The Great Salt Lake and The Avett Brothers

by James Walker

Day 10 - Thursday, June 28th, 2012



Our stay in Park City wasn't really planned. Due to the fires throughout Colorado, we had changed our plans so we would spend less time there and more time in Utah at the end of our trip, giving us time to see something we hadn't considered before. This was great because instead of running into Salt Lake City as fast as we could, then running out again the next morning, we had time to roam. The only down side was that for our extra night in Utah, we chose to stay in Park City. While it was clean and had some great gluten-free pizza, we were in another Ski Resort town in the middle of one of the hottest summers on record, and there was nothing to do.

While that's not entirely true (Alpine Coaster, Park City Museum), we chose to spend our time in Salt Lake instead. The drive is pretty short and we soon found ourselves cruising confusing streets like East 500 South and South 700 East. Look it up and you'll find that those are the cross streets where Trolley Square and Whole Foods are located. Drive down these streets as a newcomer to Salt Lake City and you'll definitely make a few wrong turns.

Today was an open day, though, and we had time to get lost. Our only solid plan was an Avett Brothers concert that night, so we wandered around town, seeing a few of Salt Lake City's biggest landmarks. First, we stopped at Trolley Square for a bite to eat at Whole Foods, and afterward walked through the courtyards at Temple Square. Here sits a massive temple for those of the Mormon faith, surrounded by a complex of buildings associated with the religion. While we were not here for religious purposes, the temple itself is amazing and well worth a visit.

Sitting behind the temple is a great hall with the Mormon Tabernacle Organ inside. By chance we came when the organist was performing a recital, so we went inside to see the big pipes play. Next we found ourselves at the Hogle Zoo, watching everything from giraffes to polar bears suffer through the hot June sun. Here's a little video. Eventually the time came to check in to our hotel and make our way over to the Avett Brothers show.

At this point, Erinn and I were both fans of the Avett Brothers, but neither of us had heard too many of their songs. Erinn had somewhere around 20 of their songs and we listened to them throughout the trip in anticipation of the show, but we knew going in that most of the songs we'd hear that night would be new to us. What I hadn't anticipated was how much fun the show would be or how much I'd like all of the rest of their songs. It was an absolutely fantastic show down at the Gallivan Center in downtown Salt Lake City. The venue had a big concrete stage surrounded by grass with big steps to sit on and while it was nice to lounge on the grass before the show, everyone stood up and started dancing once the Avett Brothers came on stage. Those songs we did know, Erinn and I sang along with. Those songs we didn't know, we fell in love with.

It was a great show and a wonderful way to end our trip (sort of). While this wasn't the last night of our trip, it was the last new city we would see on our adventure. The next day we were going back to Las Vegas, where it all began for us just ten days before. Neither of us were excited to head south toward home, but ending our adventure with an amazing concert in Salt Lake City one night and some random gambling in Las Vegas the next was a fun way to bring it all to a close.

After the show we walked back to our hotel, singing songs and dreaming of anything but home. Many months later, we're still listening to the Avett Brothers, partly because the music is great and partly because it reminds us of the time we spent on the road and all the amazing sights we were able to see together.

Our Route:


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A Scenic Drive Past the Grand Tetons

by James Walker

Day 9 - Wednesday, June 27th, 2012




Before Yellowstone, our trip had been nothing but hot. Whether we were walking around the dry, red rocks of Utah, checking out the shops of Boulder and Denver, or camping in the shadow of Devil's Tower, we had been constantly hot. Everything changed the moment we entered Yellowstone. The first night was chilly, but nice. Bundling up in sleeping bags had been comfortable. But each morning brought the kind of cold we were not used to in late June. I love the cold, but our bodies had been conditioned to endure the hot and the humid, and this sudden coldness made our joints freeze up and our fingers so numb it became nearly impossible to force them together hard enough to pull up the zipper on a jacket.

And this last morning in Yellowstone we had to break down the tent. We had to push through the cold and ignore the pain of numb fingers just long enough to pop out the poles and shove the tent into a bag, nevermind all the dirt and mud.

