Road Trip - Part 3: Utah

We headed towards Hanksville because it is near where we wanted to end up and we were familiar with the area. We were about an hour outside of Hanksville when we started to run out of daylight, but we found a useable campsite for the night. It was very warm here! In the morning, we got our Atlas out and headed out for some adventure. We ended up exploring the San Rafael Reef.

Our initial plan was to go for a hike in Dang Canyon. But when we got near, it seemed as if you would have to pass through the Goblin Valley State Park. We were not interested enough in Goblin Valley to have to pay to go through it. We looked for alternatives and found our way into the reef above. We found  some other prospective hikes but ended up investigating Chute Canyon. We initially went out to just check it out. We did not intend to hike the whole thing. The hike is a relatively easy 8 mile hike (round trip). But temperatures were above 100 degrees. 

We parked and head out a little ways down the canyon but our feet kept taking us farther and farther into the canyon. 

We found a neat climbing wall. We even think that it had been used as such a long time ago, though there is no published information about it that I could find.

Saw some crows living in the abandoned homes of the diamond billed rock peckers! There was a pretty strong breeze, which made the heat a lot more bearable. I think one of the young crows might have been learning to fly or something and the gusts of wind made it difficult for him to get back up into his nest. It stayed down on the rocks for quite a while while another crow kept flying nearby cawing loudly to it.

We kept heading down the trail seeing how far the canyon went and seeing what was around the next bend. Before we knew it, we were pretty far in. We kept thinking that we wanted to get to the end of the trail and that it couldn't be that much further...but of course, it was.

At some point, we finally came to our senses and headed back. It was super hot out there and we did not bring ANY water. The GPS on the GoPro showed us that we were actually almost to the end of the canyon by then, but we had already gone much farther than we should have and the hike back was even more quelling as we were hot, tired and parched by then. Needless to say, we did end up suffering a bit of heat stroke afterwards. We took it easy the rest of the time, driving around in the air conditioned truck.

We went looking for and finding some possible campsites. It was still pretty gusty in the area and we had to try to be extra picky about where we would camp that night. We still had some time though so we went back out to see if we could get to the original road we were supposed to find to get to Dang Canyon. We figured that it was getting towards the end of the day and the park officials for Goblin Valley might be calling it a day by then and we would be able to get by to see if the road we were looking for was out there.

It turns out that there was no need to get into Goblin Valley after all to find our road. It branched off just before the gate for Goblin Valley. We proceeded down the road and actually did find Dang Canyon after all. Not that we would be in any shape to hike any more trails on this trip. We also decided to stay in this area instead of going all the way back to where we were before.

We really liked the area and thought that we found some great alternative campsites but it either it was filled with bugs or it was kind of windy. We actually opted for the wind over the bugs!

The next day, we headed out to Panorama Point. These are all places that Christian and I were planning to visit over a year ago, but something kept getting in our way. So we figured since we were passing through, we would finally get around seeing these places.

We took a trail heading in to the Hands Flat Ranger Station.  We passed next to Little Flat Top and a sand dune which was fairly widespread but it was not piled up very high.

We stopped by the Ranger Station to get some maps of the area. We really want to bring the girls back to explore all these areas some more. The trail to the Panorama Point was quite rough, so although it is not very far, it was very slow going. We banged up the cross member pretty good trying to maneuver our way up this trail. I don't think we would ever attempt this trail in the truck if we ever came back here. This one is definitely made for the Jeep.

But the view was quite stunning.

Between the heat and the difficulty of this trail, we got the whole place to ourselves, so that was really nice. There was another place we wanted to see that was just a little farther off our trail, but we were a little worried about making our way back up this trail and it was getting late.

Cleopatra's Chair

We headed back the way we came and made it back in better time than we had anticipated. Going back up some of the obstacles went smoother than we thought, so that was good.

The last place we wanted to visit on this trip was Blue Bell Knoll on the Aquarius Plateau. We attempted it with the kids some time ago but could not find our way to it. After studying the maps again, we thought we would attempt it from another direction.

We made it into the general area without too much trouble and found a fairly nice campsite for the night before we ran out of daylight. It is a good thing that the summer days around here are so long since we have needed all the extra hours of sunlight almost every day on our trip.

The next morning, we went on our way to try to get to Blue Bell Knoll, but it seems that, once again, it was not meant to be. We followed the road on the map which should have lead us to the access road, but it seemed to be just a private ranch road. We ended up driving around the property trying to see if it continued on the other side. We could not find the road. We were uncomfortable driving on somebody's property and decided to just leave. The owner of the ranch came out to see who the stranger driving around was. He was very nice but could not help us find the correct road. We had already given up at this point and was airing our tires back up for the paved roads. 

