9/20/2015 Gotta shorten our stay in UT, heading for AL

We find we are starting to have small fix-it things on the rig needing attention, our “laundry list” beginning to grow. With a commitment to our grandson to take him to Disneyland or Disneyworld for his birthday at the end of November, we have decided to terminate our leisurely trek through all the National Parks throughout the south of Utah and start heading east back to Red Bay, Alabama for those fixes. We will have to return to Utah afterwards, there is SO much to see here you need to set aside weeks and weeks to effectively experience most of it. No need to speed across country, but we do need to start heading that way, checking out what we can along the way. Since we were here in the area of Bryce Canyon, we did choose to check out the Escalante Staircase National Monument. We found space at Kodachrome State Park near Cannonville for that purpose. The day we arrived the weather was clear and the campground we were at was near the Grosvenor Arch, so we headed out to check that out. It was gravel road for about 10 miles, crossing a small creek, but we made it without incident. Like everything else here in Utah, the arch was magnificent.

Unfortunately, that first day was the only good weather day. The next 2 days rained like cats and dogs. Southern Utah is subject to serious flash flooding during rainstorms, and these 2 days provided some nasty flash floods. During our stay, 20 people lost their lives due to getting caught in the flash floods, along the border with AZ and out of Zion Nat’l Park. Because of the rain we were unable to use any of the hiking trails that are contained in Kodachrome State Park. And being stuck indoors during rain is not real thrilling with no cell service, no wifi, no satellite, totally unplugged with nothing to do. As a matter of fact, cell service and wifi are generally terrible all through the south of Utah. We needed to hit a grocery store and everyone told us to go to the town of Tropic. Well, Tropic is a hole in the wall nothing town and prices are through the roof because they can—the only real shopping is about 2 hours away. So I have a helpful hint for anyone traveling in the south of Utah. Stock up before coming here!

We packed up and continued down the road, to the town of Bicknell, hoping our mail had arrived there as I had arranged prior. My luck running true to form, of course it was not there, so we needed to stay a night in town. I don’t know how it happened, but we found a space for 1 night at the Wonderland RV Park in Torrey. While there, we did make a run into Capitol Reef Nat’l Park to do an overall check of the area, realizing we will return at a later date to take in the sights more thoroughly. Wow, wow, wow! There is a lot of hiking trails, beautiful rocky scenery and a lot of ground to cover as far as the park goes. We did talk to the rangers at the visitor’s center and discovered September is THE busy time for tourism there, just as it seems it is at all of these National Parks. We will keep that in mind…

OK, time to exit Utah and continue eastbound and down. More to come…