It was worth it, though, to get an early start on the day and enjoy a morning driving through Wyoming. We set off south from our camp in Grant Village heading toward Grand Teton National Park. It's a quick step from the borders of one National Park to the next. One moment you're in Yellowstone and the next you're being greeted by another big wooden sign announcing your entrance to the Grand Tetons. Not much changes initially, but soon after the entrance, you leave the covering of trees and came upon a beautiful view of Jackson Lake and the Grand Tetons themselves. There is a turnout here where I'm sure countless people have taken their own Grand pictures and we joined all the other travelers, capturing our own memories.

The road continues on along the eastern side of the lake with more beautiful views of these great peaks. We stopped at a visitor's center around the middle of the lake, picked up a map, stopped at a store to pick up some gluten-free cupcakes, and continued on. Soon after, we reached a point in the road where we could continue on the main highway or take a right on the smaller Teton Park Rd. Here, the highway veers away from the lake while Teton Park Rd gets nice and close. This trip wasn't about speed, but about enjoying the journey, so we took the smaller road and soaked in the views of Tetons.

It's a good thing, too. We had been writing down all the animals we had seen so far on our trip. Bunnies, squirrels, snakes, goats, bison, elk, foxes, and even bears. We had seen so much out in the wild, but we had not yet seen a moose. On this detour, though, we stopped at another viewpoint and talked to a couple who asked us to take their picture. Somehow our lack of moose sightings came up and they said they knew just where to go. Just after passing the exit to the park, there should be a tiny little road, they said, called Moose Wilson Rd. All we had to do was keep a watchful eye as we passed a few of the ponds and we should see a moose. We took their advice and headed down a skinny road we weren't completely sure about and stopped at every pond we saw hoping to come across this evasive mammal. We soon learned that we didn't need to try so hard to look. Just as it was in Yellowstone, when there's a big animal to be seen on the side of the road, there'll be fifty cars piled up with people falling out of their windows to get a picture of it on their iPhones. We were happy for the traffic jam, though. It gave us reason to leave our car in the middle of the road with all the rest and snap a few pictures of our own. Eventually we made our way out of the mess and found the main road again.

Jackson, Wyoming is beautiful. There are mountains all around it and the city itself is charming. We stopped at an Albertsons to get some food and see if we could find some gluten-free beer and even the Albertsons was adorable, all covered in wood like a giant cabin filled with veggies and toilet paper. But as charming as it was, we continued south, our destination still many hours ahead.

We followed Highway 89 down toward Utah, saw a lot of farmland and barns, took a quick drive through a bit of Idaho, and drove up into Park City, Utah. It's another nice city, full of beautiful hotels, surrounded by mountains groomed for skiing. We stayed at a weird condo/hotel where each room is owned (and decorated) by someone else. It was a very nice hotel, but the room we started with had doors that didn't lock, so we switched rooms, the concierge upgrading us to a room that had a door to the pool we weren't going to use. At this point, we were pretty tired, so we found a local pizza place and got some gluten-free pizza with fake cheese on top and took it back to the room to watch TV and kick back. It was a delicious end to a beautiful day in Wyoming.

Our Route:


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Arches National Park: Beauty in Utah, pt. 2

by James Walker

Day 3 - Thursday, June 21st, 2012

The next morning we packed up camp and drove north to I-70. I remember leaving Cedar City quite clearly, even a month from now. We had just completed the first major day of our trip and were headed toward another big day in Utah. We stopped at a gas station north of town and I remember the sense of excitement as we began our day. The plan was to drive to Arches, see the sights, and camp again in Moab, which is just south of the park. But, plans change. We'll get to that soon.

We stopped on the side of the road at a "vista" or "scenic view" or something after experiencing miles and miles of scenic views from the car. We figured it must be good if they built a parking lot just for taking in the views. So we stopped at this "vista" and took in the vast landscape of northern Utah, this part being dominated by miles of bluffs and canyons. At the turnout, there were a few people trying to sell jewelry laid out on blankets. We drove down the road a few more miles and came across another turnout and saw more beautiful landscape with more jewelry laden blankets. We stopped one more time at a rest area to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and it would have been a forgettable stop, but when I opened the peanut butter, the oil which had separated from the peanuts came flying out at me and got on my Star Wars shirt and my shorts. I smelled like peanut butter all day.

