Hey Guys! I thought I’d hop on and give y’all a quick update on what’s going on! We’re still mooch-docking with my (Jennie’s) parents. We’ll be here until late Spring…if the nomad itch doesn’t get too bad. We don’t usually stay in one place for so long and Guys, the itch to hit the open road is hitting pretty strongly. Adventure is calling!
This year has been incredibly difficult on so many levels…for the entire world. We’ve all had a hard year. Between the whole pandemic thing to the civil unrest to the entire election debacle to another round of eye surgeries… and all of the wildfires… 2020 has been…unexpected. And not in a good way.
We’ve got some traveling in mind for 2021, but I’ll be honest…whether or not we actually go really depends on how things are going. I don’t want to go through another year of constant cancelations, park closures and ever changing quarantine laws. It takes all of the fun out of the whole Nomad life thing. While we still don’t have a clear picture of what our 2021 is going to look like, we do know we’re not done traveling. The world is big and there’s still SO much to see.
Here’s hoping 2021 is better than 2020! Thank you for coming along on this crazy nomad journey we call life.
Happy New Year and Safe Travels…from our family to yours!
See y’all down the road!
“May the blessings of each day be the blessings you need most.”
Hey Guys!! We’ve made it to the last stop on our Utah Big Five section of our National Park Tour. We stayed in a city called Hurricane for two weeks and after four weeks of tiny towns with tiny grocery stores and very few foodie options…we were loving this area of Utah!
The main reason we were in Hurricane was to explore Zion National Park. I’ll tell you all about our Zion shenanigans in the next post. Zion is getting a post all to itself. Yup, it was that epic.
So, what else did we do while in the area? Honestly…not a whole lot. We’d pretty much been going non-stop for three months straight and we were so worn out. We’d had plans to explore Zion, Pipe Spring, and then a few state parks in the area, but that didn’t happen. We needed some down time. Living in a small space does have its good points…we’re a close family…but it also has its drawbacks. We’re always within a few feet of one another. Personal space isn’t really a thing when you live in an RV and usually, that’s cool. Like I said, we’re a close family, but when you have five people who have zero personal space and they’re all tired and worn out…our home-on-wheels can feel a little more cramped than usual. We decided to, of course, explore Zion and Pipe Spring National Monument (since we are on a National Park Tour), but we skipped everything else…this time. We spent a lot of time just hanging out…trying the foodie spots…and resting.
Sometime in the early 1920s, Steven Mather (the first director of the National Park Service) was on his way from Zion National Park to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon when he stopped at Pipe Spring to rest. He became fascinated with the place and saw an opportunity to make a little money by having a place to stop on the way from one big National Park(Zion) to the other (Grand Canyon). So, he bought it with his own money and by 1923, Pipe Spring National Monument was born.
Back before it was known as Pipe Spring, this land was home to the Paiutes. They lived off of and cared for the land in and around the spring. In the mid 1800s, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints claimed 160 acres of the land to use as a ranch for cattle. The first thing they did was build a fort over a small section of the spring so they would always have access to fresh water. Relations between the Paiutes and the LDS members escalated horribly when the Paiutes started hunting the cattle since the LDS members were hunting the deer in the area. The Paiutes weren’t being malicious…they didn’t see a difference in hunting one thing over another. The cattle, after all, were on the land they’d called home for 1000s of years. One thing led to another, and the ranch was abandoned for a time.
Not wanting to give up the land and all of the profit it was bringing in for the church, the LDS members went back to Pipe Spring and built a stronghold. This strong hold became known as Winsor Castle. Winsor Castle and the ranch was out in the middle of nowhere and needed a fast way to communicate with people. By 1871, 995 miles of telegraph wire had been installed and Pipe Springs was connected to the Deseret Telegraph system. Eliza Stewart was the first telegraph operator at Pipe Spring.
