Backroads Travelers

A lot of travel this summer. A few weeks after returning home from Lake Powell, we headed out to Utah again for a Dayton family reunion - my mother and my siblings. We debated whether to drive the motorhome on this trip but decided to make a number of scenic side trips on the way home so the motorhome became a necessity. We left home on Tuesday (8/22) and stopped over in Moab to stay a night with Jim and Anna Maria (Liz's sister). They are incredible hosts and not only took great care of us but took us to the Arches National Park...a place we hadn't been for many years. We decided we must come back to Moab and stay a week to really explore the area and take in all it has to offer.

Canyon Wall leading in to Arches National Park

Sand Dune Arch in Arches National Park
Liz, Lee and Anna Maria
Kids love the sand here

Landscape Arch
Longest natural rock span in the world

Jim and Anna Maria Englebright

The next morning we planned to travel on to the family reunion in Fairview, UT but Liz had a case of vertigo and was too dizzy to travel.....so we spent an extra day at Anna Maria's for Liz to get her balance back and Jim took me on a trip through the back country near Moab on his Polaris Ranger. It was great to have an extra day to explore Moab.

Indian carvings on a boulder that we passed

Me with the Polaris Ranger

Jim and I after a day in the Ranger

On Thursday Liz was feeling better and we drove to Price, UT to meet up with my siblings who were visiting Price and Dragerton; two places we lived when I was growing up. We stopped at many of our childhood landmarks including the three homes we lived in, the church we attended, the school (no longer standing), Dad's medical office, and the grave of our brother Darell.

That evening we drove on to Fairview, UT through some beautiful country and arrived at the cabin that Mom had rented for the occasion. Actually, we didn't exactly "arrive at the cabin" because while the cabin was amazing, the gravel road up the mountain to the cabin was treacherous and the motorhome had to be left at the bottom. Six of my seven siblings were at the reunion along with the spouses of all the boys and we had a good time catching up while taking in the beautiful views and enjoying the hot tub. The cabin was truly awesome and had all the room and amenities we could want.

The Reunion "Cabin"

Hot Tub - site of serious discussions

Mom and my siblings in the kitchen

View from the balcony

On Saturday (8/26) the reunion ended and we drove south to Duck Creek, a beautiful campground in the mountains near Cedar City, UT. Next morning we headed east and picked up highway 12 heading to Bryce Canyon. Highway 12 is one of the most scenic roads in the country, winding through deep sheer walled sandstone canyons and climbing into beautiful forested mountains. It also passes two national parks, Bryce and Capitol Reef. We stopped at Bryce and rode the bike trail along the rim....it was beautiful and great fun.

Bryce Canyon

The obligatory "selfie" at Bryce Canyon

That night we stayed at Calf Creek campground which is a little way past the town of Escalante on highway 12. The next morning we made a 6 mile round trip hike to Calf Creek falls. This 120 ft cascade falls into a beautiful pool that's good for swimming if you can stand the cold. The falls were beautiful and the hike was well worth it!!

Campsite at Calf Creek

Calf Creek Falls
after a 3 mile hike

The falls are 120 ft - beautiful

In the afternoon we pushed on through Capitol Reef, stopped at Stan's Burger Joint in Hanksville, UT for dinner, and drove past Lake Powell via Hite on highway 95 arriving at Natural Bridges National Monument campground Tuesday evening. We have probably driven past the turnoff for Natural Bridges 25 times since it's on our way to Lake Powell but we have never gone there to see it. The short drive off of highway 95 to this Monument is well worth it. There are 3 natural bridges in a deep slick rock canyon that are truly beautiful to see. We're so glad we stopped to see them.

Campsite at Natural Bridges National Monument

Trail to one of the natural bridges
Before the stairs were added, visitors had to climb down that tree next to the stairs

Natural Bridge No. 1

Natural Bridge No. 2

Natural Bridge No. 3

After leaving Natural Bridges we made a beeline for home. This was our second trip to Utah during the summer and we were ready to get back to some flat boring Texas terrain and high humidity.

On June 16 we left home for our annual trip to the west and Lake Powell. This year we were not pulling a boat (Keetons provided the speedboat for LP) so we had more flexibility in choosing our route out west. We decided to go through Rocky Mountain National Park. We drove over the Trail Ridge Road which summits at 12,181 ft and provides amazing views of the snow covered Rocky Mountains.