Eventually we got to the middle of nowhere, at which point we turned south toward Moab and the arches. We initially missed the entrance to Arches National Park because the sign was so inconspicuous. I suppose they don't need to advertise it too much since there's little else in the area, but it would be nice to have a slightly larger sign. The road into the park begins at the base of a hill which hides the rest of the park from view. To enter the park we drove up and around the hill and were treated to spectacular views of bright red rock formations. It was amazing coming around each corner to each new dramatic formation. The first few miles are full of these rocks, but soon levels out. Our visit here was similar to our experience in Zion in that we hadn't planned out specifics and only began putting together our afternoon once we got the brochure for the park. The map revealed how large the park really is and how spread out the main attractions are so we decided to drive as far out as possible before stopping and we would check out things on the way back out of the park. Our thinking was that we would get an idea of what's in the park and stop at the best bits on our way back out to our campsite in Moab. We would be very wrong.

Based on the map, we had decided to go to an area called Devil's Garden, which is at the furthest point in the park. This area has a lot of different hikes and a number of arches to see so it seemed like a good starting point. What we thought was interesting was that the Devil's Garden Campground which we had a reservation for that night had the same name as this dirty, very hot-looking campground we passed as we pulled into the Devil's Garden area. Go figure! That campground has the same name as ours, but we're down in Moab, right?

Nope.

We had unintentionally booked a night of camping inside Arches National Park and it did not look very inviting. There was nothing terribly wrong with this campground, but it was bare, the weather was 100+ degrees, and we were still newbies to camping. We weren't ready for it.

Our first hike was to Landscape Arch. It's a relatively easy hike from the Devil's Garden parking lot. It's mostly flat and only about 2 miles, round-trip. Our mistake, though, was planning to visit some of the hottest parts of Utah in the middle of June. The rocks on this hike jut up from the ground like they've been buried underneath the earth and have been excavated like some gigantic dinosaur bones. The rock is an orangeish red and all the sharp edges have been smoothed down by years of strong winds. Sometimes the area reminded me of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Anyway, the rock radiates heat and we were feeling it.

Landscape Arch is the end of the road for one of the hikes and it is an amazing sight. Apparently visitors of the park used to be able to hike up underneath the arch and look at it from below, but a large chunk of the arch fell in 1991 and the area directly beneath it was closed to hikers. But the view is still amazing from 50 feet out. When we reached the viewpoint, another guy offered to take our picture. After the picture we chatted for a bit and he mentioned that he had a thermometer on him and right there, right then it was 102 degrees! It certainly felt that hot so we headed back down the trail in search of shade and eventually some air conditioning in the car. Before the hike, we were still talking about whether to stay at the campground. On the way back to the car we had decided for certain that we wanted to sleep somewhere else.

Enjoying the shade

One of my favorite parts about travelling is when we change plans on the go. It's always nice having a plan to follow, knowing that you'll have somewhere to sleep that night, but sometimes it's fun to just figure things out as you're going. We eventually settled on a KOA in Grand Junction, moving us into Colorado a day earlier than expected.

But for now, we still had more arches to see! I remember both of us being quite drained from that first hike, as short as it was. The sun really sucked the energy out of us, so we weren't planning on doing any trails longer than a mile. Our next stop was at Delicate Arch. On the map there are a couple of places to stop for this arch. One of them is a 3 mile hike to the base of the arch and the other is a half mile hike to a scenic view of the arch. Of course, we opted for the shorter hike. This one was a bit more strenuous than we had anticipated, because it goes up a large hill for the whole hike, but we made it.

The hills around this area are a beautiful mix of colors. The base of the hill is a grayish blue, the middle is orange, and the top is a mix of deep red and brown rock. The viewpoint for Delicate Arch is some distance from the arch, but it is still quite a sight. It's easily the most famous of the arches here and I can see why.

