roadtrip

I went on a road trip up to Utah last week. I was going up to see my nephew and help my sister. But along the way, I planned a few little side trips. It would drive Dave crazy to leave Phoenix and already be stopping by the time we got to Flagstaff. When he gets in the car he wants to go go go as far as he can before he stops. Since I was on my own, I stopped all along the way. I hiked for about 1 1/2 hours on Sandy's Canyon Trail near Flagstaff.
I spent the next morning in Bryce Canyon. Suzanne gave me some info to hike into the park from the back roads -- no Park Entrance fees, no buses, crowds or tourists to battle, yay! So I hiked in from the town of Tropic and then toured around the Navajo Trail Loop and back out. It was gorgeous. I was a little nervous being alone, but once I got on the trail and found my way, I realized it was easy to navigate and there were no worries.

Friday morning was the "Y" on the mountain above BYU. Everyone said it was a short but steep trail. I wasn't so sure it was short. It looks like it is WAY up on the mountain, but when I got to the trail head parking lot, I realized it starts quite a long ways up the mountain already:
The actual "Y" was not so impressive, but the views of the valley were.

Friday evening was a pleasant walk along the Provo River Walk Trail. A very pleasant shady walk.

Saturday morning was a couple of hours on the Rock Canyon Trail in Provo.
For the drive back home to Phoenix, I stopped at the Coral Pink Sand Dunes Arch near Kanab. It wasn't actually in the State Park, but just outside of it. There was a whole write-up on the internet about a nice place to stop and see "a natural wonder" on the way to the park. Um . . no, a bit disappointing. I hope the actual state park is a little more impressive.

Then a stop at the horseshoe bend overlook near Page. This is an absolutely gorgeous site. It is worth the walk (about 3/4 mile from the parking lot). There is a small sign on the highway, but it is easily overlooked. The parking lot is between mile markers 544 and 545 just south of Page. One warning though. It is a death defying cliff overlook with no guardrails or safety features. (This is good to know just in case you let your kids walk ahead of you which we did once years ago. When Dave and I got out there, our young grade school kids were WAY to close to the edge and I had nightmares about it for days. )
From Page to Phoenix, I made several other stops, but no cameras were necessary on these stops. I got a wee bit of food poisoning from lunch earlier in the day and I stopped every 40 minutes or so all the way home to litter the Arizona highways with my lunch. Then I had a massive headache for the next 24 hours. I've never had anything like that happen before. A sad ending to a very nice road trip.

Besides all the wonderful hiking in the cool Utah weather, I also met up with a college room-mate that I had lost touch with, had lunch with a good high school friend that I recently caught up with on facebook, stayed with a cousin and their kids who were so adorable I could hardly stand it,and I went out to dinner and out to listen to a couple of bands with my cousin. Actually, it was like two Relief Society ladies trying very hard to fit in at a nightclub type atmosphere and just laughing and having fun at the fact that we SO did not fit in.

Mostly, it was nice to be with my sister, my nephew and his fiance who are dealing with some tough issues. They are my heroes and I was glad to get to spend some time with all three of them.