My month in Utah

My take on Utah

where I went this month

I made a valiant effort but still missed a lot of Utah.  There's that whole chunk in the west, south of the road I took to Bonneville Flats Speedway west of Salt Lake City - but it looks like there's nothing much out there but desert and roads that go to Nevada.  I understand there's some interesting and beautiful country south of US-40 I drove from Vernal across to the SLC metro area, and north of UT-24 that runs from Green River down to Torrey and up to Richfield, but I just ran out of time.

Greatest Snow On Earth

United We Stand

Life Elevated

All three of these designs are current official state license plates, which is unusual.

Instead of separate categories this month, I'm going to mush things up together.  This is mainly because I was enraptured about how beautiful this state is and somewhat dismayed about how difficult I found my relations with the people who live here.

Here's the list of my split impressions.

On the one hand, Utah's drivers aren't safe drivers.  Here, it seems common practice to enter a highway by ignoring the YIELD sign and instead rushing at top speed down the entrance ramp as if everyone on the highway was supposed to yield to them.  Many of them never even braked but just inserted themselves in the highway traffic in the space I'd had to brake suddenly to create for them.  Others did hesitate right at the entrance, but by then I'd already had to brake because they didn't look like they were going to.

This kind of highway entrance was a clear violation of driving etiquette, and I saw this same kind of behavior at intersections in towns.  People drove through red lights; people turned right on red when I was driving straight at them and had to brake to keep from hitting them; people didn't seem to know what their turn signals were for.

Since I spend so much time on the road, these practices influenced my view of Utahns in general.  Still, I tried to talk to people in stores and campgrounds and wherever I could.  Most people were pleasant but didn't seem willing to make any effort to be nice or welcoming.  Even those in tourist-related jobs.  They weren't cold or forbidding, but they didn't give me a warm fuzzy feeling about their state either.

I was concerned about their casualness regarding Covid protections, and their casualness regarding basic Constitutional protections for people who don't agree with those making decisions (a law requiring gun ownership? really?)

On the other hand, I don't think I've seen another state so far that has more natural wonders than Utah.  I confess to a weakness for red rock canyons lined with yellow cottonwoods, but Utah goes way beyond just that.

The range is stunning.  My month here began in Flaming Gorge, touched on the Wall of Dinosaur Bones, covered Bonneville Salt Flats, drove in and around forested mountains, included red sand beaches and the world's largest living organism (aspen clones), and then wound up in jaw-dropping rock formations: Zion, Red Canyon, Bryce Canyon, Capitol Reef, Arches and Monument Valley.  Along the way I found long ago history: Golden Spike, celebration in buildings of the early LDS church, remains of the lives of the early Pueblo people.

My conclusion

I would love to come back to Utah to see more of these natural wonders and historic sites.  What they have here are, for once, appropriately noted as national treasures.  

Utah seems to have many of the qualifications I was looking for for another home: 4 seasons, sort of 2 political parties, mountains.  It is, obviously, a little too far from the ocean but otherwise seems to fit my list.

But when I asked people if they liked where they were living, they all said yes; and when I asked what they liked about it, none of them could tell me.  It wasn't clear to me they'd ever given the matter any thought.  Of course this is a generalization - I'm sure all Utahns aren't like those I met, but all the ones I met are like this, and I found that odd.

I enjoyed talking to park rangers.  Staff at some of the campgrounds were very helpful and pleasant, but surprisingly not all of them were.  People working in grocery stores and convenience stores were often brusque, abrupt.

So I found the land wonderfully welcoming and the people not so much.  Such a shame they don't coincide.

Utah - Day 29 - Hovenweep National Monument

Monument Valley KOA, Monument Valley

Friday, 29 October 2021

I know.  Hovenweep is a monument almost nobody has heard of.  But it was high on my list of places to visit during my month in Utah, and you can see I've barely managed to squeeze it in before the end of the month.

today's route

When I did my month in Colorado last year, I made plans to visit Canyons of the Ancients National Monument in far southwestern CO.  Made campground reservations and everything.  And then that sudden snowstorm hit that deposited only a few inches in La Junta in eastern CO but several feet in the mountain passes I had to traverse to get to my plans which, of course, had to be cancelled.  I was deeply disappointed, because I didn't have time to get back down there after the snow melted.

