We didn’t get much done today other than shopping and fueling up at Costco. It wasn’t nearly as expensive as I thought it would be.
It is hotter than Hell here. Today it hovered right around 102.

I was doing the dishes from breakfast this morning when I noted a large cloud of smoke that was coming from the southbound lanes of I-15 which is clearly visible from our RV space in the St. George KOA. The St. George KOA is not anywhere close to St. George, actually being located closer to Hurricane. The cloud of smoke I could see initially started out as white smoke but soon turned into a black, angry funnel extending into the clear Utah sky. Peggy couldn’t resist getting a better view so she hopped in the pickup and drove to a better vantage point where she could plainly see a semi trailer ablaze in the slow lane. The operator was able to disconnect his tractor but the trailer tires caught fire and they melted the back of the trailer into the flimsy, gray, lacy material similar to a campfire-incinerated beer can.
Peggy came back to the KOA to pick me up and soon we decided to mosey over to Zion National Park about 30 miles from our RV park. We have been there a few times previously and knew that the truly magnificent portion of Zion required parking in the nearby town of Springdale and catching a shuttle bus into Zion Canyon. It was over 100 degrees today so we figured we would drive through those portions of the park where we could remain in our air conditioned truck and skip the Canyon.
Zion is a place with geological features that truly make the Park exceptional. The road through the Park offers stunning scenery around every bend and there are lots of bends. There are also two tunnels through the pastel stone, one of them better than a mile long. Once through the tunnels, the road breaks out into the high altitude terrain of the Park. There, the massive rock formations can plainly be identified as prehistoric sea or lake shore all jumbled up and rearranged by tectonic forces. It is a wonderland but today it was hotter than Hell so we stayed pretty close to the truck and its ample air conditioning system.
We reversed course and passed through the Park again on our way back to Hurricane. We must have gone at the proper time because, as we left the Park, we could see a double line of vehicles maybe 50 cars deep stacked up at the entry gate awaiting the opportunity to pay $35 per vehicle to access the furnace. When we had entered a couple hours earlier we got right in and we got in free because of our geezer access card. We passed again through the tourist impoverishing Springdale before heading into St. George to eat at a place called the Village Inn suggested by our RV park operator. She was right – the food was very good and the cost seemed quite reasonable. When I got to the cashier to pay at the end of our dinner, she quoted a price that was even lower than that shown on our bill. When I inquired about this, she indicated we got a reduced price for being “homies” but finally came clean and said it was a senior discount. Maybe having a lousy memory system and being broken and crippled and smelly ain’t so bad, after all.
We took a few pictures you can see if you click the asterisk *

Today was another travel day. We regretted leaving Red Canyon Village RV Park, Cabins and Campground since it had pretty good wifi, full hookups, was relatively quiet at night despite its proximity to Scenic Highway 12 and we had great views out our windows. We could have easily spent another few days there. The only drawback was the 7000 feet of elevation where the park is located. The noises my respiratory system made while living here resembled the gasping and hissing noises that usually emanate from steam engines. I just don’t seem to do well at elevated altitudes anymore. Being old sucks.
We left the park, drove a bit west to US-89 where we went north for about 20 miles until getting to UT-20 over the mountains and down to I-15. We headed south on I-15 for about 75 miles eventually pulling off near Hurricane, UT. Based on the appearance of the colorful but parched landscape here, it seems plain they have never had a hurricane anywhere near here. We checked into the St. George KOA. We normally avoid KOA campgrounds because they always turn out to be shit. This one is no exception; the wifi is shaky, the individual RV spaces are puny and nearly as level as the Himalayas and I-15 is clearly within view and definitely within earshot. We got our reservation here through RPI, one of our campground services, so we get to stay here for $14 a night which is dirt cheap. My inherent cheapness overcame my common sense and we are scheduled for 3 nights. Unfortunately, the temperatures here today hung right between 98 and 102 until the sun went down.