At this point, we decided that it would be best to head home. We'd been gone a long time and was anxious to be back. We had planned to stop by to see Christian's sister, so we gave her a call as we were approaching St. George. She told us Austin was home taking care of Georgia, so we swung by there for a few minutes before continuing on our way. We met up with Aron. She chatted for a while and then she gave us a tour of Kraig's ranch. Before leaving, we wanted to stop by to see Kraig. He was out trying desperately to finish the RV park that he is opening up. He gave us a tour of the place. We were going to leave from there but they suggested going out to dinner. As we left for the restaurant though, his autistic son, Dillon, had a fit so he took him home. We didn't want to wait half an hour to get a seat at the restaurant he had suggested, so Aron took us to some little Mexican joint she liked. The food was really good and we sat and talked some more. We actually talked for hours. It was 11 o'clock by the time we left. Aron suggested that we spend the night but we were eager to get back and we knew that it would upset Dillon and we didn't want to cause them any trouble. Aron had to get up in the morning to look after Georgia. 

We got home at 4:am. We were so beat.

Road Trip - Part 2: Idaho

Since we did not take two days to get to Oregon as we had planned, we had an extra day to explore on the way to see the girls. We got the atlas out and decided to check out the area above the Sawtooths.

While we would love to visit the Sawtooths, we knew that it would be a lot more crowded than we would like. So our destination was the Salmon-Challis National Forest above the Sawtooth Range. On the way, we saw some really beautiful areas through the Boise National Forest. Unfortunately, most of the accessible areas of that land seemed to be mostly owned and therefore, private property. It was more like a private but widespread resort town: beautiful but only accessible to the rich and privileged. There were a few small areas here and there that were accessible but were obviously very crowded and sought after.

When we got to the area we wanted to explore, we were disappointed that it was, firstly, not nearly as remote as we had hoped. Way too many RVs and people with side by sides everywhere. And secondly, the landscape had mostly been razed by fire a couple of years ago so it kind of looked like a tornado hit it with  bare downed trees everywhere. This is probably the part of Idaho that was burning the first time we took Emily up to Idaho for her first semester of college. But it is so sad that the state did not bother to clear any of the trees. They just let them rot where they stood and eventually fall where they stood. So much wasted wood and resources! While a lot of new growth has started to appear with all the water it had gotten this winter, the area still looked like a complete mess because they didn't bother to clear the debris...which just makes it prone to even bigger, more devastating fires in the future.

We eventually got passed the fire area and entered less damaged land to find a place to camp for the night, but the air was quite thick with mosquitos. And we never quite got as far away from other campers than we would have liked. We did finally settle on a camp site to settle down for the night. The mosquitos were not quite as heavy in this area for some reason, although we could still hear the river not far off from where we were. Once we got a fire going, most of those mosquitos actually went away, which we are definitely not used to. The mosquitos in California will barely hesitate in the midst of a smokey campfire.

The next day we had about half the day free to explore before we knew we would have to start making our way to Rexburg to meet up with the girls. We had a lot more success in getting away from the endless stream of traffic and saw some of the most amazing and lush landscape.

At some point, we made our way back on to paved roads and worked our way over to the girls. Caitlyn doesn't have school on Fridays so she volunteered to make us dinner while she worked on getting her homework done for the weekend. We had planned to take them camping with us over the weekend.

After dinner, we sat down to make plans for the weekend. We found out that it was going to be raining again in the area that we had made tentative plans for. In fact, a mild weather system had moved into the entire area. After much deliberation, we decided that maybe it wasn't going to be a great idea to take the girls out camping after all. We had the girls look over the map and decide where they wanted to go. We decided that just going out for the day would still be fine. Emily decided that she wanted to go see the Salmon-Challlis National Forest that we spent our day in.

Christian headed out to set up camp for the night before the rain. I decided to stay with the girls that night so I got to take a shower and sleep in a bed. They actually have a couple of empty rooms this semester. They originally only had one, but one roommate left because they did not like the restrictive management. We ran over to the local Walmart afterwards to pick up some more tent stakes, fuel, mosquito repellent, etc. We did not find out tent stakes in our tent bag and had been doing without but we wanted to make sure we had some in case we ran into more severe weather. We also found that our camp stove has been leaking so we had some trouble starting our stove on our first night in Idaho. We had topped the reservoir off at the beginning of our trip and had hardly used it through Oregon because Cheri had packed us off with so much food but we were having trouble lighting our stove and found that it was empty for some reason. The box that it was stored in smelled strongly of gas. We are not very happy and will have to see what can be done about it. Meanwhile, we just bought more fuel just in case.