Canyons of the Ancients is part of the same group of ancestral Pueblo people as those living at Hovenweep.  They're within a reasonable distance of each other and one of the primary differences between the two is modern: Hovenweep is administered by the National Park Service and Canyons of the Ancients is BLM territory.  I found a blog posting that talks about one couple's experiences in visiting both locations.   https://pmags.com/echoes-of-the-past-hovenweep-and-canyons-of-the-ancients  They took some really nice photos of the ruins at both places.

Here's what the NPS has to say about Hovenweep:

Hovenweep Castle

Horseshoe Tower

It's the stonework that fascinated me.
Take a look at some of my photos below,
and you can see they built of stones as
regular as brickwork.

This is a map of the set of ruins called the Square Tower Group.
This trail guide shows the buildings were deliberately placed around
a steep canyon.  Amazing that they're still there.  

Part 1
(this stupid program is keeping me from
arranging these in a reasonable order -
try to follow the bouncing ball)

Part 2

Here are my photos:

Stronghold House

looking across the canyon -
see below for close-ups

Twin Towers

Rim Rock House

another view across the canyon -
This shows both the buildings in photos above and one in the photo below.

Tower Point
(shown in the far upper right of the photo above this one)

Take a look at these closer views:

Imagine living on the edge of a cliff like this.

You can see that this really is stonework.  But the stones are so regular in shape that I thought it was brickwork until I really looked closely.

And here are the signs the NPS put up to explain more of what we were looking at:

One of the other visitors told me, when I said, "You don't happen to know the elevation here, do you?", that his wife's phone said we were at 5,100'.

I find myself unable to explain how truly impressed, and even fascinated, I was by this place.  I agree with the writer of the blog post I mentioned in the beginning, that this place is best appreciated by spending several days here and exploring and getting information from the rangers.  The building techniques alone show what remarkable people lived here: these folks didn't have modern machinery that smoothed the edges and shaped the rocks that went into building both their perfectly round and their perfectly squared buildings.  And I think any architect or construction engineer would want to study the ability these folks demonstrated for building still standing structures on the edge of cliffs.  I'd like to come back someday with better shoes and stay in the park's campground (though they don't have hookups, so I wouldn't do it in hot weather) and spend more time seeing what there is here.

Last, but not least, the park service posted signs identifying some of the plants in the area a few of which I found interesting.

Big Basin Sagebrush

Mormon Tea

Utah juniper

When I was on the way out, I took a couple of photos to show what kind of scenery the former residents might have seen.

The mountains were at a distance, and what's close by is mostly sagebrush-covered desert.  But it's been more than 900 years and doubtless there've been changes in things like water availability.  Still, I think the mountains haven't moved in that time.  This is what they saw.

On the road

The drive to and from was a real experience.  The first 55 miles was road I'd driven on my way to Monument Valley, including 6%, 8%, 10% grades with s-curves.  But when I turned off onto UT-262 for 8 miles and then onto a county road for 16 miles, things got interesting.  First there was a long series of frost heaves, where I had to slow down to keep everything and everybody in the RV from hitting the ceiling.

I passed signs telling me to watch for loose cattle in this open range area, but what I saw weren't cows but horses.  Quite a few of them.  Well, first I saw a horse, then a squirrel cross the road.  Then another horse ambled slowly across the road while I had to sit and wait.  Later 2 horses and a colt crossed the road, and the colt was the only one that seemed unnerved by me sitting there.  Then 5 horses were ambling down the middle of the road, and I saw them as I came around a corner.  When they saw me, they moved off the road, but only just barely and only reluctantly.  I don't mind sharing the road with anybody, but I do want some assurance they aren't going to change their minds suddenly.  Didn't get it.  But also didn't hit a horse.

There was one section of road that lasted for several miles where it was physically impossible for me to avoid hitting a pothole.  There were too many of them.  It didn't matter which side of the road I drove on - and I drove all over the road trying to avoid them - but the holes were too big and too numerous.

Then there was the half-mile section that wasn't paved.  A ranger told me that was deliberate because the tiny village the road went through wanted people to slow down to protect the village school and church.  It worked.  I slowed down.  And was grateful the unpaved section wasn't any longer than it was because it was nearly washboard-quality.

Fortunately I saw almost no traffic, either going or coming.  And that was actually odd because there were a couple other cars at the monument's parking lot when I got there, and the parking lot nearly filled up while I was there, so clearly other people were coming this way.  I just didn't see them on the road.  Just as well since I was driving all over the place trying to avoid horses and potholes.

Driving back down US-191 and US-163 I took some more photos of the amazing scenery in Monument Valley, trying to give a clearer idea of what I was seeing here.

