumbo Rocks in California’s Joshua Tree National Park. The park does have an unusual number of very tall, skinny, phallic-like rock chimneys sticking up all by themselves in odd places. I later learned these were petrified geysers. The park name implies that it is very photogenic. It is nice but the name is an exaggeration. Before leaving we hiked the Nature trail and Angel’s Palace trail.

Back on scenic Rt. 12 we drove to Escalante Petrified Forest State Park. There we picked a site for the night and later did an evening hike on the Petrified Forest and Sleeping Rainbows trail. It was less than two miles but very nice. We passed by loads of petrified logs lying everywhere. Almost all were the highly mineralized and vividly colored specimens. Aimee and I both like this park better than the better-known Petrified Forest National Park because the logs seemed to be in more natural settings. We had a little bit of a scare on the trail. I was looking off the side of a horseshoe-shaped dry waterfall when this giant jackrabbit distracted Aimee and me. A few seconds later we heard a crash about 15 yards off, turned around, and watched a dead tree fall off the cliff edge bringing a ton of rocks with it. Yes, the earth is indeed constantly changing; only I want to be an observer, not a participant!

September 12, 2007

September 12, 2007

Bryce Canyon is really the highly and uniquely eroded side of a finger peninsula. In the late morning we drove the fifteen miles to the southern tip of this edge. Along the way we spotted a couple groups of wild turkeys grazing in the meadows. At the tip we do the very short Bristle Cone Loop trail for exercise. On the way back north we stop at all the vistas. The whole edge is full of colorful rocks but nowhere near as impressive as the main Bryce Amphitheater section we hiked yesterday.

The highlight of the day was a stop at the last vista where rangers had two telescopes trained on the sun. In one we could see solar flares shooting out from the sun. The ranger corrected me, saying these were only solar prominences; they weren’t large enough to be flares. In the second telescope we eyed a dark sunspot. The telescope viewing was an advertisement for tonight’s stargazing ranger program.

Back at the RV early I had a chance to take apart the “house” door. “Class C” RV’s, especially older ones, are rattletraps. For the last couple weeks though we had a new, particularly annoying, noise on bumpy roads. I finally pinned it down to coming from inside the door somewhere. I was thankful when I found an unconnected steel reinforcing bar. After stuffing tissue around it, we now have a “quieter” ride.

September 11, 2007

September 11, 2007

Bryce National Park is high up on the Colorado Plateau. At almost 8000 feet altitude it is considerably cooler than Zion. Last night it was so cold we had to turn the furnace on. And it ran a lot.

This morning we are going to do a hike amongst the hoodoos. We drop down into the canyon along the Wall Street trail. Passing between the massive pillared walls feels like we are descending into a cave. Up close the statue-like hoodoos are now giants.

At the bottom we traverse over and hike the Peekaboo Loop. This 3-mile circle takes us up and down and around gorgeous views of the canyon interior. It is so much better than just looking down from above. The rocks look almost fake, like they were from a Disneyland ride. From Peekaboo we hike back up to the top along the easier and slightly less scenic Queens Garden trail. Altogether we think we hiked more than six miles. My legs are dying but the scenery was well worth the pain.

September 10, 2007

September 10, 2007

From Panguitch, UT we head east toward Bryce National Park. It is raining off and on. Just before the park we passed thru the Red Canyon district of Dixie National Forest. It is a quite beautiful drive past more bright red rock outcroppings. The rain seems to make the rocks glow. We stop briefly at the Red Canyon visitor center and hike the mile-long Pink Ledges trail. We are amazed at how scenic southern Utah is.

We head into Bryce National Park and have lunch outside the visitor center. In the visitor center we watch their film and look at some of the exhibits. From there we head to the North Campground and choose a site. Unlike Zion, there is no electricity. We leave the RV and take the park shuttle down to Bryce Point where we get our first glimpse of Bryce Canyon’s landscape. It is very similar to Cedar Breaks but the colors are more subdued. It is still a sight to see. I am just surprised that Cedar Breaks is not more popular. From Bryce Point we hike the Rim trail north past Inspiration Point to Sunset Point. We have to stop every hundred yards to take another picture. It is hard to get tired of this unusual scenery.