We drove up the trail until it got pretty rough. We then set off to hike up the rest of the way to see if it would be even be passable.

There were some patches of snow higher up where we might have to dig but Christian thought that we could do it. 

We got to the top of the area we wanted to go and made our decision to go back for the truck. We wanted to continue down the other side of the mountain which would take us where we were the day before.

We got the truck through with no problems. We even drove through the snow without having to stop to dig! Unfortunately, as we started down the other side, we ran into a train of side-by-sides going up the trail. The trail is quite narrow with not many pullouts. Since they had the smaller more maneuverable vehicles, it would make more sense for them to back down to an area so that we could get by. They were kind of ridiculous, so we just backed our full sized truck back up the trail so that they can get by. We then continued on our way down. However, while maneuvering back down in an area we had already gotten passed before we ran into the side-by-side traffic, there was a branch sticking out on the right side that we did not pay enough attention to the second time, at it hit the top right corner of the windshield and cracked it. We were quite irritated with the traffic on the trail, made even worse since they were side-by-sides that were tearing up the trail. Now, we were just angry. We didn't get to enjoy the rest of the trail and we just wanted to get out of the area. Near the end, we had to squeeze through a narrow gap between two trees and we just barely had enough room to make it. We normally would have taken pictures or something, but we didn't bother. 

We basically called it a day and drove back to Rexburg. Once back, we took the girls out to dinner at New Fong's...which ended up tasting just like Fong's (which no longer was in business). Apparently, it was a husband and wife that got divorced and for some reason, they both stayed in town. One owned the Fong's and the other opened "New" Fong's. The menus were very similar and so was the taste. It is a very unique Toisan taste to the food, so that was comforting and tasty for the most part. Eating out is generally just too expensive these days though, so that was the first time we had bought anything on the road except for a fountain drink here or there.

We went back to the girls' apartment afterwards and relaxed a bit, watching a video we wanted to show the kids. Christian then set out to find his camping spot once again as we had been getting little bits of rain on and off all day. The girls and I chatted for a while while playing cards and stuff. Since we were not out camping, I helped them make a few plans for the next day, Father's Day. We also went out to put the new roof rack brackets on that Christian had reprinted for Caitlyn in ABS. After a bit, we called it a night once again. I was pretty tired as although I got to sleep in a nice warm bed, the apartment isn't exactly quiet. Some people moving about way to late at night and others waking up quite early and moving about too, so there was only a small window of when it was actually quiet. I certainly don't miss apartment living.

Emily got up early and made us some German pancakes for her dad for Father's Day. Caitlyn made us some tasty Korean raspberry and honey tea to go with it. They had a little gift and treat for him too. He was a bit later in picking us up though so Emily was a bit stressed about her breakfast surprise being ruined. It had indeed rained on him the previous evening so he and his gear was kind of damp still. We spread some of it out to dry in their apartment. Breakfast was still good.

We went for a drive afterwards in the Caribou-Targhee National Forest. Christian and I did a little exploring in part of this area before but we had not taken the girls. We found some areas where they could camp in they were so inclined. It was not very far away but not very remote either but it was nice and would give them and their friends some options if they wanted to get away for a bit. 

The weather had not quite cleared up yet so Christian did not want to spend another wet night out in the sand dunes. We decided to head out and let the girls get ready for the next day. Apparently, there was no school and they made plans with Emily's friend Amber to go to the Tetons or something. We decided to head for Utah where it was going to be decidedly dryer. Of course, with that, it was also going to be a lot hotter. We bid the girls a sad farewell and headed out of Idaho.

Road Trip - Part 1: Oregon

About a week after Christian got out of school, we headed out to visit with his mom. We had planned to actually leave right away, but the second part of our trip involved stopping by to see our girls and they had a really heavy week in school (especially Emily), so we put it off for the week. Meanwhile, we got the vehicles ready and collected things for our trip.

We got there Sunday evening. We were originally supposed to take two days to get up to her place while traveling the back roads of the 395 and visiting places along the way. We figured that we would either camp near Mono Lake or further up near Susanville, but the weather would not cooperate with our plans. Thunderstorms were expected through Monday, so we just went straight up on the I5. Even with the more direct route, it is a long a grueling trip to do in one push.