Today was our last day in this area so we had to whittle down the options to a couple. Our first selection was to return to Bryce Canyon National Park so we could check out an overlook named Inspiration Point. We again avoided paying the $35 per car entry fee by showing the little curmudgeon wearing a ranger hat our geezer access card and he said, “move along.”
Soon we pulled into the parking lot near Inspiration Point and, after a short walk, realized the name of the place was appropriate. There is an expansive, gorgeous view of Bryce’s wonders from this 8000’+ elevation observation area. The concentration of cliffs and hoodoos suggest many imagined and fantastic shapes, lots of them which look like rows of really big humans. Beyond Bryce’s spectacular assets are multi-hued mountains extending to the horizon. This is a bucket list destination.
On the way out of Bryce, Peggy made a short visit to the visitor info center and bookstore but escaped with some of our money still intact. Just outside the park, we made another foray out to the canyon edge at Fairyland Point, another appropriately named overlook. On the way there, Peggy spotted a big mule deer grazing among the pines. On the way out, we also spotted a herd of pronghorn. We pulled off the road to admire them but the long line of cars behind us were driven by folks in a bigger hurry than we were and none of the maybe 40 passengers noticed any wildlife anywhere.
Directly across from the access road to Bryce off Scenic Byway 12 is a plain two-lane blacktop that extends north across high prairie. Twice in the past we have driven down this road a few miles but then turned around because the first part of the road was uninteresting. We were stupid. Today we went all the way to a town called Antimony at the end of UT-22 and were pleasantly surprised at the spectacular scenery.
The road passes down the Black Canyon which is bordered by massive cliffs of a mix of volcanic and sedimentary rock formations. The east fork of the Sevier River has carved a serpentine gorge through this magnificent country and the results are staggering. We took a road that we had no idea was so beautiful and were again dazzled by about 45 miles of scenery that probably is not available anywhere but Utah. About halfway to Antimony, we came across the abandoned mining community of Widtsoe (pronunciation unclear) where we saw one of the very few signs of previous human habitation.
Soon we rolled into Antimony which is a small farming enclave in a meadow between the spectacular canyon walls. It would be a nice place to live in the summer, especially if you want to be left alone. Winters here are brutal and any needed help would be a long way away. Not too much further north of Antimony, UT-22 crapped out and became UT-62 which we followed until turning south on US-89. US-89 is also very scenic as it passes along next to the main stem of the Sevier River. We also drove past the house of one Robert Leroy Parker, aka Butch Cassidy. His house was tiny.
We took some photos of Bryce and Black Canyon today. To see some of them, click the asterisk *

We made little headway today. I got to watch a NASCAR race. Peggy tidied up. I dumped the tanks. We drank Mimosas. It was okay.

The part of Utah where we are currently camping is a region with an extraordinary amount of spectacular scenery. Within about 90 minutes of our RV park we can see Bryce Canyon, Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument, Kodachrome Basin, Red Canyon State Park, Zion National Park, several scenic byways, mountains, lakes, rivers and our destination for today – Cedar Breaks National Monument.
We pulled out of Red Canyon Village RV Park, drove a couple miles west on Scenic Byway 12 and then turned south on US-89. About a half hour of driving brought us to Scenic Byway 14 which immediately starts to climb up the western edge of the Markagunt Plateau and through the Dixie National Forest. At the bottom of the hill the elevation was about 7000 feet but after considerable ascending and turning we soon went past 10,000′ as we turned north on UT-148 and into Cedar Breaks. We passed by Navajo Lake, which sits on a divide, at about 9500′ elevation. This lake is unique because one end of the lake has water exiting that will flow into the Virgin River and the Colorado. On the other end of the lake, there is another exit for the water which ultimately flows into the Paria River on the other side of the mountains but never leaves the valley below, instead percolating into the ground and disappearing.
I am very nearly ancient and at elevations over about 5,000′ my breathing gets labored and my endurance (what little there was) drops to nearly zero. Above 10,000′ my breathing sounds like what I can only describe as the sounds made when trying to operate an ordinary fireplace bellows when it is full of pancake syrup. Peggy says I also exhibit an unhealthy gray skin color until I can find a place to sit where I can gasp for a few minutes. I’m old.
Unfortunately, anyone desiring to see Cedar Breaks will be required to do some strolling unless only interested in parking lot paving. We took a short walk out onto an overlook situated on top of a rock point called Point Supreme. Whoever named this place was definitely squared away because the view is stunning. Cedar Breaks is essentially an enormous amphitheater filled with extraordinary rock formations, sheer cliffs and many colors. The amphitheater is 3 miles in diameter and 2000′ deep. Millions of years of deposition, uplift and erosion have tortured this giant bowl and they have left behind stunning scenery. Watch that first step. There are deer and antelope grazing in the high pastures. There are birds everywhere. There was also an old fat guy creeping around making bizarre wheezing, squeaking and gasping noises near the viewpoints.
We continued north on UT-148 to the Chessman Ridge Overlook at 10,467′ elevation where we stopped for lunch and noisy breathing by at least one of us. The scenery was staggering but we eventually continued on north until turning east on UT-143 for the 30 mile drop down to Panguitch. We had completed this fabulous loop in about four and a half hours but it seems it could have been much longer considering the magnificent scenery and terrain.
We shot a few photos along today’s drive. To see them, click the asterisk *