September 9, 2007

September 9, 2007

Aimee and I have been going to the nightly ranger talk in our campground every evening. None have been very exciting. Last nights talk was on stargazing. As if on cue, when the ranger turned off the lights to end the talk a giant meteorite streaked across the sky. My first shooting star and it was a doozy!

There is still a lot more US to see so we left Zion National Park this morning. We took the route east thru mile-long Zion tunnel. All large vehicles (like RV’s) have to buy a pass to pay for a ranger escort. On the other side is a strange world of rock worn smooth by wind and rain. There is little vegetation.

Once out of Zion we head north on Rt. 89 headed for Bryce National Park. After reading a nice blurb about Cedar Breaks National Monument we take a last-minute detour west to investigate. On the way we pass thru a forest of white birch trees interspersed with some lava rocks. I have never seen so many birch trees in one place. (I later learned these were actually Quaking Aspen trees)

After a short drive we arrive at the Monument and head to the visitor center. We don’t make it inside as we immediately see a gorgeous red rock amphitheater. It is similar to a badlands environment but the colors are a more intense blend of red, yellow, purple. Plus there are hoodoos (rock statues or pillars) everywhere. I am so glad we didn’t bypass this place.

We don’t get much time to enjoy it before lightning scares us off the cliff top and back to the RV. As we are running back pea-size hail pounds us and then once inside the rain unleashes. The nice thing about RV travel is that we can have lunch and take a nap until the rain subsides. When it finally does, we put on long pants and jacket (it is cold here at 8000 feet) and hike the Spectra Point trail around the rim. It is a painful hike as the rain has turned the trail into thick slippery mud. It is not long before I feel like I have mud snowshoes on my feet. The trail is also a little scary as it follows the rim very closely with no guardrails anywhere. One wrong move and I could easily slide down the sloping edge and into the canyon like it was a ski jump. Many of the trees along the rim are gnarly pine trees called Bristle Cones. Bristle Cones are supposed to be the oldest trees on the earth despite being small.

From Cedar Breaks we head east and spend the night in a private park in the town of Panguitch, UT.

September 8, 2007

September 8, 2007

We like it here so we decided to stay another night in Zion but unfortunately the campground is full. From our prior experience with National Parks we thought we could get a cancellation if we checked first thing this morning. But no luck this time, so we packed up to leave. On the way out we checked with the ranger again, on a whim, and this time our persistence paid off. A last minute cancellation! We spend the rest of the morning in the local library using the Internet to catch up on our postings, email, and news. Aimee suggests I google deaths on Angel’s Landing. I do and we find that somebody has fallen to their death on this trail both this year and last.

After lunch we went back into town for groceries and a little window-shopping. The rest of the afternoon we relax and do some reading while enjoying the view. I am on my 28th book of the year.

September 7, 2007

September 7, 2007

We really like Zion National Park. Besides being gorgeous, it is well-run, tourist friendly, and works in-hand with the local town of Springdale, UT. Glacier could learn a few things from Zion.

Yesterday evening we relaxed outside the RV enjoying the view and the pretty wildflower garden around our site. On one side are the poisonous white Moon Flowers that bloom every night and wilt during the day.

On the other side is a hedge of sunflowers. Aimee was watching yellow finches dart around while I was watching a couple hummingbirds. When I looked thru the binoculars one of the hummingbirds turned out to be a monster bug. A ranger I talked to thought it was probably a Hummingbird Moth (aka White-Lined Sphinx Moth. I will have to look that one up on the Internet.

After the “Narrows”, Zion’s next most famous hike is Angel’s Landing. We were told to leave it to last. Angel’s Landing is the 1500-foot summit of a rock monolith sitting all by itself in the valley after the Virgin River cut a path almost all the way around it. It is advertised as a steep strenuous hike that is not recommended for people with a fear of heights. But how bad could a National Park hike really be? Aimee came along to keep me company knowing she may not do the last leg if she didn’t feel comfortable. It took a good hour of uphill hiking to reach the cliff top. The most daunting section was a set of 21 switchbacks, known as Walter's Wiggles. From Scout Lookout the trail follows a narrow ridge out to Angels Landing.

