We had a fabulous Memorial Day weekend road trip through Southern/Central Utah. We left Friday evening and returned Monday evening seeing lots of beautiful scenery and logging 15 Utah State Park Caches (for a total now of 33 out of 47)! We also found regular caches in Wayne and Beaver Counties to complete our quest to find a cache in each of the 29 Utah Counties! We stopped at a gas station just off the freeway near Scipio and paid $4.44 per gallon for mid-range gas!!! (They were certainly taking advantage of the holiday traffic.) Between the 2 of us, we took 375 photos!
Day #1--
Iron Mission (Cedar City) museum and big collection of antique farm equipment...Dad and a manure spreader, school in background.
Quail Creek (on the way to St. George) nice reservoir, swallows, perfect temperaturesSnow Canyon (St. George) awesome colored rocks and mountains, short hike on the Petrified Dunes Trail
Gunlock (west of St. George) a jog across the top of a dam in the blowing rain, past a lot of bleached dried “bones” (logs). We temporarily lost our $70 Park Pass. We didn’t realize it had blown out of the car. When we couldn’t find it (not too far down the road) we drove back 5 miles to look for it. Luckily we found it under a bush on a ledge. Sand Hollow
Sand Hollow (Hurricane) a sunny, warm place…boaters on the reservoir and ATVs in the hills. There were 3 caches here, but we were only able to grab one. Had to swim or boat to island for a 2nd and hike 4 miles round trip up the hills of sand where all the ATVs were buzzing around for a 3rd. Coral Pink Sand Dunes (near Kanab almost to Arizona) 8 miles on a washboard dirt road (m’oh boy) to pink dunes…a playground for ATVs.
Day #2—Kodachrome Basin (near Bryce Canyon) our favorite of the trip, a hike to view Shakespeare’s Arch, beautiful rock formations and mountains in a variety of colors.
Temperatures were perfect.
Escalante Petrified Forest (Escalante) an hour+ hike, a bit strenuous in a one or two spots to beautiful views of the reservoir and town. The petrified logs and stumps were really interesting…fabulous crystal rocks in many vibrant colors, warm and sunny.
Panorama of Kodachrome Basin
Anasazi Indian Village (near Capitol Reef) nice museum and a few ruins, nothing like Mesa Verde, but we didn’t spend much time here.
Otter Creek (out there somewhere) a big reservoir with a level 3 cache hide in a very small mine shaft…spooky.Piute (close to Marysvale) another reservoir. Hiked up a hill at dusk to find a cache box with a scorpion on it! Luckily it was a dead one. (no photo)
Marysvale We stayed at a charming Bed and Breakfast called The Old Pine Inn (The Indian Room with authentic furnishings and a nice jetted tub) which is the oldest continually operating lodging in Utah. (Butch Cassidy stayed here.)
Day #3—Fremont Indian Park (close to Cove Fort) This 3-stage cache was a fun one and we saw pictographs (Indian Blanket Pictograph is shown here), petroglyphs, and the awesome castle rocks. Finished just before the wind started to blow hard and a little rain came down.
Territorial Statehouse (Fillmore) We toured the historic building/museum…lots of Utah history to learn and even got to see a quilt show and vote for our favorite.
Yuba (on the way to Nephi) we actually found 2 of 3 caches in this park. The 3rd was out on an island again and we had no boat! Well, the 2nd one was definitely an adventure. Here’s our log on geocaching.com: After grabbing the easy Yuba State Park Cache, we decided to go for the Yuba Campground at Painted Rocks. The GPS said 33 miles via I-15 and Highway 28, ugh. Then we saw a sign to Painted Rocks and a dirt road around the lake and said "Why not?" We didn't realize at first that this area must have had a downpour of rain earlier in the day. The road eventually deteriorated into stretches of mud and increasingly larger and deeper puddles. Glad we have a 4WD 'cause we almost got stuck. But the trek to the cache was even more challenging...slipping, sliding and slugging through mud that clung to our shoes, caked on so thick we could hardly move. But we had come this far...so! Sadly, when we got to the cache we found it had been muggled. The heavy chain was broken in two. The ammo box was gone, although the State Park and DNR stickers had been peeled off the box and were wadded up nearby and a few souvenirs and a soaked log book were still there. We signed the log cover and left it, but it probably won't last. We won't forget our Memorial Day search for State Park Cache #33! Dad spent $6 at car wash in Provo (after we had dinner with A&A&A) and the next morning there were still piles of dirt under the car. He took it to a car wash in Farmington for a second round, and it still has mud underneath!!!
This mud is like glue.
This mud is like glue. THE END