The ranch prospered from 1871 to 1879 making bimonthly delivers of butter, cheese, and cattle to St. George, Utah while the LDS Temple was being built. When the Temple was built, the Church no longer needed the ranch and in 1895 the ranch was sold to Maggie Heaton. Maggie welcomed any and all to her home. She’d have fresh water, pies, cakes, and fresh bread. And the rest…is history.
I’ll be honest here…this is the first National Park Unit that I’m not really sure why it’s a National Park Unit. Every National Park Unit tells a story…it preserves an important building/town/canyon/section of our Country that needs protecting or needs to be remembered. The story we were told at Pipe Spring National Monument, while interesting…wasn’t really any different than 1000s of other stories/places of that time. In fact, the story told at Pipe Spring National Monument was mainly about LDS Members and early days of their church and if I’m being completely honest with y’all…it wasn’t a kind story about them or their early life practices. Perhaps this was a learning story…if we forget our country’s history/mistakes, then we’re more likely to repeat them. I’ve watered down the history of Pipe Spring National Monument here…my intention is to keep it real, but not offend anyone. I feel like this park would be better suited as perhaps a State Park or a privately owned museum.
Oh, and one more thing…Pipe Spring National Monument is actually in Arizona…not Utah…so the Texas Longhorn in the photo was in Arizona. 😉 We did see some in Utah on the way into Zion though. A whole herd of them! They were very cool!
Let’s talk foodies! Now, keep in mind…we’d been out in the middle of little towns that didn’t have many options for foodies…and keep in mind we were recuperating. Yeah, recuperating… we’ll go with that. **wink, wink**
We kind of went crazy with the options for foodies. And, Guys…we’re not even sorry about it. Not. Even. A little bit.
One of my all time favorite things to do is peruse the ice cream sections in the different areas/regions. I’m always on the look out for a different brand or flavor. We started seeing the Red Button Brand as soon as we crossed into Utah and well…we had to try a few flavors. Our favorite (and one that’s not pictured) was the Root Beer Float flavor. It was really good!
Every time we’d head into Zion, we would pass this place called Fort Zion. This place was a souvenir store/restaurant/petting zoo. It was a really neat place and the petting zoo price was super reasonable. My favorite thing here was the cute little old western town they’d made!
I didn’t get any pictures of pretty flowers so I’ll leave you with this sunset picture. In the next post I’ll tell y’all all about our Zion explorations…so stay tuned!
Hey Guys! This is the last post for our time in the Torrey, UT area. We crammed so much into the two weeks we were in the area.
Goblin Valley State Park is the home of hoodoos and goblins. One of the coolest things about Goblin Valley is that there isn’t a set trail. You get to wander around three square miles filled with thousands of varying sizes and shapes of hoodoos that the park affectionately calls…goblins.
Before the park was known as Goblin Valley, it was called Mushroom Valley. We spent a couple of hours roaming around the goblin city and exploring the valley. It’s weird to think that millions of years ago this dry desert was once a tidal flat area next to a huge ancient inland sea.
While we were at Goblin Valley State Park we went to Little Wild Horse Canyon where we got our very first taste of a slot canyon. We got there late in the day so we couldn’t do the whole hike. We went in a mile or so then turned around. We did go far enough in that we did some rock scrambling and get a feel for what a slot canyon is. The sun was setting so the lighting wasn’t there for the glowing slot canyon pics you normally see.
Our first slot canyon was a success…it gave us the bug for more and now I’m trying to find family friendly (non-technical) slot canyons near our next stops.
Torrey, UT is a small town, but we did find some tasty foodies there. At one of the nearby diners, we found a pie sampler that consisted of oatmeal pie, pinto bean pie, pickle pie, and buttermilk pie. Each piece was just big enough that we could each have a bite. Well, I’m going to let you guess at the two flavors that none of us liked. At least we tried it. The last night we were in town we tried a burger place called Capitol Burger. Guys, this was the best place in town and it was just a little food truck!
With all of the rock formations around, we started seeing animals and patterns in the rock. Can you see them? We found a turtle, heart, baby dragon, and a turtle.
