Our RV stories and adventures.
Today we spent some time at the Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park in Southern Utah.
This park allows ATVs and UTVs, however we did not rent them for this location. Honestly this part of Utah seems to be very friendly towards all OHV. I think that is great.
I will post some photos and a video Rebecka wanted to record.
Hi, everyone!! We had an amazing day today. We started off a little bit on the wrong foot by having the alarm set for PDT and we are in MDT but the day did get better real fast. We went to Best Friends Animal Sanctuary for a free tour of their facilities. The tour is two hours long and it is very informative. We got to meet one of the dogs there and we got to spend some time in with a bunch of cats. The people there are really great people and they do allow volunteering. You can even choose where you want to volunteer, meaning you can choose what type of animal you want to help out with. In short, Best Friends is a great organization and their tour was very nice.
After that, we drove back up to Duck Creek Village and rented a UTV. That was so awesome!! We had a six-seater so that the three of us could all sit in the front and that really does make a difference. We drove on a bunch of ATV/UTV trails and we saw some amazing scenery. We even had the chance, and we took it, to have lunch up on the mountain, in the forest with an amazing view. Lunch was actually so cool that Rebecka said that it was the best picnic ever. Way cool. We were also lucky enough to get to see a buck and some doe, some wild turkeys, a badger and a few hawks. What a day!! I did find out that my right foot (gas pedal) has a habit of reacting to Rebecka’s laugh. Who knew? Her laughing and having such a great time riding in the UTV with us was just amazing for me. I could tell the spots that she really liked and I was able to make them just a little bit more fun for her. I love it when I can do that.
Alright, that’s it for today. Tomorrow we are going to go back to Best Friends and watch them train some of the horses there and then we are going to the Coral Pink Sand Dunes National Park. Rebecka really wants to see pink sand. We’ll see how it goes.
Yesterday we left camp and drove about 80 miles south. Our destination for the day? The North Rim of the Grand Canyon. As we drove the, scenery changed, each mile more beautiful then the mile before. Kanab, Utah has an elevation of about 5000 feet above sea level. The elevation of the North Rim of the Gran Canyon is over 8000 feet above sea level. We wound upward through the Kaibab National Forest. I didn’t realized how much I missed trees. Trees as far as the eye could see. Oh, and the leaves just starting to change, a wonderful bright yellow color, truly took my breath away. There were also miles where forest fires have left there mark.
Once inside the Grand Canyon area gate ($30 by the way if you don’t have a pass) we spotted wild Buffalo grazing in a meadow. Wonderful to see such large majestic animals free to roam as they please. We were also lucky enough to see some deer on the drive back out. Spending the day surrounded by mother nature in all her beauty turned out to be a very relaxing, zen, kind of day.
The North Rim of the Grand Canyon was just as beautiful as you could imagine. Rebecka completed her Jr. Ranger booklet and we all learned something new from the Ranger’s talk about the geology surrounding us.
I will attach some of our photos. However, if you ever get the opportunity to visit this beautiful region of our country in person you should. It was a wonderful, beautiful day.
I spent 20 years in the US Navy and the most common thing I heard was “living the dream.” When you asked someone how they were doing, that was the most common response, living the dream. I have no idea what their dreams were like, but that wasn’t my dream. Now, living fulltime in my motorhome and traveling the country, for me, that’s living the dream.
So we have been living in our motorhome since the middle of July and so far, we are loving it. If you read my last post, then you are caught up until the last two weeks of August. Since then, we spent a few weeks in Camp Pendleton and then decided that it was time for a road trip. It was nice to spend some time in one place for a little while. I did get to go fishing almost every day, and I only got skunked one day. We met a lot of great people while we were there, as well.
Ok, time for a road trip. Nicole wanted to see something big to get things started. How about the Grand Canyon? Will that be big enough? I’m thinking it is. After we left Pendelton, we spent one night just outside of Barstow on a Marine Corps Base that I didn’t even know was there. I expect that I’ll be finding a lot of bases that I didn’t know about during our travels. After Barstow, we went to Las Vagas for two nights. We had a good time there and I might have spent a little too much money, but how much is too much anyway? Then, we went to Utah.
We are staying in Kanab, Utah for a week because there is so much to see in this area. Today we went to what they call Little Hollywood. Some of the early western movies were filled here. Because most of them were before our time, it really didn’t seem all that great to us. We also went to Moqui Cave. This place is interesting. This dude bought a cave back in the 40’s and put a bar and dance hall inside the cave. That’s pretty cool. His passion was really geology, archeology, and paleontology, the bar was just a fun way to earn money to pay the bills and pay for the digs and research that he loved so much.
Since we were already heading north, and I really wanted to check it out, we also drove up to a place called Duck Creek Village. Since we have been in Utah, “WOW!” has been the only way to describe what have been seeing. Duck Creek Village is no exception to that. The scenery was spectacular, to say the least. We ate at a little diner called Aunt Sue’s Chalet. The food was good, the price was ok, and the people were awesome. We are making another trip up there later this week because we are going to rent a UTV for a few hours and go ride some of the vast expanses of trails that they have there.
Below are some pictures from just today. It’s not all of the pictures that I took but I was having a lot of fun taking the pictures and even just seeing the things that I wanted pictures of. There were a few spots that I couldn’t capture with the camera and those spots are breathtaking. When you drive around some turns up in these mountains, you can very easily be blown away by the view that nature is offering.
We do have a lot more to do while we are here and I promise that I will write about them. Maybe some video or pictures. I’m not so good about getting videos posted but I’m going to work on that. So, until next time, keep living life and enjoying it. Try to take a few minutes each day to just stop and enjoy the view, or the quiet, because it really can make a difference in how you see the world. Thanks for reading.
