Reflections on the Utah Adventure

We are home. Arrived at 7:00 on Friday the 6th. After we left Hurricane, Utah Sunday, it west on I-15, skirt around Las Vegas, and north on highway 95 to I-80 at Reno. In Reno (actually in Sparks) we met with Ron and Nikki (and daughters Erin and Elizabeth) for a great breakfast and lots of  “catching up conversation.” Ron was my youth pastor in Grants Pass.

We stayed two nights in Corning, CA just to rest from our vacation (!) and catch up sorting all the tourist brochures we had collected. It was close to 100* on Wednesday and was going to be 103* on Thursday. We got out of there.

Last night we were in the wonderful front yard “camp ground” of our friends Mike and JoAnn in Grants Pass. It was good to visit with them, with Joyce’s brother and his wife, and with some other former church people.

Here are a few reflections on our adventure to Utah.

We traveled 3,888 miles – I think. I’ll do a better calculation in a day or so. I’ll also figure fuel mileage and that sort of thing for those who like numbers. We were gone 25 days.

Weather? Fantastic. Mostly cool. Mostly sunny. There were some clouds and a little rain. This was in Moab with thunder storms in the distance. The rain didn’t bother us. The last few days it began to be hot but we survived it okay. In fact we only used the RV air conditioner the last 2 or 3 days. We couldn’t have asked for better weather.

My favorite camping place was Fruita Campground in Capitol Reef National Park. It was dry camping but was a very nice, quiet place to stay.

My favorite Park was Arches because of the size and diversity of landscape. There were short hikes for people like me and long hikes for those able to do so. And a person could see a lot without even hiking. Bryce ran a close second because it was so beautiful – much more so than any other place. But it was mostly viewpoints unless you wanted to hike down into the canyon. That, of course, meant hiking back up.

For the record Bryce Canyon is not really a canyon. It is the edge of a plateau. Zion National Park should be called Zion Canyon because it is one. The Virgin River runs into it at the top end, through it, and then on to (someplace).

We did lots of up-hill-down-hill driving. Of course that is to be expected in the mountains.  I have decided I don’t like pulling the fifth wheel along high mountain roads with steep drop offs and no guard rails. We did our share of that and I sweat quite a bit! One place was called the Hogback on Scenic Highway 12 in Utah. Just enough flat on top to put two lanes of highway (narrow lanes, I might add). Then drop off on both sides for about 10,000 feet – more or less. Honestly, I have no idea how far down it was because I wasn’t looking.

The Lord was gracious to us. Everything went well and worked well. We saw some amazing creation. God set things up to leave some wondrous beauty for us to behold. What an imagination God had/has!

One last thing… here’s the picture of my drenching as the wall of water is coming. This on the Colorado River raft trip. See the camera in my hand? All ready to take a picture but all I could think was, “I wonder how bad this is going to be.” Of course this picture was taken by a professional on the bank. The next picture after this one showed ALL white water with a  little blue raft showing through.

There is lots to do around the farm now. Got to get out there and put in my garden irrigation system.

Blessings.