roadquill1

We didn’t get back to the small cafe for coffee and wifi yesterday. So, here we are today! And BTW…I have no idea where the name “Desert Pete’s” comes from! Perhaps it was just a further example of inventive truth-telling in my blog, or creative licence! (The coffee shop is called Deep Creek Coffee!) Instead, we biked up to the “Junction” (where the access road heading north into the canyon forks with the main thoroughfare heading east towards Mt. Carmel, and the rest of Utah.) This was a very chilly ride and I was glad to be wearing long Gortex pants and a down jacket. A few cacti are blooming, but the main spring blossoms are probably a few days away just yet.

The above is a view along the bike path to the junction.

After our ride and a late lunch, we sunscreened our arms and legs and then wandered over to the Visitors Center to catch the shuttle bus into the canyon. We disembarked at the Visitors’ Museum to watch a film and to hear a ranger talk on raptors and large birds of the area – including kestrels, peregrine falcons, golden eagles, horned owls, vultures and giant condors. This presentation was first, and outside, and by the time it finished, my bare knees and I were happy to be inside for the 1/2 hour movie on the park.

Next on Sandy’s agenda were several  hikes – one to the Grotto (no “velly good veal cutlets” here for those who remember Nanaimo’s restaurant version of such) and one to the “Weeping Rock” – a short, steep climb up to and under an overhang from which water drips. (Hands up anyone else who has seen water dripping from a rock wall! But…did you have to climb half a mile to see it?) Okay – the view was spectacular, and I was very grateful that I had brought along and donned my Gortex pants for the hike. Along the way, we spotted wild turkeys, and numerous mule deer. From the Weeping Rock, you could look up (“look way up…”) and see tiny hikers very high above us following another trail that, gratefully, Sandy did NOT want to climb. (Brochure warning: “Long drop-offs! Not for anyone fearful of heights!”) We finally headed down, and caught the next shuttle bus back to the campground, where we spent most of the evening tucked into Truck House with the furnace on. (This morning, the temperature is only slightly above freezing, but the sun has finally reached into our campsite!)

The Activity Planner’s schedule for the day is to do a short hike and then bike into Deep Creek Coffee for wifi access. We’ll see. Tomorrow we will head a bit south into Page, Arizona for another scenic tour. Then, the plan is to take an “S-shaped” route back into Utah through Monument Valley and up through Bryce National Park before heading east and southeast through Moab – perhaps with travelling companions – from Whitefish, Montana.

Much love and best wishes to you all!

Tony (Quill and Route-Planner) and Sandy (Quilter, and Activity-Planner)

Yesterday, we rode our bikes – slowly into Springdale, for this was our first time on bikes in some months, and bottoms needed breaking in! Also, Sandy’s brake cable wouldn’t completely release meaning that she was riding with her brake partially on. (N.B. Both “in” and “on” are  adverbs, not prepositions, so don’t my case get on! Okay, now you can!) Back to the tale before I so rudely and inconsequentially interrupted myself…

…I could have offered to ride her bike and given her my more free-wheeling one, however, she has been whinging about lack of exercise, so… The Zion Bike Shop in Springdale quickly replaced her brake cable, and pointed to a small coffee shop down the road called “Desert Pete’s” where we could get free wifi. That place will be our “go to” spot for delivering blog notes as they develop. (N.B. See next blog…this is NOT the name of the coffee shop!)\

After a lengthy wifi encounter, we saddled up and headed on downhill against an increasingly strong wind trying to push us back to Desert Pete’s. (The bike guy told us that these winds could become quite strong, as evidenced by the name of a town to the south – “Hurricane”!) Downhill (and upwind) held no bank nor liquor store. (In Utah, wine can only be purchased in liquor stores, and NEVER on a Sunday!) So, we turned around and rode back uphill (and downwind, of course) to Desert Pete’s where, just across the street, we found the bank. We got our money, asked for directions, and were directed back downhill (and upwind) to a hotel complex that housed the liquor store. And so, with much dust in our eyes, we turned and headed toward “home” uphill (and downwind) arriving back at our site in the early afternoon.