Heading down the trail, back to our car, we were both getting hot and tired, but every spot that had even a sliver of shade was occupied by people, so we kept moving.

Our next stop was the best part of the park. We chose it mostly because of the number of arches in the area and the shortness of the hikes to those arches. This area is known as the Windows District and has short hikes to some very cool arches, such as Double Arch, Windows Arches, and Turret Arch. After seeing Landscape Arch and not being able to walk underneath the arch, I had assumed I wouldn't be able to walk under any of them, but here in the Windows District, the arches are pretty much free game. We first hiked up to the North Window. I was so excited to be able to walk underneath it!

We walked up to the base of the arch and snapped a few pictures, but I wanted to get as far up the arch as I could. Looking up into the arch, there is a section on the right that has a gradual slope that can be climbed fairly easily. Erinn didn't feel like climbing rocks so she was planning on taking pictures of me, but she said an old man offered to take a picture of the both of us so she got tricked into climbing up the rocks with me! It was great. The view was wonderful and it was exciting just to be underneath the arch, looking out into the valley, looking at the other arches in the area. From underneath the North Window, you can see both the Double Arch and Turret Arch. It was amazing.

By now, we had been sweating for hours and were covered in red dust, but we couldn't just look at Double Arch from a distance, so we hiked just a bit further. Double Arch is even more dramatic than the North Window. It has a short trail leading to the base and an area of rock underneath the arch that is easy to walk around on, but I really wanted to get as far up the arch as I could, so I climbed up into the second arch. It was so cool! It wasn't too hard of a climb up the rocks, but it was an area that no one else was going to, so it felt like a unique spot to be in. It was a great feeling.

This would be our last hike of the day. We got back in the car, blasted the AC, and settled in for a long drive. We were both covered in dust. Erinn took off her shoes and, looking at her feet, thought she had gotten a nice tan from the day's hike, but we realized it was just a thick layer of red dust.

On the drive out of the park we tried looking up the names of some of the larger formations as we drove past them. Some of them were easy to spot, but others weren't very distinct. We ended up giving silly names to the rocks we drove by.

The road north from Moab back to I-70 is pretty boring and heading west on I-70 is equally as boring until you get into Colorado, but then the mountains begin to take shape. We reached Grand Junction in the early evening, set up camp at the KOA, and headed for downtown, where we found a cool little farmer's market. There were lots of booths with tasty-looking fruits and veggies, mini playgrounds for kids at every block, and a statue of Dalton Trumbo sitting in a bath tub. It was a very cool downtown. We got a big cup of lemonade and wandered the street a while. Around 8pm, we went back to our campsite, cooked some veggies and sausages, and went to bed.

It was another grand adventure in Utah.






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Zion National Park: Beauty in Utah, pt. 1

by James Walker

Day 2 - Wednesday, June 20th, 2012

The southern tip of Nevada isn't what I would describe as beautiful. And it's hot. Usually it's really hot and the morning of June 20th was no exception. The first night of our trip was full of anticipation, but without any real excitement. We had made good time so far, but into a city neither of us cared for and we were eager to get to sleep so we could hit the road. So there we were, really bursting at the chance to get into Utah and see something amazing, but we were stuck in Las Vegas for the night.

The drive from Las Vegas to Zion is a relatively quick 3 hours. One of the cool parts of this drive is going through that little bit of Arizona as you head into the southwestern corner of Utah. Between Mesquite, NV and St. George, UT the I-15 highway goes through a bit of a canyon or gulch and the rock is red and jagged (video). The highway runs along the Virgin River, the same river that runs through Zion National Park, which we were headed to. The river here is slow, but pretty, and sets a contrast against the hot, red rock and the blue sky. But the drive is short and soon we were in Utah, passing through the town of St. George and switching highways to head into Zion itself.