Aimee decides to wait for me to finish the hike. It shouldn’t be that bad. I was told that they have a chain you can hold onto if you don’t have confidence in your balance. Well I can tell you it was an experience. I have been on narrow trails with a long drop-off on one side but this one had a 1500-foot drop on both sides and the path wasn’t even flat. Yes, there was a chain, mostly, but not along the whole half-mile route. And it is hard to hold onto the chain when some other scared soul is trying to hold it going back down. I almost turned around a couple times, especially near the beginning when a fellow hiker told me he knew someone who died doing this hike and I overheard another hiker talk about a man up ahead who is having a bad case of vertigo and is having difficulty coming back down. My heart is pounding; but I am not sure it is fear or exhaustion. I stop to rest and catch my breath. For some strange reason I keep going and make it to the top, mostly by only looking at my feet and crawling up the rocks on all fours. The summit is awesome (and tiny) and there are only a few of us who went the distance. We are rewarded with great views of the valley. After a very short look around, I head back down to retrieve my worried wife. I have been gone an hour. My legs are like rubber. I am either a closet acrophobic or I value my life, you decide.

September 6, 2007

September 6, 2007

Zion National Park’s premier attraction is the slot canyons of the Upper Virgin River, known as the “Narrows”. They are not easy to reach. In the morning we take the park shuttle into the little town of Springdale, just outside the gate of Zion. At Zion Adventure Company, we rent river boots and a wading staff. Back at the RV we pack our lunch and take the park shuttle deep into Zion Canyon. At the last stop we walk the mile-long river walk trail. At the end we get our feet wet and continue our hike in the river itself. To get to the narrowest of the “Narrows”, we have to sludge our way upstream. It is slow going. The river is muddy, swift and cold and the riverbed is rocky making each step treacherous. Aimee is not enjoying the hike at all and she lets me know this is the dumbest thing we have done. Unfortunately Aimee’s two left feet make me look like I am as surefooted as a mountain goat. But she persists. We are not turning back.

After a couple of hours we reach Wall Street, where the cliffs are so tall and so close together it looks like the caverns of New York City’s downtown. We walk along Wall Street enjoying it for a while. We then back track to Orderville Creek, a small stream that entered the Virgin from the right. We follow that upstream and it is even narrower.

On the way back out, Aimee’s coffee habit comes back to bite her and she can’t wait to get back. Suddenly she is surefooted and is pushing me along. With her confidence riding high she is now smiling and enjoying the hike. It is also sunnier and warmer now. She loves me again.

September 5, 2007

September 5, 2007

Early Mormons settlers gave Zion National Park its name. In the Bible, Zion was the city of god. And heavenly this park is with its temples of stone. Zion is supposed to have the tallest sandstone cliffs in the world. This morning we took the park shuttle up the canyon and hiked the Hidden Canyon trail. This trail switchbacks up a very steep canyon wall. Near the top it hugs a narrow ledge on a cliff face where only a wall-mounted chain prevents a small stumble from becoming a disaster. It is too much for Aimee who almost turns back several times. After a few encouraging words and deep breaths she makes it past and we hit hard ground again. At the trail top we enter a narrow slot canyon with high vertical walls on both sides. We follow this sandy-floored hallway for a quarter mile. After that the trail is blocked every 50 feet or so by boulders that we have to be scramble over. I leave Aimee behind for fifteen minutes to explore ahead a few hundred yards. A Mexican Spotted Owl making some shrill screeching sound welcomes me to his hidden canyon sanctuary. On the way back we almost miss seeing a small rock arch off to the side.

Back on the floor of Zion Canyon we next do the Weeping Rock trail. This short hike takes us to large rock alcove where a thin curtain of water covers the entrance. Water can easily seep thru the porous sandstone but leeks out when it hits the harder underlying shale base.