There was still some snow on Shasta and Shasta Lake was already nearly full! We have not seen that much water in it in years. It was disturbingly empty last year. That's probably the lowest we've ever seen it.

We got to his mom's house in time to have a late dinner, settle in and chat for a bit before calling it a night. We were pretty exhausted. The next day, she decided she wanted to take us to the Oregon Caves National Monument. She took the girls a number of summers ago and she wanted to take us too. We had hoped to take her back to that beach that she loved so much but she was planning to go with her cousin later in the week.

We were a little wary of going to a tourist area. Luckily, it was not too busy yet and we got a decent group of people when we entered the caves. The tour lady was a little irritating as she was very peppy and talked to us all like we were in some elementary school field trip. But the cave was nice and cool and it was pretty neat.

The tour itself was a little hard on Cheri though with her bad hip and knee but she got through it okay. When we were done, she went to go sit by the waterfall while Christian and I went for a short hike up the mountain. I guess she had taken the girls up there after their tour too. It was beautiful and peaceful. It was nice to leave all the people from the caves behind. We didn't really see a single other person on the trail and everything was so lush!

Afterwards, we went back home to relax a little. Cheri found out we were collecting parts to work on Emily's Jeep and wanted to help, so she took us to some auto parts stores to collect parts. Some of the parts were hard to find and a lot of the employees didn't know what they were doing so after a couple of stores, we were exhausted and decided to call it a day. 

The next morning, we went back out to run our errands. Christian spent the night looking up part numbers and organizing his lists so that we might be able to better find the parts we need ourselves and that went a bit better. It probably helped that we went to a better store as well. She also took Christian to Harbor Freight and Walmart to stock up on other supplies for working on the Jeep.

Afterwards, we met up with Christian's dad for lunch. He had been up in Oregon for a week already working on his property a bit and helping Danielle and Jackie's daughter, Wendy. We chatted a while and went to visit Mark's grave. He also wanted Christian to visit with Danielle who was at work when we stopped by to visit. We planned to go that evening but luckily found out that she would be busy at a Relief Society event that evening. We planned to turn in early that night to head out on the road once again first thing in the morning. It has been unbearably hot in Oregon the last couple of nights and we had a hard time sleeping. Strangely, weather in Riverside had been a lot cooler so far this summer and we were definitely not ready for the heat wave we experienced  up there.

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We left early the next morning. Cheri packed us a bunch of sandwiches and stuff for our trip. She also made us some beef jerky so we were pretty much set. We planned to head across Oregon into Idaho. We had never gone that way before and wanted to see what it was like. There isn't really a very direct route without going up and out of our way to get across Oregon so we took smaller routes that kind of meandered through southeastern Oregon.

The land was just covered in wildflowers wherever we went. It was really nice. Christian wanted to see what the Oregon desert was like. We headed to the Alford Desert. There, we found a huge dry lake bed. It was vast and amazingly flat...but not exactly dry. Recently rains still pooled and sat on the lakebed. Even when driving across the "dry" parts, you can feel that it isn't exactly dry still underneath. It was a bit busy here but vast enough that it was fairly easy to get away from others.

I thing the girls would love to see this place. This is where we switched to roads less traveled to continue on our journey. Here, we entered the chaparral of southern Oregon. While we enjoyed the beauty and remote shrubland of this area at first, after several hours, we started to wonder where we were going to find anything clear enough to camp for the night. After driving many more miles, we decided to get off on a side road and see if we would have better luck. There were a couple of possibilities, none of them ideal as it was quite windy as well and there was little to no shelter to be had. But as the sun was going down, we had to settle on what we thought would be the best of our choices thus far. We were lucky that the sun really doesn't go down until 9:pm up in those areas.

The next morning, we returned to the main trail to continue on our journey. We found that if we had just continued a little longer on our way, we would have found some better camping options there. We dipped into Nevada at one point before continue on our way through Oregon. Unfortunately, we got a little side tracked shortly after as our trail abruptly ended within sight of the road we needed to continue our way into Idaho. There was a ranch there that blocked off the road as "private property," so we had to go around. In doing so, we ended up going too far and had to back track a bit to where we needed to be.

We had to decide whether to spend another night in Oregon or go explore some other areas in Idaho. As we were a bit tired of the Oregon chaparral and wind, we decided to check out the forests of Idaho instead.