Ahhh, the Wonders we have seen... - Kanab, UT
Kanab, UT
Kanab to Coral Pink Sand Dunes
Our trip to Kanab was uneventful, but went safely and entertained us, as usual. For the first time, we stayed at an RV Park with Pearl. We were at the RV Corall RV Park. It was nice to have full time electric and water, plus the ability to dump our storage tanks.
One piece of bad news, to us anyway, is that my "smart" phone battery is about to fail. The phone is such that the battery isn't replaceable except by a more daring small time repair person. I called a fellow in Kanab, at the suggestion of a woman at the Verizon store. He could do it, but had no battery on hand. As a result, I ordered the exact replacement phone on Ebay. It's a brand new phone with full warranty for less than a hundred bucks. It's on it's way to Helena, as I type. Our phone gets a good workout, doing service as GPS, tracking our hikes and also serving as a wi-fi hotspot. I'm looking forward to receiving and getting it all set up.
We only had to travel less than thirty miles to get to our next destination park: Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park. With a bit of confusion and difficulty due to a less than cooperative Ranger we got into our site and set up. Thanks to a young seasonal employee girl who straightened it out...
We are right across the road from the restroom/showers with limitless hot running water.
It was in the high eighties, so we got out the chairs and sat about on the concrete patio pad and read. I took a nap... It's no secret. After dinner consisting of a barbecued rib eye steak, baked potato and a green tossed salad, we went onto the dunes.
They are truly coral and pink. The light breeze keeps them moving up to 50 feet a year. The sand is amazingly fine and slips through one's Birks with ease. The walking, however, is not so easy. It is like the dry sand of the beach, with hills. We caught the sun setting and took a few decent photos and went back to Pearl for an evening of reading and relaxation. It was a very quiet night, so sleep came well and lasted well into the morning. Quiet time here is from ten PM until nine AM, so I brewed a pot of coffee using the generator for power and running the ACs to cool down the coach for our night's rest. There is no phone, data or even a pay phone here. The landline is available for a "donation" when the Entry Station is open, but that is it.
In the AM, I re-heated the coffee in the Mr. Coffee carafe, with one problem...the handle melts. Doh! Living and learning day by day is our way of life now, or should I say continuing?
We intended on visiting the Indian Petroglyphs, but found our it's a 5.5 mile drive needing a high-clearance vehicle designed for driving in the sand. Today's helpful ranger suggested going to see the Dinosaur Tracks at Moccasin Mountain. It's a 2+ mile hike in and only a few miles driving from the campground.
We made it to the site in only a few minutes driving and hiked the distance in about fifty minutes. Walking the road in the deep sand was not easy, but we made it.
Then the fun started. The tracks actually protrude from the sandstone after so long being there. We finally spotted two different sets, one a four-toed animal and the other a three-towed. The photos, if they turn out well, should give you a good idea of how they look after several million years or twenty thousand, depending on your belief system. :o)
We got back to camp and decided to clean up the litter from many campers before us. "Policing the area," as we called it in Air Force Basic Training. There's no Campground Host for some time now, so the status of the sites leaves something to be desired. It's a camper tradition to leave a site better than when you arrive. We did that in no time at all.
After a bit of relaxation and reading, Lynn began to prepare dinner. We had shrimp marinated in rosemary, garlic and olive oil and salt. I cooked them on the Weber. We also had long-grained brown rice and a tossed green salad. It worked! I'm not hungry for the moment.
We had thunder with a bit of rain this afternoon, but it really amounted to naught. The sunset was obscured by heavy cloudy covers, so we had no opportunity for any good pictures. We still have another day and night before we move on, so the chances are still good.
To be continued...
And then the rains came...topped off with Donner und Blitzen, or thunder and lightning for those non-German speakers among us. It started somewhere around midnight and continued nearly continuously well into the late afternoon. One or two blasts were less than a second away and kept us away from the windows. An RV is not the safest of places to be in such storms I've read.
During the rain, Lynn whipped up a batch of Taco Soup based on what she had in the reefer. It turned out to be good, even when I overdosed mine with cayenne. Gotta watch how you swallow such a mixture. Kinda makes one's eyes and nose run a bit... I don't think that I'll ever learn temperance in such things.
As a bit of entertainment today we watched half of "South Pacific," by Rodgers and Hammerstein. A great film with wonderful music if you are into such things, which we are. I inherited the ten inch LP of the sound track when my brother Bob passed on when I was ten. A real gift...
After doing the dishes, we took a walk in the no-longer-raining wet and caught some excellent shots and a delightful sunset. Nothing like the rain to cleanse the air and make things even more red than usual here at Coral Pink.
After a nice evening of reading and such, we'll hit the hay and head out towards Bryce Canyon tomorrow early. Hopefully I can post this somewhere enroute...
Continued... Sunday, the 28th we reached a USFSCG where I had once stayed, in Red Canyon, Utah, just a few miles from Bryce Canyon NP. There were several rigs in place, including a few that were trapped by the road damage to Loop B. The storm was horrific here also and kept folks in place.
We're in a nice back-in site, number 35 in Loop A. It faces the amazing red canyon walls right out of our dining area window. It's much redder than Bryce itself and nowhere near as busy.
We took a ride up to Bryce and stopped a few places, including Sunset Point. The photos will give you an idea of how it looks if you haven't been there. People everywhere and multiple languages heard. I overheard a fellow on his cell phone speaking what I thought to be an Eastern European language and when I saw him outside asked him, "Kak dela?" (How are things?) He answered with a robust smile and Khorosho! (Good!) We both got a laugh out of that.
I was in the fifties up in the park with wind, so we didn't spend much time. We did check out both Campgrounds and decided that North CG is the more appealing. If we ever decide to come back to Bryce itself, we'll probably stay there.
Dinner was sautéed pork chops with onions and mushroom gravy, coupled with brown rice and a tossed green salad. Another fine meal...
Sleep came well and we both slept well on Pearl's "luxurious pillow top mattress." It got down to about 43 degrees in the AM, so the furnace heat felt great and quickly warmed the rig to where I could get up and have coffee.
What a wonderful day!
Lynn decided that the trail here at Red Canyon was a good idea, so we set out at about 11:30AM to take it to Golden Wall Trail, about a mile of switchbacks and beauty beyond belief. The last time here, alone, I hiked the full ridge with new friends, Alex and Ellen, from California. This time we omitted the Buckhorn Trail and continued on the Golden Wall Trail the full length, about 4.5 miles back to Pearl. There was extensive damage to the trail from the recent rainstorm, but with a bit of confusion we were able to find the remains in the major wash and continued. The hike involves climbing at least 800 feet vertical twice and then descending down a challenging rocky section to another large wash and finding the train again. We met only one other pair of hikers at about 2 miles into our hike. They were going in the opposite direction.
It was an excellent workout and made us thankful that we keep in shape and are not afraid of a bit of a challenge. Septuagenarianism isn't all bad... We had a GREAT time.
Tomorrow, Tuesday, we'll continue north to Yuba State Park, about halfway up into the central part of Utah. Thanks for following along with us again...
New photos, as usual, will be at http://www.flickr.com/photos/ralphieboy o/