Trail Ridge Road in
Rocky Mountain National Park

We stayed for two nights in Timber Creek campground near the headwaters of the Colorado River. The campground apparently had it's own private herd of Elk that freely roamed through the campsites.

Local Elk herd at
Timber Creek Campground

We also hiked along the headwaters of the Colorado River and visited the Holzwarth Historic Site which was a fishing lodge in the early 1900's that catered to trout fishermen who wanted to fish the upper Colorado River.

Upper Colorado River

Holzwarth Trout Lodge

After leaving Rocky Mountain Natl Park, we headed west on highway 40 through Steamboat Springs and on to the Green River Campground in Dinosaur Natl Monument in Utah. We spent a day here exploring the area. We hiked up to Split Mountain Campground which is where Topher and I finished up our river rafting trip down the Green River in 2006. At the visitors center we looked at the partially excavated dinosaur bones still in the wall where they were found....very interesting.

Split Mountain on the Green River in
Dinosaur National Monument

Wall with partially excavated dinosaur bones
Visitors Center - Dinosaur Natl Monument

Next we traveled on to Flaming Gorge Natl Recreation Area and found a beautiful overlook of the lake.

Flaming Gorge Reservoir

On June 22 we arrived at Bear Lake, Utah for a family reunion with Liz's siblings.We had a dinner and family meeting at Jacob's cabin to address the plans for the disposition of the family farm. We stayed two nights at the Bear Lake KOA which was more like an amusement park than a campground. We had a great time catching up with Liz's siblings and their families. We also spent some time looking around the family homestead in Paris, Idaho and took a tour of the tabernacle.

Paris, ID Tabernacle

From Bear Lake we headed to Tetons Natl Park, one of our favorite spots on earth. We stayed at Colter Bay campground for 3 nights and spent the days hiking and biking the area. It was as beautiful as ever with much more snow than usual.

Tetons from the trail

Pic from the trail around String Lake

On June 30 we arrived at Craters of the Moon Natl Monument in Idaho. This was a hotbed of volcanic activity just a few thousand years ago. On site you can see volcanic cones and fissures, old lava flows and lava tubes. We had a great time biking and hiking the area.

Core of an old volcano

Campground in the lava fields

Lava tube

Cinder cone

The next few days we drove through the Sawtooth Natl Forest passing through Sun Valley and Stanley on Hwy75. Then we took Hwy 21 to Lowman and then Hwy 17 to Banks. Along the way we went through some beautiful Idaho mountain country. We also found a 20 mile bike trail (Harriman Trail) through the forest.

Harriman Trail bike path
over Wood River

Overlook of the Sawtooth Mountains

Red Fish Lake

From Banks we went up Hwy 55 to Donnelly, ID where we spent the night at the Chalet RV Park. On July 3 we met up with Liz's friend Tresa Frost from McCall and she showed us the town and took us on a beautiful hike up to a waterfall. The scenery around McCall was amazing, reminiscent of the heavy foliage along the northern coast in Oregon and Washington. That evening we drove down to Boise to spend the night.

Waterfall on Trail Creek near McCall, ID

Liz's friend Tresa Frost

Public Garden near McCall

On July 4 we arrived at Burley, ID. That evening we watched the fireworks in the park and spent the night at the farm of Thales and Bonnie (Liz's brother). Next day we got up and took a tour of the farm on our bikes. The crops looked very good....there has been plenty of water this year. That afternoon we headed to Provo where we stayed at Nuns Park in Provo Canyon. We biked the Provo Canyon trail and drove down to Orem to visit my mother and sister (Claudia) at the Seville Retirement Community. After a nice lunch and catching up with them we drove on to the Sam's Club in Provo to begin shopping for the Lake Powell trip.

We arrived at Lake Powell on July 9. This year we had the Keeton family and the Topher Dayton family for a total of 6 adults and 5 kids. We spent July 10 exploring up river and found the lake water high enough this year to reach the Indian ruins in Forgotten Canyon. Tuesday we headed down river and found a nice spot in a water cave on the Escalante River. That evening a big storm came up and the wind pulled out 3 of our 4 anchors. We had some exciting moments while we got the anchors re-set. After that crisis we were able to enjoy the storm which sent a flurry of waterfalls cascading over the canyon walls. We enjoyed boating, exploring, cliff jumping, skiing, tubing, fishing, and swimming during the rest of the week without further incident. The houseboat ran very well this year and provided comfortable living quarters. Topher brought his projector so we had a couple of outdoor movie nights. We also had a campfire with marshmallow roasting, stargazing, and singing with the guitars.