Visiting Magnificent Utah

After our time in Nevada, we headed further north to Utah to spend a week visiting our friends, Gerry and Mari. We initially met them during our first year traveling in the RV in Berea, KY. We spent a week as neighbors and have kept in touch over the years even though we were in different parts of the country. They settled in St. George, UT two years ago and we were excited that we could finally visit them since it wasn’t too far from Las Vegas.

Gerry and Mari recently moved into a new home, so Gerry had some projects he was working on in the house. Tim loves working on projects and that is one thing that he really misses while we are traveling. When Gerry mentioned he was working on installing shelves in the garage, Tim immediatley volunteered to help.

While Tim and Gerry worked for a few days, Mari and I visited the two closest national parks; Bryce Canyon and Zion. Bryce Canyon was a bit further away; a little over a 2 hour drive to get there. The drive there was beautiful and a bit surprising; the gps took us up a windy mountain road to the peak of close to 10,000 feet above sea level. There was quite a bit of snow at the top of the mountain but luckily the road was dry. Interesting is that the top was fairly flat and we didn’t descend too much on the rest of the way to Bryce.

Bryce Canyon has truly out of this world views, with the HooDoos, and is simply spectacular to see. It blew me away and I actually thought some of the initial views were more impressive than the Grand Canyon. We spent a wonderful day driving through the park and stopping at every overlook. I greatly appreciate Mari’s willingness to drive so I could enjoy the scenery. She also downloaded an app that provide a narrated tour for both parks. In addition to enjoying the views, we learned about the geological formation of the parks and the history of the people who lived in the area.

Zion National Park was closer to St. George but still took us an hour to get there. We arrived late morning and there were signs that said that parking in the park was already full. It was recommended to park in town and take a shuttle into the park. Instead, we decided to drive into the park and take the scenic drive through East Zion first. We again used the app for a narrated tour and what a beautiful drive it was. The road winds up a twisting route through the mountainous terrain and we found a few spots to pull over and enjoy the views.

On the way up, the road goes through a couple of tunnels and I enjoyed the periodic windows that opened up a view from within the tunnel. You had to keep driving though so it was just a brief glimpse. We drove to the east entrance of the park and then turned around and headed back down the same route and made more stops at scenic overlooks on the way back down.

I actually think this drive provided better views of the majesty that is Zion than the shuttle through the main park which we took next. We headed to the visitor’s center after the scenic drive and were really lucky. A car was backing out of a parking space just as we pulled in so we snagged a parking spot without a big search. This gave us the opportunity to check out the visitor’s center and eat our picnic lunch before riding the shuttle through the park road that is closed to cars.

We road the shuttle to the last stop and then hiked out the river trail to where the Narrows start. The Narrows were closed that day due to fast moving water in the river. All in all, it was a fantastic day in Zion. I am not sure which park I liked better. They are both stunning and so diffierent that I recommend visiting both if you are ever in that area of the country.

In between the days we visited the parks, we took time off to relax and enjoy the RV park and the towns of St. George and Hurricane, UT. We stayed at the St. George/Hurricane KOA with our RPI membership. This is one that we bought as an add on to our Thousand Trails membership. With it, we were able to stay for 7 nights at $10 a night plus the resort fee and taxes. That added up to about $15 a night. The sites were typical for a KOA, narrow drive through sites but since we were out and about most days, it work well as a home base for our visit.

The views around the KOA and the St. George area were beautiful as well, with lots of red rocks and high cliffs. We enjoyed the ride over to our friends home as well as into Hurricane, UT. While in the area, we checked out a few local restaurants for lunch and dinner and visited a nearby state park, Snow Canyon State Park.

view from the golf course at gerry and mari’s plan. their home is at the far end of the plan and does not have a view of the mountains.

Snow Canyon State Park is located in the Red Cliffs Desert Reserve. The canyon walls are carved from red and white Navajo sandstone of the Red Mountains as well as the extinct Santa Clara Volcanao. You can see lava tubes, lava flows, and sand dunes as you drive through the park. It is also just as spectacular as some national parks. We had a very nice drive through the park and then stopped to walk the trail back through a slot canyon. If you are in St. George, definitely make time to stop at this state park.

All in all we enjoyed our stop in Utah. If there wasn’t a risk of snow driving back across I-70, we would have headed back east through Colorado. I am too nervous about driving the RV through mountains and snow so we decided to head back south and then across I-40 to go back to PA. We plan to visit a couple more national parks in Arizona on our way home. More on that in the next post.

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