This is the first lengthy hike we have done in awhile and our feet are sore. So we take the rest of the afternoon off and relax.

September 4, 2007

September 4, 2007

From Fillmore, UT, we continued our drive south on I15. I had assumed central Utah was going to be mostly desolate wilderness. Instead I find a long continuous valley of semi-arid ranch and farmland. After a couple hours we come to Kolob Canyon, the northern section of Zion National Park. After checking in at the tiny visitor center we start the 5-mile scenic drive. It goes up and over a ridgeline. As soon as we turn the corner at the top, we are awed by beautiful red rock cliffs. It is reminiscent of Sedona, AZ. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by the resemblance. Both Zion and Sedona’s red rocks are the eroded sandstone sides of the uplifted Colorado Plateau. The road continues along the Kolob Canyon and a magnificent wall of red rock. At the end of the road we do a half-mile hike to an overlook.

It is another good hour drive around to the southern section of the park, Zion Canyon. As we approach the entrance we see tall cliffs that resemble the Badlands of South Dakota. Aimee and I read that Zion has a campground with electrical connections, a rarity in a national park. We have our fingers crossed as we approach the gate. The Labor Day crowd is gone and we are in luck; they have vacancy! We go straight to the campground and get a site.

After ditching the RV we take the park shuttle a few stops up the canyon and hike the Pa’rus trail back down following the road and the Virgin River. The view is outstanding. Zion Canyon looks like a red sandstone version of Yosemite Valley with lofty sheer cliffs on both sides. The only things missing are the waterfalls and cooler temperatures. One particular cliff formation I think is awesome is 3800 feet high and looks like a walled fortress atop a mountain. Partway down the trail we stop at the Zion Museum to peruse the exhibits and watch the movie. Both are mostly uninteresting. Back at the RV we relax with our evening cocktail and soak up the magnificent scenery. With both electricity and ambience we probably will stay here a few days.

September 3, 2007

September 3, 2007

The holiday weekend is over so we are safe to travel south and not worry about finding a spot to camp. I can’t believe I am now anxiously waiting for the end of holidays!! Before leaving the Salt Lake City area we drive west on I80 till we reach the shoreline of the Great Salt Lake. The lake level is low right now so we have to walk a quarter mile or so along the flats to the shoreline. We pass patches of semi-dry salt beds. Thousands of alkali flies line the shoreline; fortunately they don’t bother humans at all. The lake is eerie looking. It’s in the middle of an arid terrain and for some reason the sky just above the lake is hazy. The lake is salty because streams only flow into it and not out; so the water evaporates leaving the minerals behind. 12,000 years ago during the Ice Age, the weather was wetter and cooler here and the lake level rose dramatically reaching over 1000 feet deep. (It is only 20 feet right now.) At that time it was called Lake Bonneville and covered one-third of Utah. Eventually it overflowed catastrophically into Idaho and carved the Snake River canyons we admired a few days ago.

I would like to drive out west to the Bonneville Salt Flats but it is another 100 miles farther. The salt flats are a remnant of the drying of the ancient Lake Bonneville. We are not sure it is worth an extra four hours of driving. I guess if I was a racing enthusiast we might make the trip. Instead we head south on I15 and stop at the little town of Fillmore, UT for the evening.

September 2, 2007

September 2, 2007

We got up early so we could ride our bikes the two miles to Temple Square. But it looked like rain so we drove instead. We are at the home of the Mormon Church to attend their weekly Sunday broadcast of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. We got lucky. All summer because of crowds they hold the event in the arena-size conference center. Today is their first day back in the intimate and original Mormon Tabernacle. We listen to the program twice, once for practice and once for real. I could have listened a lot longer. It was outstanding. It was a beautiful blend of orchestra, men and women choirs, and superb acoustics. And it is all free and all volunteer.

