City of Rocks

Our latest adventure started out late Friday.  It was one of those we have 24 hours free we should go somewhere afternoons.

Several weeks ago after getting my passport stamped at Zion National Park, it got me thinking about what other parks were nearby that I could get a stamp (that I didn't have already).  City of Rocks in Idaho was the closest one.  I put that on my list of places to visit but didn't realize we'd be going so soon.  Matt and I packed in just a few minutes and headed out the door (okay, we looked for the National Park Pass for 20 minutes and never did find it. ARG!)

It was a nice quiet drive to Albion, Idaho.  I say quiet because I slept most of the way.  Cars for whatever reason put me to sleep.  I did wake up by the time we got to North Ogden so I didn't miss anything I hadn't seen.  

We drove through lots of farms and cattle ranches.  I kept wondering what it is like to live out, way out, away from the city.  You'd drive along and you'd see a house and then drive another few miles and see another house.  These people must be incredibly organized because running to the store for milk is certainly not an option.  I also wondered how do they get internet? Surely, being this far out they have to have internet.  If not, that would be so hard.

We drove through lots of farms and cattle ranches.  I kept wondering what it is like to live out, way out, away from the business.  You'd drive along and you'd see a house and then drive another few miles and see another house.  These people must be incredibly organized because running to the store for milk is certainly not an option.  I also wondered how do they get internet? Surely, being this far out they have to have internet.  If not, that would be so hard.  

They even gave us breakfast. 

We spent the night in a quaint little hotel called the Marsh Creek Inn.  It's an older motel, family run I'm guessing.  You know this when they had you the key and it's a real key.  I imagine this place is beautiful in the summer.  Tonight it wasn't bad, just cold and windy so we didn't spend anytime outside.  By the time we woke in the morning it had snowed a bit and was even more cold.  

We took off towards City of Rocks which was just 25 miles away.  We drove through some really small towns along the way.  Elba and Almo being two of them.

Relief Society gets it's own building.  Cool!

Elba's old stone chapel (LDS)

I loved the General Store in Almo.  This was clearly the gathering place of the area.  It was the store, post office and restaurant all in one.  The owner was baking cookies and had to have us wait a minute while she pulled them out of the oven.  A puzzle was started.  She said that people stop in all the time to work on it.  How cool is that?

It's hard to see but on the door when you walk in it says, "Store bills are due".  There are still places in America where you can run a tab at the local store?  Wow, I thought those went away a century ago.  That's neat that your neighbors can still be trusted to pay their bills.

While at the store we found these chips.  Of course, being that they were the #1 flavor in Canada we had to buy them.  They were okay.  Barbecue flavor basically, maybe a little sweeter and less salty.  

Almo had this great school that was built in 1926.  It's hard to find structures this old these days.  It also had this really interesting gate.  I've never seen one like this.  

When settlers first arrived, conflicts with Indians was a huge problem.  This plaque commemorates the 295 people massacred in one encounter.

When we arrived at the City of Rocks Visitor's Center we of course got the passport stamped (YEA!) and watched a short video on the granite formations and how it got it's name.  Basically, this was the way the pioneers came out and passed through this area.  The granite formations looked like the remains of a long forgotten city so thus the name stuck.  Unfortunately, we weren't able to go into the park (DARN!).  The roads in are not paved and they were just too muddy and slippery.  

The ranger pointed out that we could go back through Almo and visit the Castle Rock State Park which is a smaller version of the City of Rocks and at a lower elevation so the roads wouldn't be as bad.  We took her advice and headed back that way.  Here are a few pictures of this park. 

Instead of driving home we took a side road (Highway 30) which took us to the northwest corner of Utah and into a small part of Nevada.  Neither Matt or I had been this way so we thought we'd go see what it was like.

There was lots of flat, sagebrush land that seemed to go on forever.  Occasionally, you'd see a farm that looked like wheat and again a house out in the middle of nowhere.  We went through a small town called Montello.  You could tell it had seen better days.  Apparently, in the 1920's and may be a little earlier it had been quite the roaring place.  Once the railroad left, it went down fast.

From there we just kept on going till we got back to I-80 where we got on the freeway again and headed towards home.  We drove to Wendover, back to Salt Lake and then home.  On the way home we passed this Tree of Utah sculpture.  Interesting that it's out on the salt flats with nothing else around.  (This picture is off the internet.  Mine didn't turn out too well).

