June 29th – July 13th, 2023

We spent two weeks at the KOA in West Yellowstone and visited the park nine times. The park is huge. You could spend a lifetime there (and some employees do) exploring the 2.2 million acres of mountains and valleys, rivers and lakes, prairies, canyons, trails, geysers, hot springs, fumaroles, travertine terraces and mud pots.

The most unique part for us midwesterners was visiting the 10,000+ thermal features in the park. Several guides and rangers told us that Yellowstone is home to nearly half the world’s geysers and that is because the majority of the park is nestled quietly on top of a huge caldera. And guess what, a caldera is an inactive (for now) volcano.

When could Yellowstone have a major eruption? Most of the research I found says it is possible within the next 100,000 years. So we are probably safe to enjoy the tiny little releases of pressure we can see regularly from the 500+ geysers at the park. The most predictable is Old Faithful. We did see it erupt a couple of times and it’s interesting, if a little underwhelming after envisioning it for years.

If you visit Old Faithful, be sure to take the attached trail to see many more, smaller, but cool thermal features. You can enjoy them from a well maintained path, including boardwalks that give you wonderful peeks into the steamy center of the earth all from a safe distance.

Another fun hike is the Norris Geyser Basin. This area features Steamboat Geyser. Steamboat’s major eruptions can be the largest in the park at over 300 feet high. Signs around the parking area remind you that National Park Service is not responsible if your car gets geysered – and it could! The challenge with Steamboat is that its eruptions are not nearly as neatly timed as Old Faithful’s. It has gone years without erupting, but has then erupted 48 times in 2020 alone…makes sense. That year deserved a few earthly temper tantrums. We saw it spitting and fussing a bit, but we did not see an eruption.

We saw many steaming hot streams and some very stupid tourists getting far too close (with their kids) to the near boiling water. We heard more than one story about bodies having to be recovered from scalding water because a tourist thought “it couldn’t be THAT hot.”

My very favorite thermal feature is the mud pots. We saw some that looked like a grayish boiling hot chocolate (more water than mud) and some that bubbled and spit like a witches cauldron filled with boiling mud. To see my favorite one go to the Artists paint pot hike. It’s just a mile round trip and you can see a sampling of most of the types of thermal features.

The thermal features sport some gorgeous colors!

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Watch for some posts on the other beautiful parts of Yellowstone!

Thermal feature tip: Go early or late. The cooler the temperatures, the more steamy they look and at sunset – just WOW!

June 10th 2023

I was not familiar with Canyonlands National Park when we started our journey. It sits about 30 minutes from Moab and is Utah’s biggest national park. At 337,598 acres it is over four times the size of it’s much more popular sister, Arches National Park. If you are looking for a quiet hike or visit, choose Canyonlands.

Canyonlands is broken up into several districts and each area is inaccessible from the other. We were closest to the most accessible portion of the park, Island in the Sky, so we spent our time there.

Islands in the Sky is a mesa that rises over 1000 feet over the surrounding lands. It is filled with gorgeous overlooks and it feels like you can see forever.

The Maze is the least accessible area of the park. It is not recommended that you hike into the Maze unless you are well prepared and very experienced. You must have the right equipment to self rescue if needed as the area is very remote and can be dangerous.

The Needles is at the southeast part of the park and got its name from the bright sandstone that just into the air.

The last section of the park is comprised of the Colorado and Green that wind through the other areas. There are parts of the rivers that are peaceful and perfect for kayaking and canoes, and below the Confluence you can enjoy rafting in the powerful whitewater.

Sources – Visit Utah, nps.gov and our own experiences!

June 11th, 2023

If you find yourself near Moab, Utah you will have an incredible number of activities to choose from. Both Arches and Canyonlands National Parks are within a half hour drive, you can explore the cute Moab downtown, there are hikes and rafting adventures, mountain biking and ATV rentals.

Enjoy all of those, but save a full day to enjoy the Upper Colorado River Scenic Byway (UT 128) and the La Sal Mountain Loop.

The incredible snowmelt this year filled the Colorado river to the brim and it was blazing fast and beautiful!

We passed several gorgeous guest ranches and did stop for a beverage at the store attached to the Sorrel River Ranch!

This beautiful byway is 44.5 miles long and snakes through a red rock gorge with sandstone walls, towers and spires. You can see why this gorge has been used as a location for movies and commercials. It is curvy and crazy, but nothing in comparison to the offshoot we took called La Sal Mountain Loop.

We took this beautiful drive, which loops 60 miles from the Upper Colorado River Scenic Byway up through the mountains and then follows the Colorado back to Moab.

The narrow, twisting road tested Tim’s driving skills and slight fear of heights in many areas, but my offers to drive were rebuked as I think he would have had even more stress watching me take the curves!

The La Sal mountains are millions of years old, gorgeous and boast snowy tops in the middle of June.

We missed it, but I understand that a few miles off the loop road you can see preserved dinosaur tracks at the overlook of Fisher Mesa.

Reba approved of the drive and thought her little pit stop was quite fun!

June 9-11th, 2023

Arches National Park is a modest sized park with huge popularity. This has led to crowds! The number of visitors has grown steadily and now the park gets over 1.8 million visitors a year.