The entrance to the park is right next to the Visitor's Center, which is also right next to the primary parking lot. June is tourist season and we were advised to find parking outside the park in the neighboring city of Springdale, but we got lucky and found a spot in the parking lot. However, one thing we hadn't counted on was leaving our propane tanks in a hot car all day. We worried about this for a while, but decided to throw the tanks into a collapsible cooler with a bit of ice to keep it cool. We figured it'd be better to have cold tanks than exploding tanks! After settling that, we jumped on one of the park's free shuttles and started our tour of the park.

The views start immediately upon entering the park; even from the parking lot we could see some of the prominent features of Zion. Being able to ride a shuttle was great because neither of us had to drive and we could both enjoy poking our heads out the window without being distracted by the road. At this point we had to start thinking about what we wanted to do while here in the park.

While we (and by we, I really mean Erinn) had planned out the big parts of our trip, we hadn't planned out the specifics, so when we got to Zion we didn't have a set itinerary. The attendant at the entrance had given us a packet and a map for the park so we picked out a place that sounded nice to stop at and went from there. We decided to stop at Zion Lodge, which is around the center of the shuttle loop through Zion Canyon.

Before we got to Zion, we had been considering a more ambitious hike up to Angel's Landing. This is a 5 mile round-trip, very strenuous hike which goes up a couple thousand feet to a beautiful lookout point. It all sounded amazing before the trip, but when we stepped into the hot weather of southern Utah in June, we decided to take it a easy and opted for a hike to the Emerald Pools. This trailhead can be accessed from the Zion Lodge shuttle stop and leads across the road, across a bridge over the Virgin River, and up just a bit into the walls of Zion Canyon. It's an easy hike, mostly on a paved road, and it led us to a beautiful trickling waterfall (video) that flows into the Lower Emerald Pool. We would have gone further on the trail, but it was closed for construction. The middle and upper pools look beautiful in pictures and I'm a bit bummed we couldn't see them this trip, but I'm sure we'll get there next time.

One nice surprise at Zion was that at various locations throughout the park there were "water refill stations" where you could easily pop your water bottle under a faucet and get some fresh water. We had packed lots of water, but we still went through it faster than we had anticipated and it was nice being able to fill up throughout the day.

After our trek up to the Emerald Pools we got back on the shuttle and continued our tour up the canyon. There are many stops along this route and even more hikes accessible from each stop, but we took the shuttle to the very top of the canyon and got off at the Temple of Sinewava. Here we took another easy hike on a trail called Riverside Walk which is known as the gateway to The Narrows. At this point, I think we were both drained from the heat, but we were pushing each other to go further and see more Zion. The walk to the beginning of The Narrows isn't much longer than a mile, but the sun was zapping our energy and it seemed to take quite a while, but we would hit a nice stretch of shade and remember how beautiful everything was. One of the cool features of this area were the hanging gardens along the canyon walls. Water flows constantly down the walls of the canyon and at certain points where there is an outcropping or ledge some plants will grow, creating this wet, green garden on top of hot, red rock. It's pretty and they're all over Zion, but you can see them up close here on your walk to The Narrows.

The name for The Narrows is pretty obvious; this is the top of the canyon where the walls get very close and the passage gets more and more narrow. Also, you may have seen pictures of The Narrows without knowing what it was. It's a beautiful area where the close canyon walls have been carved out by wind and water and have this very smooth, curved look. The hike through The Narrows is actually a hike through the Virgin River with you wading through water up to your stomach. It's a lot of fun, especially after hiking around in 100 degree heat all day, but we hadn't planned for getting wet so we had to turn around when the water reached our knees. I think we would have been fine getting our clothes wet, but we both had phones and cameras on us and we didn't want to risk damaging them. So there's another hike for next time and a reminder that it might be a good idea to bring a bag or something to protect your electronics from water. We had a lot of fun, though, and we treated this whole trip as a learning experience. For example, on the way back from The Narrows, I saw a bunch of long, sturdy hiking sticks leaning up against a wall that people had been using to keep their balance while wading through the river. Over time, people had collected them, used them, and left them for future adventurers of The Narrows. Note to self: be observant. Erinn and I had been using each other for balance along the slippery rocks even in the shallower areas when we could have been using some big, heavy walking sticks. At this point, we were both worn out and although it was already late afternoon, we hadn't had lunch, so we got on another shuttle and headed back to our car.