Boredom ruled the day. Peggy tried to do the wash but the laundry facility here at Red Canyon Village RV Park has a single washing machine and its cleaning abilities are highly suspect. Peggy said after the machine had completed the wash cycles, some patches of the fabrics were still dry. I did some mundane and boring stuff left over from our personal lives. I thought when we left home four years ago, the crappy little details of life would magically disappear because we would be out of touch. What a dope I was.

Yesterday we took UT-12 past the Bryce Canyon National Park and down into Kodachrome Basin. While driving that route, we noted a low-intensity fire burning and emitting light, wispy smoke into the sky at Bryce’s southeast corner. We mentioned our observations to a ranger at Kodachrome Basin who informed us it was a controlled burn and the proper authorities were fully aware of the condition.
Today we drove into Bryce, hoping the light smoke would be gone so we could enjoy the normally crystal-clear skies at this spectacular National Park. We were able to use our geezer pass to enter the park, avoiding the $35 entrance fee ordinary mortals are required to pay if they want to go in. There is really only one road along the edge of the canyon which is actually a miles-long cliff of extraordinary multihued hoodoos and steep cliffs rising along the western edge of the Paunsaugant Plateau. The Paiute Indians that lived here prior to having their land stolen by pioneers and miners thought the hoodoos resembled the petrified remains of giant people turned to stone for being evil. The hoodoos don’t really look like pioneers or miners but they are magnificent.
We initially drove to the far end of the road where we found a viewpoint named Rainbow Point but finding a place to park our truck there was problematic because the BLM personnel monitoring the controlled burn had all driven their pickups to the Rainbow Point parking lot, keeping the park visitors out of luck. We headed back toward the main gate but the road has many pullouts and viewpoints and we took advantage of most of them. We had only gone about 4 miles when we pulled into a viewpoint and hopped out of the truck to get a good look at this stunning park. The wind was pretty stiff and increasing. While gazing at the wonderful cliffs and hoodoos, we noted that the wispy white smoke originally emanating from the controlled burn had substantially increased in volume and opacity. Soon, an enormous gray and brown cloud of smoke was overhead and, from our viewpoint, we could see open flames and exploding trees zooming over a ridge toward the park. The BLM guys parked at Rainbow Point called for air support because pretty soon we could see tiny helicopters flying in the fire area. It appeared that the controlled burn was now uncontrolled.
The smoke started to foul the views but we stopped at Natural Bridge and a few other viewpoints before calling it quits and leaving the park. About this time, a big raven landed on a log railing outside our truck and gave us the stink-eye until we gave him a cracker which promptly disappeared down his gullet. The views were still quite stunning for the first hour but after that everything we looked at was the color of smoke. We tried going out of the park and along a road running north away from the park but the smoke had beat us there and the only thing we spotted, other than gray-brown terrain, was a male pronghorn.
We did get some nice pictures before the smoke put a damper on the show. To see them, click the asterisk *