From there we take a guided tour of the Temple Square. Two international girls doing their 18-month mission give it. It is a little about the history of the temple construction and more about the tenets of the Mormon faith. Afterwards we visit the Joseph Smith museum and then see an hour movie on his life. Joseph Smith was the founder of the Mormon faith and for many reasons invited strife with his non-Mormon neighbors. After moving the congregation several times they settled in Nauvoo, IL where they built a community that was close to being the largest in Illinois at the time. When he was killed there in 1844, Brigham Young took over the main splinter group and moved them here to Salt Lake City where they flourished. I am interested in learning the history of the Mormon people but find the story to be very one-sided and full of gaps. Nonetheless any religion that promotes their faithful to be such good upstanding citizens gets high marks in my book. The world desperately needs more religions like theirs.

September 1, 2007

September 1, 2007

From Brigham City, UT we backtracked northwest thirty miles to Promontory Summit, a desolate area north of the Great Salt Lake. Here history was made in May of 1869. The National Park Service commemorates the event with its Golden Spike Historic Site. I was thinking that this was going to be just a plaque in the desert. Instead Aimee and I are both pleasantly surprised how nice it is.

Abraham Lincoln, in 1862, in the middle of the Civil War, signed a bill authorizing a rail line to be built across the US. When the Civil War ended and men and materials became available, a race to construct the line began. The Union Pacific worked east from Sacramento and the Central Pacific raced west from Omaha. They met here and during a ceremony drove a golden rail spike to officially complete the uniting of America. The visitor center here does a good job explaining how the real story was much more complicated and infinitely more fascinating. Besides the interesting exhibits, we listen to a ranger talk and even attend a lengthy reenactment of the completion ceremony. Aimee and I left very pleased we made the trip. As an added bonus we experienced our first earthquake. It happened while we were listening to the ranger talk. The building shook like a train was going by. We later found out it was a 3.7 magnitude centered very near here. I have newfound respect for how damaging a big one would be. A 3.7 is tiny and yet shook the room. A 5.7 would be 100 times bigger! Impossible to imagine!

On the return trip we made a brief stop at Thiokol’s Rocket display. In front of one of their buildings they have examples of many of the rockets they have built. The centerpiece, and their most famous, dominates the display. It is their solid rocket booster that helps lift the Space Shuttle. It is huge. Aimee makes some wise crack about “rocket science” and we retrace our path back to I15, where we drive south to Salt Lake City and stay at a packed KOA campground. Since everything is looking jammed we make plans to stay here two nights. We will both be glad when the holiday is over and we can roam as we please. For those looking for a business that is booming, profitable, and relatively easy to enter, open an RV campground.

August 31, 2007

August 31, 2007

We start our day with a short hike from our RV thru a paved trail over a lava field. We do it for the exercise. Both of us are pretty jaded with lava by now. It is impressive to see but nothing beats seeing it flow for real or stepping gingerly over it because it is fresh and still warm like in Hawaii.

After leaving Craters of the Moon, we drive southeast on Rt. 26 thru the DOE’s Idaho National Laboratory. We stop at a facility named EBR-1 that bills itself as the world’s first nuclear power plant. Surprisingly for an ex-nuke facility we are allowed to wander freely thru the place on a self-guided tour. EBR-1, short for Experimental Breeder Reactor was built in the early 50’s by Argonne Labs to research peaceful uses of atomic power. EBR-1 was the first nuclear reactor to produce electricity. It is interesting but what I find more so is sitting on a skid in the parking lot. It features a nuclear reactor tied to a jet engine. This monstrosity was a very expensive failed experiment to design a nuclear-powered airplane.

We continue on south out of Idaho into Utah. Since this weekend is a holiday we decide to quit early so we stop at a private park in Brigham City, UT. Good thing as we got the last spot available.

August 30, 2007

August 30, 2007

A few blocks down the road is the headquarters for Hagerman Fossil Bed National Monument. The visitor center is tiny and contains only a few of the many fossils found in this area from the Pliocene period 3.5 million years ago. The actual Monument is the eroded southern bluff of the Snake River. This fossil bed is famous for a zebra-like ancient horse. The Hagerman Horse is now the state fossil of Idaho. This visitor center is a two-fer. It is also the temporary headquarters for the new Minidoka Internment National Monumeny. Minidoka was one of ten remote relocation camps in the west where Japanese-Americans were interred during WWII.