This is another angle of those sculpted, red-streaked hills around Medicine Hat.

The RV in this video isn't mine, and you can see there were others stopped near this pull-out.  A bit ahead you can see one of those silver vendors on the left side of the road.  With the video, I was trying to show the extent of these monuments and what this countryside looked like.

And with these next 2 photos, I wanted to show the incredible nature of the landforms here.  I guess they all started out as sandstone buttes, and then some eroded into the odd columns and shapes you can see?  Once again, I wish I'd taken a geology course before I came, or that I at least had enough time and money to take a tour with someone who knows what this land is about.  An amazing place.

Utah - Days 28 - 31 - in the campground

Monument Valley KOA, Monument Valley

Thursday, 28 through Sunday, 31 October 2021

I spent much of my time here trying to catch up on the backlog of posts I hadn't done yet.  I only did 4 posts because it took awhile to edit the photos I'd taken and to try to describe what I saw.  Utah is an unusual state in many ways.

This campground is designated as a Dark Sky campground.  Several of those I've stayed in recently have that designation.  The campground drastically limits the lights it keeps on around the campground - usually just one at the entrance to a bathroom - and even those are aimed to keep the light pointing down.  And they urge campers to turn off their outdoor lights at bedtime - and almost all of them do.  It means those of us up after dark can see a real display of stars, which is nice.

This campground had an unusual way of keeping the grass short in its playground area: a flock of sheep, tended by 2 dogs.  I found this out when I walked my dogs down to the off-leash dog park next to the playground, and I found this whole flock of sheep grazing away.  And then we were accosted by a dog that looked like a very large, white Golden Retriever.  I'm pretty sure that's a specific breed but don't know which one.  Anyway, it was very protective of the sheep, which my dogs weren't bothering except by their mere presence in the vicinity.  And then a second one of these dogs came up.  Both dogs seemed much more focused on my dogs, even though they were in the fenced-in dog area, rather than on the sheep, which were unnerved by all the sudden dog activity and started moving off the playground and around the campground and out onto the highway.  I saw drivers having to stop because the sheep were milling around back and forth across the road, and neither of their 2 minders were minding them at all.  What a to-do.

I saw those sheep again another day running along an unpaved road alongside the campground, so I think maybe they live at someone's place nearby - there were several houses down unpaved roads in the area.

Just outside the edge of the campground, someone had a corral of horses that seemed to live right there in that small corral - they were always there.  There was a sign nearby offering horses and horseback tours for a price, though I never saw any takers.  Those horses must have been aching for exercise and bored out of their minds.  But my main concern was to keep my dogs from noticing them.  Amazingly, in all the time we walked around that campground, and as visible as the horses were to me, the dogs never seemed to really see them.  Thank goodness.

The campground also rented Jeeps and I did see people taking them out.  This is definitely Jeep country - there's so much scenery to see and such rough roads to traverse to see it.

One day I did chores and discovered some extreme skimping in the bathroom.  The shower curtains were too narrow to cover the opening to keep the water in.  The water temperature was either scalding or icy - nothing in between.  The lights operated by a motion detector, which detected no motion in the shower areas so didn't acknowledge my presence and turned off after 5 minutes.  I thought 5 minutes was pretty skimpy considering all the things people might need to do in a bathroom for more than 5 minutes.  I got clean, but it was no thanks to the management.

But their laundry room was adequate and fairly clean, so you can't have everything.

I turned my mattress over, glad again that I'd made the decision a couple of years ago to get a mattress that could be turned over.  It'll make the mattress last much longer, not to mention the benefits for my back.

One day - and it was nearly a full day - I went to Hovenweep National Monument, and I'll do a separate post about that.

Mostly what I did, though, was enjoy the scenery.  I took photos but never seemed to have my camera available when the light was perfect.  

The campground was surrounded, albeit at a distance, by absolutely stunning rocks.  Monument Valley is a huge area that includes sandstone buttes that rise as much as 1,000' high.  But you can see from my photos that besides the buttes, there are fingers and spires of rock that I guess are the result of erosion - likely from wind, rather than water.

I found that these rocks changed character dramatically depending on the angle of the sun's light.  I should have just carried a camera with me constantly, so that's a lesson learned.  Once again, my photos don't even begin to do this area justice.  Its beauty is an austere version - this ain't no Hudson Valley, NY - but it's stunningly gorgeous, all the same.