We had such a good time exploring this part of Utah! I didn’t realize just how much we’d seen until I started setting aside pictures for the posts for this area.
Hey Guys!! While we were staying in the Torrey, UT area we stayed right at the beginning of Highway 12…also known as The All-American Road Scenic Byway. With a name like that, we couldn’t help but explore at least some of it! The entire scenic byway is 124 miles with sooo many stops, hikes, and scenic backway roads that lead off to even more adventures.
All along highway 12 are scenic pulloffs to some absolutely stunning panoramic vistas.
You’ll also find three State Parks spaced out along highway 12. We stopped at one of them during our day of exploring. Anasazi State Park Museum sits at the site of an Ancestral Puebloan community that was used between 1050 to 1200 AD. Most of the site has been left unexcavated, but they have uncovered ninety-seven rooms along with several pit structures. There is a small replica (that you can explore) of what some of the structures would have looked like when the Ancestral Puebloan people were there. We spent a couple of hours checking this small State Park out.
One of the best…maybe the best… section of The All-American Road Scenic Byway is what they refer to as The Hogsback. This is the part of the highway that follows the thin razorback ridge of a mesa with steep drop offs on each side of the highway. Luckily, they put in a nice wide pulloff right at the top where you can get out of your vehicle and ogle the breathtaking views. I think I must have taken twenty pictures of just this pulloff alone.
When I did my research on places to stop and things to see on highway 12, one place kept coming up. Kiva Koffeehouse. Everyone said to stop for a snack and soak in the view…Guys, they weren’t lying. The view here was spectacular and the food was super fresh and tasty! We sat outside while we ate and the picture on the left was our lunch view. Then we drove around the corner and ran into the view in the right picture. And for probably the 100th time that day we all stood there saying wow!
Ancestral Puebloans used this area long before highway 12 was built. If you look closely, you can see the upper valley granaries still stored. A granary is where food was stored to keep it safe. They would wall up the area to keep animals and other people from getting to their storage. If you don’t know where to look, I’ve zoomed in and put an arrow pointing to the granary. It really blends in with the cliff side.
We made it all the way to Powell Point before we turned around. At Powell Point you can see the very topmost layer of the Colorado Plateau’s Grand Staircase. You can also see this same layer at Bryce Canyon NP.
On a different day we went back to highway 12 to tackle the scenic backway known as Hells Backbone. This is a thirty-eight mile dirt road built by the CCC to connect two mountain towns. So many of the reviews I read about this road kept saying how dangerous it is and under the wrong circumstances, I can see how it would be dangerous. You’d definitely want dry weather and no snow or ice on the road, but Hells Backbone is a great short scenic drive. Just watch out for the cows along the road (upper right picture).
We still had some light left, so we headed over to the Burr Trail Scenic Backway. Yup…another scenic trail! Ha! Burr Trail started out as a cattle trail to get cattle from their summer grazing pastures to their winter ones. We drove to the end of the paved part and found the view above. Not a bad view of the Circle Cliffs with the Henry Mountains in the background.
On the way back out of the Burr Trail, we stopped at a pulloff that led to a deep cleft in the side of the canyon wall. When we walked up to the cleft, there was a family there with two girls who were singing songs from The Sound of Music and Guys…the acoustics in this cleft were amazing! The girls sounded wonderful. While we were chatting with the family, a small owl flew out of a nearby tree, floated right over our heads, and landed in a little alcove in the canyon wall. It took us all by surprise! It was a really cool experience.
Hells Backbone Road and Anasazi State Park Museum are actually part of a bigger National Monument. Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument is divided into three different units and spans across close to one million acres. Besides the fact that this is one huge National Monument, the area within it is the last place in the US to have been mapped. We explored some of this park from Torrey and some from our next stop, Panguitch…so stay tuned for more on this amazing National Monument!
I have one more post for our time in Torrey! We’re going to need a vacation once we finish with Utah so we can get some rest… There’s so much to see and do here.
