This is part 3 of a 3 part Trip Summary about our first RV trip that we rented a travel trailer to drag across Arizona and Utah.  This trip sparked the fire for us to buy a RV ourselves.  If you missed the first two posts, catch up here (Post 1, Post 2).

 

We left off last time with us snuggled up in the camper at CANNONVILLE / BRYCE VALLEY KOA near Bryce Canyon NP.  We woke up to set out for Day 6 of our trip.

Day 6 – 23 June 2017 – Travel Day From Cannonville, UT to Torrey, UT

We pulled up the stakes at a decent time and set out on our journey.  We planned to get to Torrey, UT via UT-12.  As we were packing up, a fellow camper told us we were nuts for planning to take that route, “it was twisty and curvy and I almost died several times.”  That is a bit of a stretch.  There are several points fairly near Cannonville that have big drop offs with no guard rails.  The views were amazing and we wouldn’t have wanted to go the longer less scenic way.

 

We stopped in Escalante, UT.  It’s the dot on the map above.  It was about the midpoint and had a few gas stations.  Also, we needed a few groceries so we stopped into Griffin’s Grocery and General Merchandise (no website – 30 W Main St, Escalante, UT).  It was a quaint little store, helpful staff, and felt like going to the store in my small town when I was a kid.  Good place to fill up the fridge.

 

We continued north on UT-12…😱😱the DEATH HIGHWAY😱😱… which was possibly the most scenic leg of the journey.  Lots of elevation change and curves, but well worth the work behind the wheel.  We arrived to Thousand Lakes RV Park just in time to set up camp and cook lunch.

 

We went over to Capitol Reef NP to scout out what we wanted to do the next day and of course, get those Jr Ranger books.  We drove around and stopped at some pull offs.  Then we went to one of the orchards that was open at the time and picked some apricots.  For the uninitiated, the area of Capitol Reef has a ton of geology to nerd out to and some amazing ancient cultural history (including some intricate and well preserved petroglyphs), but it was also the location of several Mormon families that made the area their home for some time.  One of the ways they made a go in this rough country is cultivating orchards.  The NPS continues to work all of the original orchards.  As the fruit ripens they post it on their website and social media accounts about when which fruit is ripe and what they expect to ripen next.  It was a fun activity to pick some apricots with the kids and a nice snack.  It was free to eat within the orchard and the steep price of $2/lb to take them with you.

 

We headed back to the CG for dinner and got everything settled for the night.  The kids played soccer and knocked around on the playground until dinner.

Day 7 – 24 June 2017 – Capitol Reef NP – RV at Thousand Lakes RV Park in Torrey, UT

We woke up the next morning and went out for some great hikes.  The park is quite large.  We explored just a portion of it.  There is a lot more of the park that recommends 4×4 (hence jeep rentals at the CG).  The park rangers said that my dually pick up would’ve made most of the roads, but I wasn’t interested in finding out.  There was plenty to do in the main part of the park with the time we had allotted.

I really enjoyed this park.  It’s my favorite of all the places we went and I could’ve stayed another week.  It is a great intersection of science and culture.  Another huge score is that it was not very busy unlike its neighbors Bryce and Arches.  Definitely on the list to come back to someday.

We returned to the CG and prepared for a big travel day to Mesa Verde NP.

Day 8 – 25 June 2017 – Travel day from Torrey, UT to  Ancient Cedars Mesa Verde CG, Mancos, CO

We broke camp very early to get on the road with this big drive in front of us.  As all of the travel days, this leg was scenic as well.  It was interesting to start out in the unique Southern Utah landscape and finish the day in a John Denver song.  The drive was relatively easy with plenty of places to fuel and the roads weren’t corkscrews.

To really see Mesa Verde NP, you need to buy tickets for a guided tour.  We had planned to buy them on 25 June, get to the CG, have a lazy afternoon, and wake up early to thrash through the park and drive all day home.  We thought there was no way there would be tickets left when we arrived to Colorado.  Well, we lucked out.  Tickets were still available in the late afternoon.  So we scratched the lazy day in the CG and decided to go on the tour so we’d get back home before 11pm on the 26th.

Of course we grabbed our JR books and set out into the park.  We had a few hours to explore the park before our tour.  The drive up to the top of the mesa is beautiful and takes some time.  You need to give yourself probably an hour to get to the top.  We got up to the top and hit the checks on the JR requirements just in time to get down to the tour start point.  The tours, especially the Cliff Palace require some agility.  They are not handicap accessible and require being not too afraid of heights.  I feared my son, who is the scaredy cat of the family, would have the biggest issues.  But as usual, kids proved dad wrong.  He loved every minute of it and scared his mom to death because he wasn’t paying attention to the edge of the cliff.

The tour itself takes you down into a village where Pueblo People of the area moved to.  One of the going theories is that a neighboring tribe’s violence forced the people off the top of the mesa down to the cliff edges for protection.  They still farmed the top of the mesa, but lived in the cliffs for protection.  The whole history of the culture and seeing how the people adapted to change was fascinating (a huge reason I recommend the Jr Ranger program to those with smaller kids.  It gets them interested to mosey through the museum with you to figure out parts of their books and I get to actually read and look instead of “dad, this is boring.”  Clever clever NPS).

We got back to the CG and got a good night’s sleep for the big drive home.

Day 8 – 26 June 2017 – Travel day from Mancos, CO to El Paso, TX

We packed up and got on the road early to return to El Paso.  It was a 7 hour drive that was fine, but no time to enjoy it.  We were hammer down to get home so we could get the trailer prepped to return the next day and to take it easy.

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9 days, 8 NPS properties, and about 2000 miles.  It was a wonderful trip.  The only thing that would’ve made it better is more time.

You’re thinking, “why didn’t you hit Arches and Canyonlands!?” We considered it.  But two things took us all the way out of S Utah to SW Colorado.  1) NPS scared us away a bit that those two parks (and Bryce) were really crowded during these weeks…and Bryce really was.  I much rather enjoyed the parks that weren’t too busy.  Capitol Reef and Cedar Breaks were my favorite spots and fewer crowds made them even better.  S Rim of the Grand Canyon and Bryce felt way too paved and prepared than a NP.  They are sights to see, but if we go back, we’ll do the N Rim of the Grand Canyon and get off the road and away from the crowds more at Bryce.   2) Erin traveled to Mesa Verde when she was a kid and wanted to relive that memory with our kids.  We’ll get out to Arches and Moab one day.

Thanks for reading a long.  The next posts will review our accommodations on this trip and then we’ll get back to 2018 with our new camper and trips we’ve taken.

 

See you out there,

P-T ParaD