My campground was a mile from the nearest town - Monument Valley, UT - and about 30 miles from the decent-sized town of Kayenta, AZ.  Both those places have hotels and tourist accommodations.  But if you want to camp, this KOA was clean and well-run (aside from the shower problems).  I absolutely think this area is worth a visit.

Utah - Day 27 - Arches National Park and the drive to Monument Valley

Monument Valley KOA, Monument Valley

Wednesday, 27 October 2021

today's drive

As you can see, I covered a good chunk of the state today.

Yesterday I checked the National Park Service website for Arches National Park and learned they advise people to arrive before 8:00 or after 3:00 to avoid being refused entry.  So we left the campground today the same time we left it 2 days ago and got to the national park at about 8:02.  

Arches National Park

We stopped at the visitor center so I could walk the dogs and consult the park's map I'd gotten at the entry gate.  And it was there I realized the road into the park ran along the cliff directly in front of us and almost said forget it right then.

Later in the day I took this photo and this video trying to show what that drive was like.

This cliff sits above the visitor center, and there's a road
zigzagging along the face of that cliff you see in the photo.
That's the road I had to take.
The video below shows someone else making that drive more smoothly than I did.

But not even a video can convey the sheer terror of that drive, because I was driving up a steep winding hill (2 hairpin turns) INTO THE RISING SUN.  I couldn't stop - people behind me.  I couldn't pull over - I was too blinded to be able to see if there was a space.  I could scarcely see the road a few feet directly in front of me, so I didn't have any warning before the road went around curves.  And my lane was on the downhill side so if something went wrong I wouldn't be running into a nice comforting mountain but instead plummeting down a steep slope from which none of the 4 of us would survive.  I hope I never have to go through a situation like that again.

But once I was up the cliff, I saw some fascinating rocks.

These are called Courthouse Towers.

I took that photo because it looked like these rocks were too thin to be standing on their own.  But see them from the other side, below.

The Courthouse Towers from the front.

As you can see, they really are thin, but not exactly freestanding.

Across the way I saw these, which probably have names though there wasn't a sign telling us so.

The Courthouse Towers are on the right side.
But see below for a closer view of those rocks directly in front.

Look at the way those rocks are balanced
on the tops of these other, narrow rocks.

Doesn't this look like an Egyptian sphynx-like character?

Nature sculpted these rocks into an
intricate pattern that a human artist
would have to use glue for.

I was heading first for a formation called Balanced Rock.

Balanced Rock, in the center.
I hope, despite the awkward angle of the sunlight, that you
can see how narrow the platform it's balanced on.

It really changes appearance
from a different angle, doesn't it?

National Park Service explanation

Total height: 128'
Height of the Balanced Rock: 55'
Weight of the Rock: 3,500 tons
This NPS photo shows a smaller version (at right) that
finally succumbed to gravity about 45 years ago.

From there, I turned a corner to go to what they call the Windows Section.  Honestly, I'm not sure which of the Windows I saw, but these are the photos I got.

This and the next photo are different angles of
the same rocks and arches.

Note how that semicircle at left doesn't look
like an arch until you see it from the angle
above.  And the smaller one next to it isn't an
opening at all above, where it clearly is at right.

With the sun's angle, it's hard to see that these are
arches, not just shadows.  But they are.

Maybe you can see a little perpendicular line at the base
of this arch?  That's a person.  And there's another
in the left side of that arch.  That's how big it is.

Despite how early in the day I'd come, the place was already full of people and I couldn't find a parking place, which is why these photos aren't more definitive.  I even saw a busload of elderly people at the Balanced Rock.  They'd all gotten the Park Service's message that I had: come early, come late, or don't bother to come.

And on the way back, I got a different angle on the Balanced Rock:

Remarkable defiance of gravity.

I took these other photos as I was driving back to the entrance.

I think the swoop of colors in the rocks indicates
how the water flowed, back when there was water here.

More balanced rocks.  Look at these things!

I doubt if anyone would want to bother visiting this park based on my crummy photos, so I'll show you what the Park Service hands out, both to show what's here and to explain why it's here.

Landscape Arch

Delicate Arch (at left) is on Utah's license plates.
Turret Arch is at right.

North and South Windows
I think my photo was of the South Window.

Similar graphic but not a duplication of the info above.

Considering the transient nature of these formations (albeit in geologic time), I'm glad I had the chance to see what I did.  If you go, and I recommend it, plan on going early and spending an entire day.  Take water and comfortable walking/hiking shoes (which I didn't have) so you can get closer to some of these marvels.  