We are quite old and feeble so our day started out with leisurely showers, breakfast and lunch but we finally seemed to believe that our labored breathing at 7000′ was only terrible if we went hiking. To avoid gray-faced gasping, we decided to take a drive, minimizing our effort but enjoying the scenery. We piled into the pickup and headed east on Utah’s Scenic Byway 12, an extraordinary road for pure, magnificent terrain, geological formations and the colorful effects of millennia of erosion.
This highway stretches from near Panguitch, through the Bryce Canyon country, the Dixie National Forest, the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument and ends when it hits UT-24 near Capitol Reef National Park. It has been declared a National Scenic Byway and An All-American Road, a distinction only afforded to very few roads in the U.S. There is no mistake regarding UT-12.
We left the Red Canyon RV Park and headed east on Scenic Byway 12. In about 5 miles we entered Red Canyon, a Utah State Park that resembles a tiny Bryce Canyon. Many hoodoos, gorgeous rock pillars, massive rim rocks and soils and rock of many colors abound. Fanciful formations take on the appearances of giants, stacks of pancakes, badlands and trolls. Instead of turning into Bryce Canyon, we continued east on 12 and drove down into the area near Kodachrome Basin State Park. Partway there we passed two male pronghorn right next to the road that were engaged in an epic battle to determine which had the biggest testicles and was going to be taking care of the harem of females. No eunuchs were spotted. The drive on UT-12 is truly remarkable and gorgeous scenery awaits around every curve.
We turned around for our return trip at Kodachrome Basin and headed back through the tiny Utah town of Tropic where we passed a herd of sheep and goats that had apparently escaped from confinement and were happily gorging themselves on fruit and grass they found in the nice, irrigated downtown area.
We took a few pictures of the area. Click the asterisk to see them *

Today was another travel day. We gathered up our junk and departed the Lakeside RV Park in Provo. The park had full hookups but very skinny spaces such that you could spit out the window and hit the neighbor’s slide-out. Also, their wifi was junk.
Today was our longest scheduled drive on our entire trip west but we were so afraid of the durability properties of the Chinese Tow-Max tires on our trailer that we started the trip with a diversion to a Les Schwab Tire Store in Provo. The manager was as unimpressed with the previous set of tires as we were; we have had a 50% blowout or tread separation rate with the Tow-Max tires despite none of them being worn down to 50% tread life. The manager and I went over to the desk where he started a furious procedure to credit us for blown tires, bought back the two that remained and gave us four, 14-ply steel belted radials to replace our 10-ply bias tires. By the time he was done with the computer, we got out of there about $400 richer than we thought we would.
After about an hour and a half at the tire store, we started our drive from Provo toward Red Canyon near Bryce. For the first 150 miles we drove south on I-15 with the stunning Wasatch Range on our left. A bit after leaving the Provo area, we encountered stiff headwinds as we crossed through many mountain passes of around 6000 feet elevation. We turned off I-15 south of Beaver and headed east over some very steep roads over the mountains to Panguitch. Panguitch was a dusty little burg when my family had a fuel pump failure here back in 1961. Fortunately, at that time there was a good mechanic there and we were soon on our way although it involved an overnight motel stay.
Panguitch is much bigger today with some artsy-fartsy shops, not less than 3 gas stations, nice hotels and spiffy-looking restaurants. We kept up our eastward progress toward Bryce Canyon until we pulled into the Red Canyon Village, Cabins and RV Park having covered something over 200 miles today. We were assigned the RV space on the end of the row so our satellite antenna works perfectly, they have cable TV (we get about a million channels between the satellite and cable), there are full hookups, they have tolerable wifi and the owner gave us a discounted weekly rate so we will be here for seven days. In our assigned space, nobody can block our fabulous view of Red Canyon, a Utah state park bordering Bryce Canyon National Park. A week here should be stunning and, after our last few days, we will be happy if nothing goes wrong. We did note that we are camped at a 7000′ elevation and neither of us can go very far without making funny wheezing and hissing sounds. Fortunately, sitting and admiring gorgeous landscapes works for us better than standing.
There’s a couple pix. Click the asterisk *