Kodachrome Basin State Park - Day 7

On Sunday, we decided to just take a drive down the scenic UT-12 through a portion of Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument.  We wanted to stop by the Visitor Center in Escalante. It was about an hour drive there, and it was, indeed, scenic.

We did stop at the Escalante Interagency Visitor Center in Escalante.  It was pretty small, but we were able to get our National Park Passports stamped. 

We decided to stop at the Visitor Center in Cannonville, as well.  That visitor center was on the same road as the road into Kodachrome Basin State Park.  Our neighbor at the campground had mentioned it and said how much he enjoyed it and how beautiful it was, so we thought "why not?"  It was only about 8 miles up that road, and it only cost $8 to get into the park (per car).  The minute we drove in, we knew we had made a good decision.  It was really cloudy, and threatening to rain, and we were kind of afraid we were going to get rained on, but we didn't.  We spent about 2 1/2 hours here.  We could have spent a lot more time here, but we were all tired from the day before.  

I think we need to come back to Utah sometime, and spend more time.  I need more time in the National Parks, and it seems that there are some wonderful State Parks, as well.  

Side note on this - camping at Kodachrome State Park is $30 a night for full hookups.  Definitely need to come back and stay there sometime.

Next stop - Torrey, Utah.

Bryce Canyon - Days 5-6

Day 5 - Driving to Bryce

We took the 'long way around' from Zion to Bryce.  We were warned about a tunnel on the east side of the park that RV's have to get a pass and pay an escort fee to go through.  We went back out UT-9 to UT-17 N to the I-15 N.  That worked well as we were able to stop in Cedar City and stock up on groceries.  Then we continued on I-15 to UT-20 E to UT-89 S to UT-12 E to UT-63 S.  Including the stop, I think it took us about 4 hours.

We arrived at Ruby's Inn RV Park and Campground at around 3:00 pm.  We were assigned to site 159.   The site was gravel, long, but not very level.  We had a hard time getting level, but other than that we loved the site.  It was like camping out in the woods.  

Our Campsite

View looking out from our campsite

Day 6 - Bryce Canyon National Park

Saturday, we visited Bryce Canyon National Park.  Bryce Canyon gets its name from Ebenezer Bryce, who had come west with Brigham Young and the Mormon pioneers. 

We chose to take the Bryce Canyon Shuttle into the park rather than drive in.  The shuttle was right outside the entrance to Ruby's, so it was very convenient. 

You can drive into Bryce Canyon, but we were so glad we didn't. This was Saturday of Memorial Day weekend, and it was packed with cars.  Even the shuttle bus got stuck in the long line of cars trying to get to the entrance to the park.  Our first stop was the Visitor Center, where got our National Park Passports stamped, and watched a 22 minute video about the history, geology and environment of Bryce Canyon. 

Shuttle Stop 2 was just Sunset Campground, so we didn't stop there.

Bryce Point was Shuttle Stop 3.  From Bryce Point, you get a view of the entire amphitheater.
Hoodoos are the tall, skinny spires of rock that protrude from the bottom of the basins.  In Bryce Canyon, these hoodoos range in height from that about as tall as the average person to taller than a 10 story building.

Our next stop was Inspiration Point.  There are three different viewpoints that provide slightly different views of the amphitheater.

We hiked the Rim Trail from Inspiration Point to Sunset Point.  It was a very easy trail, about 1/2 mile.

David on the trail

After that, we stopped at the Bryce Canyon Lodge for lunch. They had a nice little restaurant that had a lunch buffet.  I think we caught the tail end of the buffet, but it was still pretty good.  It had a great salad bar.  And the banana pudding was great!

Next stop was Sunrise Point.

We really enjoyed Bryce Canyon Nat'l Park.  The hoodoos are amazing, and there are so many of them.  We would have loved to have hiked more of the trails, but time (not to mention age and fitness levels) dictated that we not do more than we did.

RV and Camper Info

Ruby's Inn was a lovely campground.  The pull-through site will full hook-ups was $44.95 a night.  That is for 2 adults, so we did have to pay a $3 a night extra person fee since David was with us. 