To help with parking and to keep the experience enjoyable, Arches has instituted a timed entry system during the busiest parts of the day. You register with recreation.gov to get a pass. We booked one pass months before we were going to be there, but were able to snag another one while we were there, so as long as you are flexible with the day and time you want to show up, you can get in. You can also get in if you show up before 7am or after 4pm.

Sixty five million years ago, the area was a dry seabed that was probably uninteresting. Geologic changes then forced the buried rock up, pushing sandstone thousands of feet in the air. Wind and water then did their thing, eroding softer parts of the rock and creating fins, walls, windows and yes, arches.

According to the ranger we met in the park, an arch is different from a bridge. While they look very similar, an arch is created when the stone in the middle is cracked by ice and whipped away by wind, while a bridge is created by water dragging out the softer rock in the middle. There is some disagreement on this online, but I’ll go with the ranger.

There are other beautiful rock formations in the park. Below you will see examples of a hoodoo, a fin or a wall, and another arch.

On the hoodoo you can see where the softer rock in the middle was blown away leaving a large piece of harder rock balanced on top. These are so cool!

Tuesday June 27th, 2023

We don’t like to drive more than 4-5 hours on travel days, so we needed a stop between our Salt Lake City/Heber City stop and our two week stay near Yellowstone.

Lava Hot Springs struck out to me since the only thing our beautiful rig is missing is a bathtub!

We stayed at the Lava Hot Springs East KOA. It’s a nice park, with newer amenities like playground equipment and laundry and it sits right on the Portneuf river, but the price is too high for gravel sites and they charge an extra fee for dogs. I have never seen a dog fee at a KOA and we stay at them all the time. For the extra fee, I’d expect a Taj Mahal dog park, but Reba was not impressed with the tiny size, no room to throw the ball and no place for daddy to sit.

We met some really cool people at the park. Our next door neighbors were both ex military and they have some very cool life stories. I hope I see a book from them in the future. If so, I’ll recommend it to you!

The little town of Lava Hot Springs is cute. It is definitely set up for tourists to the springs and river tubing. There are tubes for rent every 100 feet or so and the hot springs and swimming center are walkable from everywhere.

Tim and I visited the famous hot springs soaking pools. It is a beautiful facility with multiple pools ranging from 102 to 112 degrees. The grounds are landscaped with gorgeous flowers, plants and statues to add to the relaxing ambiance. The springs are unique as they are all natural with no chemicals, no sulfur and no odor.

Soaking in the hot pools is incredibly relaxing, but it does push your heart rate way up, so be careful when getting out. We saw a few get lightheaded.

We took a 20ish mile drive over to Soda Springs and found the Soda Springs Geyser, which was a fun surprise. It was “discovered” when the town leaders were searching for more hot springs, but accidentally hit an underground carbon dioxide gas chamber that shot fizzy water over 70 feet in the air.

The story goes that shortly afterwards they got a telegram from the Secretary of the Interior to ask them to turn the geysers off because it was throwing off the schedule of “Old Faithful.” The Geyser is now mechanically managed and goes off every hour on the hour for 5-10 minutes. Be sure to watch the video below.

June 5th, 2023

While we were in the Zion area we drove over to Bryce Canyon National Park.

Bryce is known for having the largest number of hoodoos in the world. What’s a hoodoo? It is the incredible spire like formation that is left after some incredible changes over history. Plate tectonic changes lifted the limestone, dolostone, mudstone, siltstone and sandstone found in the area to a perfect place for weather and erosion to do their thing.

Ice formed between the cracks in the rock forcing some of them to break off forming the walls and windows you see in the park. Eventually these are worn further into individual hoodoos. The most dramatic ones have a harder rock on top of a softer one so you see the knobs and juts that looks like they are barely balancing and ready to topple over any moment.

We used our Guide Along app again on this trip. I call the narrator “Grandpa Walton” because his voice reminds me of the hometown stories from that show. Grandpa told us to drive to the end of the canyon drive and stop at the pullouts and overlooks on the way back as most of them would then be on the right side of the truck.

We started with a short hike that Tim actually enjoyed. It hit nearly 9000 feet at one point, so even though it was short, it was tough on the lungs!

We stopped at every viewpoint and pull-out and the views were incredible! There are hikes throughout the park. You could spend weeks here and not be bored.

At the end of our drive through Bryce we came to the Fairyland loop trail that my friend Michelle told me about. We met Michelle and her husband at Distant Drums RV Resort. The full trail is over eight miles and we were at the end of our day, so I just left Reba with Tim at the overlook and hiked about 45 minutes until the clouds and lightening rolled in. I was determined to get near at least ONE hoodoo and I did! 🙂

If you find yourself within a few hours’ drive of Bryce Canyon please don’t miss it. And if you have the time, give yourself a full day to explore the Fairyland loop trail. I’ll be back to do it one day! (If you want to go with me, let me know!)

June 1 – June 8th 2023

After leaving the Grand Canyon area we headed to Zion River Resort which put us just a half hour from the entrance to Zion National Park.

