Travelin' Road Show

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

MON/TUE JUL 1 - JUL 2 - IDAHO FALLS

Mon July 1 -Tues July 2

Happy Canada Day, Proudly wearing our Canada T shirts as we drove through northern Utah into Southern Idaho. Today was a travel day with a 2 night stopover at Idaho Falls. RV park is adequate, but no plans to explore this town. This is just a prelude to getting to Yellowstone Park. House cleaning, laundry and odd small maintenance jobs are the plans for these two days.
Have a strange neighbour who just keeps pacing around the outside of his RV... spooky.
Derek went to a guitar history exhibition on town on Tuesday, while Janice sen the whole day updating the blog..... FINALLY DONE .... YEEEHAAA!!!

Sunday, June 30, 2013

Thur 27th June-Sunday June 30

Thursday June 27 – Sunday Jun 30

Decided to combine our 4 night 3 day stay in Salt Lake City into one update.

What a city! Mormon base now down to 55% of the population (from 85%) as Utah has become a mecca for Americans who have moved. The temperatures all around us have been at, or setting records. It was 106F in Salt Lake versus the usual 90F. In parts of Arizona that we visited only a week or two ago it has exceeded 115F. 19 firefighters lost their lives in a blaze in Prescott, Arizona on Saturday, we travelled through Prescott en route to Lake Mead two weeks ago. Very very sad news indeed.

Salt Lake City is pristine, there is no litter, buildings have been renovated and sandblasted, even the poor parts of town are well hidden, residences are well maintained and everyone seems to walk around with a smile and says hello.

The Capitol building is about the prettiest we have seen. Built with granite on the outside and beautiful marble from Georgia on the inside. With a huge cupola and 26 marble pillars the interior is reminiscent of our dreams about Roman architecture.

We went on a city bus tour and saw…the pioneer village, Brigham Young’s house (where he lived with his 23 wives), the enormous Rio Tinto copper mine, The Tabernacle, Temple Square, the late 1800’s mansions built by the miners who arrived with nothing but made a fortune in silver and copper and of course the 22,000 seat Convention Centre that is home to the Tabernacle choir. Any expectation greater than 3,000 participants is no longer held at the tabernacle…..which is therefore almost all events especially the weekly broadcast of “Music and the Spoken Word” the longest continuous radio broadcast in the world now in its 89^th year! We were there Sunday to hear the 350 person choir and orchestra. The theme this week of course was very much centred on Independence week, and finished with a rousing version of “76 Trombones” from Oklahoma. What an experience and certainly a highlight of our trip to the City.

We also played golf early in the morning to avoid the heat and did a 23 km cycle down the Jordan River bike path, we even spent one afternoon actually just sitting and reading…had to tie ourselves to the chair to achieve that!!! Oh and the swordfish we got from Whole Foods and BBQ’d was a tremendous success.

JORDAN RIVER BIKE PATH SALT LAKE CITY

POOL AT SALT LAKE KOA

CAMPED AT SALT LAKE KOA - #808

MORMON TEMPLE

MORMON TABERNACLE CHOIR

BRIGHAM YOUNG AND ONE OF HIS WIVES/FAMILY

SCULPTURE IN GILGAL GARDEN

BRIGHAM YOUNG LIVED HERE WITH HIS 23+ WIVES AND MANY CHLDREN

UTAH CAPITAL BUILDING

INSIDE CAPITOL BUILDING

VIEW FROM CAPITOL BUILDING

INSIDE CAPITOL BUILDING... MARBLE MARBLE MARBLE!!

Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Jun 24-26th -The Bryce Canyon National Park

Monday June 24^th

Well it was a hot morning in Page, so we decided to just get on the road and let the truck AC do its job. It was 153 miles and what a drive to Bryce Canyon.

Finally and slowly we left the arid and dry desert behind. We passed through some amazing red sandstone rock formations and arrived at Ruby’s Inn and RV resort in Bryce Canyon City (not really a city... very small community just outside the gates to Bryce Canyon National Park.) The RV park (we are in Site 120) is quite pleasant with nice shade, and the temperature is finally down to bearable levels around 80 degrees during the day, but expected to be only 44 at night.. good for sleeping. Internet very weak (but at least there is access to emails etc) so unable to do too much research, but we have planned our day tomorrow in Bryce Canyon National Park.

We went for a walk to the Inn and Market Place and bought a detailed map of the area. Had a fish dinner and caught up on the blog.

Tuesday June 25^th 2013

Another amazing day. Bryce Canyon National Park is nothing short of breathtaking… we are definitely sounding pretty boring with all the ‘amazings’ and ‘beautifuls’ and ‘awesomes’, but really these places are outside of our realm to describe. We had heard from several sources that Bryce Canyon is in many ways more vivid than the Grand Canyon, but again… we were not prepared for what we saw. This crumbling plateau is filled with canyons, grottos, caves, strata, all set in vibrant deep reds, oranges, chalky whites and greens of pines and balsam fir. We drove right through the park to the end… took a short loop walk and oohed and aaahed our way back to the main visitors area by stopping at every lookout point on the way back. We were so taken with the place that we forgot to eat all day. So after a short ‘ranger’ walk and talk we headed back to camp and cooked up a small steak, quinoa and salad… not much conversation after our food was in front of us!!!!

After dinner went to a ranger presentation at the lodge and learned about how early man in this are studied the stars and determined when to plant crops and predict the seasons, and also giving lessons on how to live based on stories about the stars. Then back to the visitors centre where there were four telescopes setup to watch the night sky before the moon arose to spoil the sky vision. We saw Messier 57 nebulae, the gases from the star that is extinct. The light that we see is actually from 640 AD!!! We saw Saturn clear as day along with its moon Titus. We saw a bi-lateral star that orbits each other one yellow and one blue. We saw three, yes three, shooting stars or meteors. The night sky at Bryce is famous for its clarity We stargazed for almost 2 hours

Wednesday June 26

So up a little later than planned after another cold night but this time we were prepared with the extra blanket. Probably went down to 4 Celsius last night. Off to do some hiking and we went down the Queen Elizabeth trail and then carried on to the Navaho trail link. We came back up on the Navaho trail through the switchbacks they call Wall Street. Being down in the Hoodoo’s was the experience of a lifetime. So many colours of red and orange offset with the vivid greens of the pine trees. The pathway twisted and turned in and out of the sun. The walk was maybe 3.5 miles and was a vertical of 800 ft. Back up on the rim after two hours of reasonably strenuous activity we felt entitled to the ice creams that we devoured.

And so the Bryce canyon portion of our adventure comes to a close. Absolutely captivating, beautiful yet different from the Grand Canyon, but similar in that the same rock strata are exposed. However, the comparison is faulted (along with the limestone) Bryce is not a canyon, it is actually a prehistoric plateau subject to massive erosion from sea, ice, water and wind at its edge to develop vistas that are probably unequaled anywhere in the world.