And don't wait too long.  As they say above, it was as recently as 1991 that a gigantic rock slab fell from the Landscape Arch.  As thin and as delicately balanced as it is now, well, who knows how much longer it'll be there.

Back on the road

Not far south of Moab I came to Wilson Arch, which is easily visible from the road.

Wilson Arch

As you saw with the formations in Arches National Park, this arch appears much smaller than it is.  It measures 46' high and 91' wide.  There's some decent parking nearby and people were hiking up to it while I was there.  And, unlike the national park, this one is free and obviously easily accessible.  I lightened the photo as much as I could, but the sun's angle still takes away from the impact of this rock formation.  I was glad to be driving this way, to be able to see it.

US-191, and US-163 which it joins near the Arizona border, is the only real highway in the southeastern part of Utah, as you can tell from my route map at the beginning of this post.  South of Moab, there's a series of small towns - Monticello ("Land Above the Canyons"), Blanding ("Base Camp to Adventure"), Bluff and Mexican Hat.  

There's not much out here besides Nature, so these towns are trying to capitalize on their access.  And that access is significant: roads lead to Canyonlands National Park; Glen Canyon National Recreation Area; Natural Bridges National Monument; Bears Ears National Monument; Hovenweep National Monument.  And it passed several state parks, rivers and mountain ranges.  The land looks nearly empty as you drive south, but I'm guessing there're a lot of rewards for someone who wanted to spend more time than I had to poke around here.

Part of this highway has been designated Navajo Code Talker Highway, which makes sense since at Mexican Hat the road enters the Navajo Indian Reservation, which takes up an enormous area of land in southern Utah and northern Arizona and New Mexico.  In fact, it's because Monument Valley sits on Navajo land that it hasn't been designated a national monument or park.  The Navajos have protected it as a park, charge an admission fee and operate some tours in the area.  I understand they're worth the cost.  But I found plenty to fascinate me just from the highway and from my campground.

Once near Navajo land, the road started to include some steep grades - 8% down into a narrow canyon filled with yellow cottonwoods; a 5% grade that included a hard right turn between high red rock walls that suddenly opened up into a sheer cliff on my left side as that right turn became some s-curves so I could barely glance at the scenery, let alone take the photos I so wanted to take.

These photos were taken sort of in that area.

Note how the road disappears down that hill, and then you can just see it farther along.

This photo is from a little farther along the road - you can see some of the same scenery
here as in the other photo, just from a different angle.

Someplace out here is an area called Valley of the Gods, which I understand is sacred to the Navajos.  I think it was included in Obama's designation of Bears Ears National Monument, then taken out when Trump undesignated 85% of the monument, then added back in again when Biden redesignated it.  I decided not to try to make the trip because access is via an unpaved road, which isn't so comfortable in an RV, though apparently an okay road for other vehicles.

The town of Mexican Hat is surely named for the nearby rock.  I'm showing 2 photos here, because I was at least as fascinated by the surrounding rocks as I was by the formation.

Can you see the red patterns in the rocks behind?
And I think their sculpting is stunning.

Mexican Hat Rock, as it's called.

As soon as I drove through the town, I came to an 8% grade leading directly down to a bridge across the San Juan River, where the road made a sharp left-hand turn before climbing again.  Very dramatic.

This whole area was seamed with canyons, some I suppose from creeks and riverbeds, others maybe from mountain formation?

I understand part of Forrest Gump was filmed along this road.  I didn't see the movie so can't tell you, but apparently there's a pull-off specifically so people can get their photos of that scenery.

Here are my photos of other scenery, instead.

You can see how wide open this country is, and how dramatic these rock formations are.  The road in that bottom photo is curving off to the left, but out of sight it curves back around to the right and runs on this side of that formation in my photo.

The Navajos have thoughtfully created a dozen or so pull-outs along this road for people to take photos, and include signs warning drivers of pedestrians on the road.  Those "pedestrians" consist of idiots who decide to plunk themselves down in the middle of the highway to get just the right vantage point for their stupid pictures, and when I wanted to pass by were less than willing to move over.  Really makes you wonder whether Darwin was right.

Also at some of these pull-outs a number of people, who I assume were Navajo, had set up tables to sell crafts - it looked like they had silver jewelry from the way the sun caught it, though I didn't stop to see.

My campground is just 2 miles inside Utah from the Arizona border, and there was plenty of scenery around.  An amazing country.