Tuesday June 17, 2014

 

Non-Travel Day

 

We awoke to a cool crisp morning, requiring a sweatshirt, but the sun was out and we had no doubt that it would warm up . We decided that today we would drive part of “Scenic Byway 12, Utah’s All-American Road”, from its start at the intersection of US Rt. 89 we headed east on UT Rt. 12. Last year this route was judged as the second best scenic byway in the lower 48
states. The highway travels through a diverse, remote and very rugged landscape. From
the west it starts out by going through Red Canyon, an area of beautiful red rock mountains and rock formations, it then passes through Bryce Canyon National Park. It was here that we took a short hike of about 1 mile round trip, the first half being all uphill, to a beautiful waterfall and “Mossy Cave”, a hollowed out area in the rock face that has several springs flowing from it. It was a wonderful sight to see a waterfall and fast flowing stream here in the desert. Continuing along the scenic byway we passed through landscapes ranging from mountain valleys to high alpine forests with vistas of beautiful rock formations and cliffs of several colors. Most of the road runs through the “Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument” and the “Dixie National Forest” which are both wilderness areas, so except for the few small towns along the way there is absolutely nothing except for the beauty of the varying landscape . The few small towns that are along the highway were settled by Mormon families who established homes and ranches in the area, most of which are now gone, some of the area is so remote that they did not get electricity until the 1950’s. We stopped at numerous scenic overlooks along the way to marvel at the scenery and were always amazed at what we saw. Around 3:00 we decided to turn around, retracing our earlier steps and return to the
camper. During the trip home the wind picked up to the point where I had to forcibly counter the effects on the truck. Even here in the campground the wind is blowing steadily, to the point that the camper is rocking, it is like being on a boat out at sea. Tonight we had a delicious dinner of smoked beef brisket at a local restaurant, Cowboy’s Smokehouse.