As I mentioned above, the site we were in was not very level, but other than that, is was a great site.  

The laundry facilities were good. Clean.  Two rows of washers and dryers.  It  as $2.50 per load to wash and $1.50 per load to dry.  There were vending machines with soft drinks in the laundry room.  Unfortunately, the laundry room closed at 8:00 pm.  That seemed a bit early to me.

There were 2 sets of showers - one up front by the office, and one down lower in the campground.  I used the one down in the campground.  They were individual shower rooms with locks on the door.  They were nice and clean.  The water was super soft though.  It felt like you'd never get the soap rinsed off. 

There was a large grassy area for dogs, but it was not fenced in, so it was an 'on leash' area.  

There were also a lot of tent sites, should anyone want to tent camp.

The shuttle to Bryce National Park was right out front, and there was a cute little shuttle that would take you to various places in the 'town'. 

Verizon reception was ok most of the time.  Sprint was barely 1 bar.  We were never able to connect to the park's WiFi.  TV reception over the air was non-existent.  We didn't try Dish, as our neighbor campers had told us that they were not able to get a signal, even with their dish mounted on their roof.

I would definitely stay here again, all things considered.

Zion National Park - Con't

Day 4

Today was back to Zion National Park.  We picked up where we left off yesterday.. we took the shuttle and got off at Stop 6 - The Grotto. Basically, a large picnic area, but so nice.  Unfortunately, I didn't take pictures of the picnic area.  I was so focused on the cotton floating down from the Cottonwood trees.  I grew up in Iowa with Cottonwood trees, and seeing them was very nostalgic.  You can see the cotton in this picture that was taken at the Grotto. The white spots are the cotton.

Then we went to Stop 7 - Weeping Wall.  We took the little hike (1/4 mile) up to the Weeping Wall.
My pictures came out pretty horrible.  I guess that happens when you are learning to use a new camera and it isn't a point-and-shoot!  Oh, well.. it was cool. The water just drips out of the wall, and the wall is like a hanging garden.

Next, Stop 8 - Big Bend.  Here you get a good view of The Great White Throne and Angels Landing.  Great White Throne is the whitish peak in the background.

Next, Stop 9 - Temple of Sinawava.  There are 3 hikes that start from here, but 2 of them are considered very strenuous.  We are definitely not up to that yet.  The third hike the River Walk.  It was basically a paved trail along the river.  It was really nice, but it was about 1 mile each way, and we ended up going only half way, and then turning back.  It was about 90 degrees out, and we were all still sore and tired from yesterday, and decided we'd seen enough. It was beautiful, though.

We walked down to the river.

And then we walked back up, and there was this deer. Everyone was trying to take pictures of him grazing.  I got my camera ready to take a picture and all of the sudden he came running right at me.  I guess he wanted on the other side of the road.

Tonight, we once again sat outside and enjoyed our campfire.  Tomorrow, we leave for Bryce Canyon.

RV and Camper Info

The RV park was really nice.  Our site was a pull through, not far from the entrance.  There were some really nice pull-in sites at the 'bottom' of the campground that were right on the river bank.  But our site was decent size, for a private campground in a tourist area.  We had plenty of room to put out our patio mat.  The site had a picnic table, BBQ and fire pit.  Since we were on an end site, we also had a grassy area on the other side of the RV.  We had full hookups (30 amps).

The bathrooms and showers were clean.  They give tokens for the showers - 1 token per person per day.  The token is for a 6 minute shower.  Military showers, anyone?

Both my Sprint hot spot and my Verizon phone worked ok.  Not fantastic, but ok.  I was able to connect and work in the mornings with no problem, but by evening, when probably the entire campground was online, it was awfully slow.  The campground also has free WiFi, but I only tried connecting in the evening, and couldn't get connected.

There was no designated dog park, or dog run.  I would have liked that, not that Mari (my crazy little dog) would go into a dog park if any other dog were there, but its always nice to have a designated place to walk your dog.  We were lucky since we had the grassy area right next to us, though.