When traveling through places with a lot of tourists, it's always fun to watch people and the shuttle back to the parking lot had a lot of people to watch. One was a three year old kid sitting with his parents. They were Asian and didn't speak much English and the kid was adorable. He had a toy phone and people around him kept pulling out their cell phones, pretending to call him and he was eating up all the attention. He was happy and having a good time and he made the long ride back seem pretty short. Eventually we got to the parking lot, made some sandwiches, and drove to Cedar City where we stayed at a KOA for the night.

I think both of us were excited and exhausted from our first day. We got to our campsite relatively early and made some sausages and squash, which became a staple for dinners on our trip, and went to bed. The only bad part about the whole day was that this particular KOA was on a very busy street and it was really hard to get any sleep. Even late at night, a huge truck would drive by every thirty seconds or so and pull you out of whatever sleep you had managed to get. I love the convenience of KOAs, but they're not always so friendly to the tent crowd. But as it was, we'd had a very successful first day of our Grand Adventure and we couldn't wait for more.

Leaving Vegas for Utah

by James Walker

Day 1 - Tuesday, June 19th, 2012

So far my discussions about our trip across (parts of) America has been light on specifics and more about my longing for travel. I could talk for days and days about how I'd love to be on the road or walking down the street of some far-off city, but this blog is supposed to be a log of my past exploits, so I'll fill in a few details.

Our trip originally came from an idea of Erinn's that we could drive across the United States and see something like 20 states. We would have gone all the way from the west coast to the east coast and back, driving about 6,000 miles. It would have been crazy, so we scaled it back and ended up with just 5 or so states, most of them new to both of us. Officially we passed through California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, South Dakota, and Idaho, but the substance of our trip was mainly just Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, and South Dakota.

On paper, our trip looked like this:


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That would have put us at 2,585 miles, but all the sightseeing, detours, and wandering gave us right around 3,700 miles. It was quite a lot of driving for just 12 days, but we made it work and we had a great time. I've been on many drives down I-5 to southern California where I've gotten sleepy and bored and needed someone next to me to keep me awake, but there was so much to see on this 3,700 mile drive that we rarely got sleepy and never got bored. One of my favorite drives was the drive on I-70 through Utah and into Colorado. The landscape itself was so dramatic and in just a single day's drive it changed so often that I couldn't have fallen asleep if I wanted to. I felt like to sleep would be to miss the very thing I was here to see on this trip. From the beautiful countryside of the valley at the beginning of I-70 to the dramatic bluffs and canyons in the middle to the beginnings of the Rockies on the western side of Colorado, I was taken in by the beauty and variety of the land.

And this was all in the first few days of our trip.

We begin, as I said before, in Las Vegas. It was hot when we drove in that night at 10pm and it was already getting hot the next morning when we left at 8am. There's not much to see in this neon city except big buildings and slot machines so while we appreciated the inexpensive-yet-luxurious Orleans Hotel, we were happy to leave it behind (for now).

We left Nevada, drove through a corner of Arizona, and wandered into Utah.

Our Grand American Camping Adventure: Erinn and James

We settled on that name a while ago. It was just silly enough for us and it stuck. We've been planning our trip around this name for a while now and the day has finally come for us to go!

It's a pretty big trip, definitely the biggest I've ever gone on as an adult. We'll be starting and ending in Las Vegas, with a whole slew of major cities and National Parks in between. To list them off in order it will be Las Vegas, Zion National Park, Arches National Park, Denver, Mount Rushmore, Devil's Tower National Monument, Yellowstone National Park, Grand Tetons, Salt Lake City, and then back to Las Vegas. All that in about 12 days. It's gonna be BIG!

And there'll be a lot of driving. Whew!

See you guys on the other side.

-James

Original Posting:
http://themanylivesofjules.wordpress.com/2012/06/19/our-grand-american-camping-adventure-erinn-and-james/