Dietz Summer Road Trip

This morning we headed out of Colorado and into Utah where we will be for the next week. It was about a 2 hour drive to Canyonlands National Park in Utah from Mesa Verde. We have never been to Utah and we were excited to see the beautiful sign with the iconic arches.

On our way there we saw signs for Open Range Cattle. And sure enough we had to stop a few times and let the cows cross the road. John’s first thought was “Wonder what a steak would taste like from around here?”

There are 3 districts or areas of Canyonlands. We mistakenly went to “The Needles” portion first. We wanted to go to “Island in the Sky” but our GPS took us to the other side of the park. So we headed into Moab, UT for lunch before we swung back around to enter the park from the opposite direction. Moab, UT is a great little town, heavily dependent on tourism, but full of unique little shops, restaurants, and outdoor stores as far as the eye can see. It is also surrounded by the Red Rocks and Canyons of this area offering a beautiful backdrop to something even mundane as a Denny’s. We went to Moab Brewery for lunch, sorry forgot to take pictures of this meal!! But it was good food and really decent prices. So after we fueled up we finally headed to Canyonlands, our 3rd National Park of the trip and the 1st one in Utah.

The views and scenery are absolutely gorgeous. We kept saying how beautiful it is. When we went to the visitor center we were reminded not to step on the Biological Dirt that is growing around the area. Like this stuff here:

One step on that brown stuff can erase hundreds of years of growth, so the take away was stay on the path. The first thing we did was a real short hike (less than a mile round trip) to Mesa Arch. It was really cool, but it was polluted with tourists. I mean huge families of 8 all trying to get their picture together while making sure their toddlers didn’t fall off a cliff. We hung out for a little bit, tried to grab a few pictures and then decided to try to head to another spot.

Grand View Overlook is about 6 more miles further into the park. We drove there and parked the car. Left the Solar Charger on the dashboard to charge our extra battery pack and headed out for about a 2.5 mile round trip little hike to the over look. It was pretty hot, no shade and pretty much direct sunlight the whole way. We made sure we had plenty of water with us. The hike at Grand View lead to this panoramic view of the canyons. I feel like we are repeating ourselves but it was just gorgeous. It really is one of those things where you are just in awe of nature and its magnitude. (Which I can’t image what we will think when we get to the Grand Canton) It’s hard to believe that more people don’t have Canyonlands on their bucket list, to be honest it wasn’t necessarily on ours either. Canyonlands was popularized when people came here post-WWII searching for Uranium. But after having been here, a trip to Utah is highly recommended to anyone. There are 5 National Park here all within a easy 1-2 hour drive of each other. We took some time at Grand View and took a ton of pictures. Here are a few.

We saw way too many Lizards to name, but no Big Horn Sheep. But John did have fun “Rock Climbing”.

Next we drove to a little different part of the park to the Upheavel Dome area. There are two outlooks here and a spot where they aren’t exactly sure what happened. Meteorite possibly? Either way there are some cool pictures from this sort little hike.

It was getting to be about dinner time and it is about 45 minutes back into Moab. So we headed for the campsite. We will be here the next 2 nights since we are going to Arches National Park tomorrow. Moab is a great location for both of these parks. Our campground is really packed and a lot of RVs. There is wifi, but I would trade internet access for peace and quite. We made dinner and it started to thunder off in the distance. With our luck with weather lately it was bound to turn into an all out storm. Luckily it held off, we ate dinner, packed everything up and just laid down inside the tent around 9 pm.

Then our neighbors decided to just arrive at that time. The family of 6, speaking what we are guessing was Chinese, rolled up and brought all sorts of noise with them. They apparently brought items one by one from their car into their tent. In which after each trip they made sure the car was locked, which would sound off a “Honk Honk” overtime they locked it. Oh you want a piece of gum? “Honk Honk”. Oh you forgot your pillow “Honk Honk”. Oh you just want to make sure the car is in fact locked? “Honk Honk”. Luckily the rain did start and that kept them pretty quite the rest of the night! Never have we been so glad to have it rain while camping. The next morning we saw them packing up their gear so I think we are in the clear!

So far the take away has been is:  Utah might be one of the most beautiful places on earth. Come here immediately.