Southern Utah

We decided to do a road trip despite the gas prices. Crazy you say? Yep, we know. It was either expensive plane tickets, hotels, rental car, and spending money for wild adventures in Hawaii or some place exotic OR a road trip near our house. We went on the cheap-side the ventured across the Utah country side. It was well worth it. Here's a play-by-play on what we did.

Day 1: Drive, drive, drive down the I-84 to I-15. Drive some more. Snack. Drive again. Sleep at the Econo lodge.

Day 2: Get up at the crack of dawn, literally. Drive into Zion National Park via the Kolob Canyons Road interance. Ooooohhh's and aaaahhhh's come from our gaping mouths as we look at the beautiful scenery before us. Drive out of park and back into it via south entrance. Get camping spot set up in the South Campground. Cool view. See pictures. Take shuttle up to Angel's landing hiking trail (5 miles up hill the WHOLE way, last 1/2 mile is a scrambler/rock climber). Make it to top, yeah, and head back down to the Emerald pools trail (2-3 miles total, easier than angel's landing). Get back on shuttle and head to Riverside Walk trail (easy, heading to Narrows region, 2 miles total). Phew, too much walking on a VERY hot day. Feeling coated with salt and dirt about now so we head to the showers at a local bike shop and then make a little din-din before zonking out hardcore.

Day 3: Can't do Narrows hiking trail because the river is running to hard and fast so we head outta Zion for Bryce National Park via the Zion-Mount Carmel Highway. Show up in Bryce to realize it is a small area to look at and hike around. We take a minute to check out the visitors center and very quickly head out to see what's before us. Bryce is an area of HooDoos so we hike into them by the Navajo trail, Queens trail, and Rim trail (easier, about 4 miles or so total). Gerry tired of hiking by now and is looking forward to changing it up to biking soon. We decide to jet outta Bryce after a few hours and some lunch to make another long haul over to Arches and Canyonlands National Parks. Drive through Capitol Reef National park on the way, cool enough. See Anasazi State Park Indian ruins to get out and stretch. We realize the back roads through rural Utah are taking FOR-EV-ER to get through (having to slow down to 30 miles per hour in every small town) and have to hotel up in a sketchy place called Green River. The only thing green in that town was the paint on the walls and the bed spreads in our hotel.

Day 4: Drive a little bit and find ourselves at the entrance of Arches National Park. VERY, VERY windy today. Sand blowing in our eye-zes. Make our way around the park by hiking several small trails to see every arch imaginable. Made sure we hiked 3 miles up to Delicate Arch, very cool. People say it's supposed to fall over in the next few years. Bummer! Bored with hiking and really want to bike with Moab nearby. Drive into Moab (all of 5 minutes away), find a camping spot, eat lunch, check out Slick Rock Trail. Finally a little mountain biking. Meet some really cool people from Seattle and hang out for awhile, talking with the sun setting.

Day 5: MAY 14th my 28th Birthday!!! We start out early and complete the Slick Rock mountain bike trail. It was a challenge for me but of course it was a piece of cake for Gerry. Could have something to do we me not biking hardly at all for the past 2 years or maybe Gerry is REALLY GOOD! Finish by noon, have a beer with a fellow biker we met on the trail (he's from Whistler, good connection for when we venture to Blackcomb on another road trip), and take a little breather. Drive up to Manti La-Sal National Forest, realize it's still snowing up there and decide NOT to camp there. Drive into Canyonlands National Park and check out many different views from scenic pullouts. Try to set up camp there but no luck, full for the night. Find a 4x4 trail and decide to give 'er a whirl. Over 20 miles later over the Shafer Trail Road and now 8:30 at night. We still don't have a place to stay. Hmmmmm, so we hi-tail it back to town (Moab) and proceed to walk into at least a dozen hotel lobbys to find they all have no vacancy. With a little help from a hotel receptionist we score a room (expensive too, ouch!) and try to find some food. Sleep very well tonight.

Day 6: Bike Klondike Bluffs trail in Moab (about 10 miles or so) and decide we are tired and ready to head north. As we drive we get all excited for our nice bed at home and the thoughts of petting our puppy again so we keep going till we reach Boise, at 9:00pm. Pick up dog from friends house, get home, unpack, shower, hit the sack.

And that's all folks!!! This concludes the dialogue of Poe Vacation 2008!