The RV park was nice. We gave it an A for the large sites and access to the river, but Reba gave it a D for the dog park that was severely lacking in space and grass.

The first day we did a drive through the park on the Zion – Mount Carmel Highway. It was a beautiful drive. We did see some folks bring their smaller rigs through that way, but I would not recommend it. It was plenty adventurous taking the F350 on the switchbacks, curves and through the tunnel!

The 5,000 foot long tunnel was built in the 1920s and is just big enough for a single lane of regular sized vehicles in each direction. There are set hours where you can bring a larger vehicle in. When an RV or other large vehicle approaches, they shut down one side at a time so everyone can get through safely.

We stopped for pictures at Checkerboard Mesa. You can see weathering marks that make the mesa look like, you guessed it, a checkerboard!

The Zion Mount Carmel Highway is the only portion of the main park where you can drive yourself. To keep the crowds manageable, they have closed the Zion Canyon Scenic Drive to personal vehicles and have a well run bus system that will take you around the rest of the main park.

Months before we got to Zion I saw that in order to hike Angels Landing that you needed a pass, so being naive, I put myself in the lottery for one and….I got approved. I found out later that Angels Landing is one of the most dangerous hikes in the US. After hiking in Sedona, I got enough confidence that I kept the pass and decided to give it a try.

Angels Landing begins at the end of the Scout Lookout trail so the day of my permit I decided to hike Scout Lookout and just see what I thought when I got there.

Scout Lookout trail is only 3.5 miles round trip, but the 1100 feet of elevation gain made it one of the most challenging hikes I have done to date. Tim’s max agreed upon trail is 2 miles and 200 feet of elevation, so I did this one on my own. It is HARD – and the views are GORGEOUS!

It took me over an hour to get to the top. I had to stop many, many times to catch my breath, grab some water and take in the scenery.

Once I had time to rest, I made my way to the start of Angels Landing, which is the permitted part of the hike. Angels Landing only adds .4 miles to the hike (.8 round trip) but it is a 400 foot elevation gain on the way up and sheer drop offs on both sides of the trail in many areas. It is also VERY crowded, so as you navigate the thin trail and sheer drop offs you are often wiggling your way past climbers going in the other direction as you cling to heavy chains placed to keep people from falling.

Since I had a much coveted pass, I decided to at least do the first little bit and you can see me hanging on the chains on the very first, easiest part of the climb below. I did not make it to the top and I do not feel badly about that decision. 🙂

We spent another day at the park riding the bus and checking out some of the other gorgeous trails. Tim and I did the Riverside Walk and the short (but high) hike to Weeping Rock. I had hoped to at least do a portion of the Narrows hike, but it was closed due to high velocity of the water in the river.

I did part of the Emerald Pools hike by myself and it was nice, but not as inspiring as the others.

I will definitely come back and spend more time in Zion National Park. Next time I’d try to book far in advance and see if we could stay in the park. The sites are much more primitive, but you would not have to worry about parking (it is a HUGE issue) and we would be able to be in the park at night – which I’m sure is spectacular.

May 26th, 2023

We have had some issues with AT&T Service throughout northern Arizona and Utah, so I’m just catching up on posts from the past three weeks!

During that time we had many mostly off-line adventures. I was able to load some short videos to Facebook and TikTok, but the longer ones had to wait until I had some reasonable service.

In mid-May, after returning from our European baby got married adventure we headed to Williams, AZ which would be our home while we checked out the Grand Canyon and the surrounding area.

Our first day there, we took the Grand Canyon Railway from Williams to the canyon. After experiencing the beautiful scenery on the Verde Valley Railway, we were a bit disappointed in the views from our rail car, but the staff more than made up for the lack of views with incredible service and entertainment!

We picked up our tickets and dropped Reba off at their on-site kennel which was so simple. She was well cared for and got to play with one of the staff member’s pup for the day!

Before boarding the train you are treated to a short wild-west show that is cute. We got to meet a gang of train robbers and the Marshall who would protect us on our journey. Sort of.

You can take the train for as little as $69 in pullman class, but we splurged for first class tickets to get the large, comfy seats, bar service and complimentary snacks. You can also upgrade for the observation dome. As I mentioned the scenery on the trip is not that special, so I wouldn’t spend the money for this one. Luxury dome gets you dome seating and a lounge like car below and you can even upgrade to a luxury parlor with a rear platform.

The host in our car not only provided excellent service, but he told stories about the history of the area and the train line that helped bring Williams, AZ back to life after many years of decline. Today, many of the permanent residents of Williams work for the railway, the attached hotel and RV park and surrounding tourist attractions.

We were serenaded on both legs of the trip by outstanding musicians and on the ride back to Williams we were overtaken by that rowdy band of robbers who relieved the passengers of dollar bills as they made their way through the cars. The Marshall did, of course, come to the rescue!

We added a bus tour for the time we were in the park. The stories were great, but we only got to see a few viewpoints and it made the day a bit rushed.

We made the 60 mile trip back to the canyon several more times in our truck and it was simple to park and enjoy the park that way. I’d recommend the Railway for a fun experience, not as necessary transportation to the Grand Canyon.