After our brief stop at this visitor center we decide to bypass both nearby monuments and drive east on RT. 30 along Idaho’s Thousand Springs scenic drive. It turned out to be a good choice. Following the Snake River’s southern bank, we are quickly rewarded with what looks like good-sized waterfalls spilling out of the middle of the northern cliff face. They are the largest springs I have ever seen. And this is the dry season! I can’t imagine what they would look like in the spring. From interpretative signs we learned that the Snake River used to run farther north but was pushed southward by a series of lava flows. Snowmelt from the Rocky Mountains flows thru this spongy lava and spills into the Snake. There is so much cold spring water that they have dozens of commercial trout hatcheries along the river here.

This scenic drive ends for us in the town of Twin Falls where we view the Snake River cascading over Shoshone Falls. It is beautiful scenery.

In this area the Snake River runs thru a deep canyon. Evel Knievel made this gorge famous when he attempted to jump it in his rocket-powered motorcycle many years ago. Looking at the size of the canyon, no wonder he failed.

We leave the Snake River and head north on Rt. 93 to Craters of the Moon National Monument. This park is the largest pile of lava on the planet. As far as you can see are lava flows and cinder cones, and also a couple rare splatter cones. Even after seeing lava now in every western state, I am still amazed how volcanically active the world still is. This park got its name from a National Geographic article written by an early explorer entitled, “A trip to the Moon.”

After getting into some long conversations with a couple other travelers, we run out of time and decide to stay at the park campsite. Where else can you spend the night surrounded by lava?

August 29, 2007

August 29, 2007

Fully rested, we continue our journey on I84 into Idaho following the Snake River. It is mostly dry except where irrigation has turned the area into lush farmland. The Snake River plain cuts a 300-mile smile-shaped swath across southern Idaho. This channel thru the Rocky Mountains was cut by a volcanic hotspot that has been slowly drifting across the North American continent. Right now it sits under Yellowstone National Park.

A half hour past Boise, we take a short detour off the highway and stop at Bruneau Sand Dunes State Park. The park has a couple very tall sand dunes formed because of intersecting wind patterns. It is mostly a snoozer we should have bypassed; but I have some fun climbing up to the top of one of the smaller dunes and causing sand avalanches. The nerd in me was intrigued how the sand avalanche flowed like water down the steep hill.

After returning to the highway we travel to the town of Hagerman, ID and stay at a nice private park.

August 28, 2007

August 28, 2007

We are feeling a little lazy and we like this campground, so we decided to hang around and spend another night here. We also figured out why Oregon state parks are nice and reasonably priced. They cut their labor costs by having inmates do some of the work, like cleaning bathrooms and trimming bushes.

We take advantage of the time off and do some spring-cleaning around the house. We give the exterior a bath and clean the inside and outside of all the windows. I also fix the tires on the bikes. It turns out mine had two holes and Aimee’s one. We must have ridden over some pretty tough western thorns the other day.

August 27, 2007

August 27, 2007

Aimee wouldn’t let me pass Pendleton, OR without doing some shopping for wool fabric. Besides a store, Pendleton Woolen Mills also has a factory tour. We arrive for the first one at 9 AM. It is a short tour but it gives us a good idea of how wool is spun and weaved into blanket fabric. I am surprised this laborious process is still being done in the US. Their products are nice but pretty pricey.

From Pendleton we head southeast on I84 to Baker City where we stop at the Oregon Trail Interpretative Center. It is a pretty good place to kill a couple hours. The biggest thing we learned is that neither one of us could have survived a pioneer’s arduous 2000-mile walk across the west. These pioneers had to be either very desperate or very nuts.

From Baker City we drive a little further east and spend the night near Huntington, OR at Farewell Bend State Park. This is where Oregon Trail pioneers left the Snake River behind for the last time and crossed overland to the Columbia River valley. With kids back in school, the park is pretty empty and we get a prime spot overlooking the Snake River. The park is very nice. We are continually impressed with how nice Oregon State Parks are.