Day 20 & 21 April 20 and 21 2006
View to Capitol Reef National Park into Arizona from 9,400 Feet on Utah Rte 24
Escalante Canyon, Utah
Thursday morning we left Ruby's RV Park at Bryce Canyon and decided to take Rte 12 and 24, a Utah scenic byway, and believe me it was! Although slow going, with lots of up and down canyons and winding road, we encountered almost no traffic. This a gorgeous drive and in beautiful weather, which we were blessed with, not to be missed.
The route is partly in Escalante Canyon and in my opinion, it was as beautiful, if not more so than Zion, although of a different sort. Huge boulders, red rocks, a flowing river with views above and below. Magnificent!
Later along the way we climbed over a pass at 9,400 feet with a dry road but plenty of snow all around and a view at the top to die for over a couple of hundred miles across Capitol Reef National Park and beyond Lake Powell to Navaho territory!
By all means take this route if you ever have the opportunity. Finally Rte 24 led us on to I-15 and we headed north toward Salt Lake City, a trip through a long flat valley with some majestic views of the Wasatch Range to the east. SLC is your typical booming southwest city expanding in all directions and we had some slowdowns on I-15 as we passed through during rush hour, with 5 lanes of traffic in each direction. We decided on a small RV park, The Golden Spike, in Brigham City about 25 miles north of SLC. The dogs were happy as clams because this park offered fully manicured grass, very well kept with very clean facilities.
After the morning chores, including a stop at Wal-Mart to stock up on food and necessities, we found that our overhead ventilating fan was on the fritz. Back to the RV park and with the help of a full time RVer, we borrowed a ladder and I was able to fix the fan which was stuck and needed only a shot of WD-40. Carol gave him a small bottle of maple syrup for the loan of the step ladder. Off again at midday heading to Jackson, Wyoming, where we are tonight (in a motel, because the weather was a bit cloudy and we thought a fresh morning approach to the Tetons would be better).
Today's journey via Logan, Utah was up the Logan Canyon over the top and then down to Bear Lake and a jaunt through the southeastern corner of Idaho through Montpelier and Paris up and down the mountains with good roads, temperatures in the 60s, little traffic and plenty of snow still present in the high ground.
This is ranching country with lots of beef cattle, many of which had just given birth. We could see the tiny calves still on the ground. This long valley in Wyoming is the Star Valley which leads to the Snake River. Shortly after entering Wyoming, we followed the Snake River for 20-30 miles and here we are in Jackson, a bit like Stowe with some very nice housing and the commercial architecture is very clearly Western High Quality.
Today marks the 1/3 point of our journey and we've traveled almost 5,000 miles with wonderful weather, the only rain was in New York on I-87. Since then it has been perfectly clear until tonight, with a few scattered clouds. We'll settle in tonight and I hope to upload some pics to the laptop which I will post later.
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