It was a fun drive, fun to get away and see new things.

Zion National Park

It's President's Day weekend, it's cold so logically we should get away to the warmth of southern Utah.  Of course, everyone else in northern Utah was thinking the same thing.  The drive down went fairly well till we got just outside of Cedar City.  There was an accident but not too big of a deal.  Our destination was Springdale, Utah, just outside of Zion National Park.

Saturday morning we got up and went into the park.  Springdale is literally just outside of the park.  I think our hotel was less than a mile from the entrance gate.  I've been to ZNP before but not with the family.  It was fun driving around.  At one point we got out and climbed up one of the many monuments.  Later, we even went for a hike (walk).  I say this because we're a little lazy when it comes to hiking.  It was nice though.  Here are some pictures from the adventure.

Saturday was also Travis' birthday.  As we were hiking around he kept saying "this is the best birthday ever!" I hope he really did feel that way.  I know he loves being out of doors and climbing.  He has so much energy.  I kept worrying that he'd get going so fast he couldn't stop and go off a cliff.  He was careful though.  We managed to explore and have everyone come home in one piece.

Later that night after dinner we celebrated his birthday as best we could with ding dongs and candles just like we used to do when we were away on Rachel's birthdays.  We could have gotten a cake I suppose but wouldn't have been nearly as fun.

Sadly, on Saturday afternoon Rachel started to feel sick.  By Sunday morning Travis was really sick.  It was hard being in the same hotel room with sick people and not having everyone get sick.

Matt and I went to the local ward.  It was really nice.  It reminded us of the branches in Australia and New Zealand.  We both hope that someday we will be able to go away somewhere and help a small branch function.

On top of people getting sick, a storm was coming in.  This was turning out to be quite the weekend adventure.  When we left we could see the storm rolling in....

by the time we got to Utah County it looked like this....

We drove the backroads from Nephi on.  The freeway was shut down from there to Payson. Apparently, even though this was a major inconvenience we found out it could have been much worse.  The freeway was closed just out of Cedar City right after we passed through.  I'm grateful we were able to make it home in one piece.

Despite the illness, bad roads, loudness in the car, it was a great trip.  I'm glad we were able to go and make some memories.

Back in the States - Seeing New England

The worst part about traveling is the actually traveling part.  Getting back to the States from the Azores took all day and then some.  Getting through Customs is always an interesting process.  I never understand when the airport know when foreign flights are coming in why they don't have extra people on hand.  It easily took us an hour just to get through.  Oh well, enough said at least we got to go and make some great memories.  From here we had to go to a different terminal, so onto a shuttle we went.  Then to the car rental agency.  Of course, that is where lots of people were heading so more lines.  (Focus on the good parts of the trip!) We finally made it through the lines, got a car - not just any car but a charcoal gray Camaro.  Matt was in heaven to have a hot rod to drive for a few days.  

After leaving the airport we headed north to New Hampshire.  It was dark by the time we got out of the airport.  The Boston area traffic was crazy.  I'm so glad I don't have to deal with that everyday.  It took us a couple of hours to feel like we were out of the congestion.  I guess this is a busy commute route for those not wanting to live in the city.  

We knew we had missed the peak of the fall leaves but that was okay because we had also missed the millions of tourist who flock to see them.  The ones we did see were beautiful.  

Our first stop was the Ottauquechee River.  This area has a large bridge overlooking the a beautiful area of rock and trees.  You can also take a couple of different hikes to get down closer to the falls.  It was a beautiful warm fall day so we took advantage of the opportunity to get closer to the leaves.  

 

One place we wanted to stop for sure was the monument commemorating the birth place of Joseph Smith in Sharon, Vermont.  Turns out it really isn't in Sharon but South Royalton.  Thank heavens for GPS.  We had to go through some pretty small, back road towns to find it but we weren't disappointed.  

This is the entry way into the monument and visitor's center.

The area as you might expect is surrounded with trees, most of them tall, well over 20 feet.  It was beautiful.  I loved this one tree that stood out from the rest. Can you imagine attending church at this gorgeous location every week?

Joseph Smith's Testimony

Even though fall was well under way the flowers at the memorial were beautiful.  This shouldn't have been a surprise given how gorgeous the grounds of all the church properties are kept.

Leaving the memorial - the drive out. 

Our kids tell us that old people shouldn't take selfies.