We rested our sore buttocks for a while, and then walked to the Tourist Info Center to catch a shuttle bus into the park canyons in order to do some hiking and exploring on the trails. We (Sandy’s call, if I recall correctly – not always a safe assumption any more) elected to hike UP to the third Emerald Pool above Zion Lodge. This is a 1.3 km round trip mostly involving a stair-climbing-type of bodily exertion. It turned out that the very strong winds that we experienced in Springdale had found their way into the canyons, and provided some impressively strong swirling gusts that swept water “falls” into sideways “sprays”! The 3 pools were “nice” but the third (and highest) was the prettiest. The view returning from the third pool was ahh-inspiring (as in “Ahh…so glad we could stop for a moment”) and also awe-inspiring! The value in the hike was certainly the exercise. However, as awe-inspiring can be had anywhere you look in Zion, and an escalator to the pools would have suited me just fine, we could have continued the process of resting our buttocks back at the campsite in our anti-gravity chairs! (I joke, of course!)

Winds continued to hit at or near the forecast strengths of 60 mph for the rest of the afternoon and evening, and we spent the time gratefully tucked away in Truck House, in reading positions with the heater going, as the temperatures dropped. We loaned one of our chairs to the campers next door who seemed to be struggling to find a few moments to relax between moments of trying to hold their tent down, and keeping a fire going – with smoke coming our way.

Today, everyone is walking around with down-filled jackers, hoodies, toques and gloves. The sun is shining, but apparently winter is making a comeback! We will wait until it warms up a bit, and then perhaps ride our bikes in to Desert Pete’s for more caffeine and Wifi!

And meanwhile, we read –  something that Sandy is very used to doing regularly, but for me is a novel experience – or non-fiction, as the case may be! We have finished several intellectually and emotionally charged books while the winds blew! I finally got around to a book recommended to me by my sister-in-law, Margie – “Tuesdays with Morrie” by Mitch Albom, which was mostly completed in one sitting. I read this right after I had completed my second reading of “Under the Banner of Heaven” by John Krakauer. The latter book is a very powerful story that relates a history of the Mormon Church while telling the story of two brutal murders in a Utah town near Provo. This book is extremely interesting (as should be apparent since it was my second reading!) and explores events in the history of Utah. The first book “Tuesdays with Morrie” was an emotionally engaging story of the last shared Tuesday meetings between a professor (Morrie Schwartz) and his student (Mitch Albom) after Morrie learns that he has ALS.

Sandy finished laughing and weeping her way through a tale by Miriam Toews – “All My Puny Sorrows”. It sounds like I might have to read it, but I need some escape lit first!

May you all continue to have love, and laugh a lot in your lives!

Tony and Sandy

Our travels out of Ely continued on today on Highway 50, “the Loneliest Highway in America”, until we turned off onto an “Even Lonelier highway in America”. I am thinking that the ad writers for the first phrase had missed the turn-off onto Highway 487 toward Baker, NV and the teeny burgh of Garrison, UT (where the Utah highway is renumbered as Hwy 21). This route travels through desolate, but vast ranching country. Once again, like highway 50, it occasionally rises to reach heights over a pass and then drops back down into wide basins with the road running as straight as an arrow for miles until another mountain range must be crossed through a pass. Roadkill is always problematic, but after seeing the long ears of a few bunnies (“they are just sleeping, Sandy) on the pavement, we realized that these must be very stupid hares indeed! Given the scarcity of any vehicles, they would have to either be suicidal… or fall sleep on the road, or run back and forth across the road – FOR HOURS – in order to be unlucky enough to become roadkill. (Don’t bother collecting those rabbit feet! They didn’t do the owner any good – unless, of course, it was a suicidal hare!)

About halfway down Highway 21 towards Cedar City, as we began another climb to a pass, we encountered quite a number of sheep on the road. We slowly negotiated our way through them, but as we rounded a corner, the road was completely blocked by the larger main herd.  As we stopped to let them pass, behind this herd we could see a cowboy (sheepboy? lambboy? muttonman? Okay…a herder!) on a horse steadily herding the flock past us with the assistance of 4 or 5 sheepdogs. It was great fun to watch. No other vehicles were present for the spectacle!

We fuelled up in Cedar City, and then continued on toward Springdale, and then Zion National Park arriving about 2:30. Plenty of time to locate a campsite? Wrongo! The time changed in Utah to Mountain Time, and the campgrounds were all full – an hour ago. The helpful ranger pointed us to an RV Campground in Springdale, and we found a beautiful site there – right on the Virgin River.

The mountains surrounding the Virgin River are truly spectacular, and Zion Park is one of those “must see” geological formations that seem to be so plentiful in the US Southwest! Some peaks are jagged and red, while others seem to be covered with frosting and have much gentler rounded edges. However, sheer rock faces rise extremely abruptly out of the valley below – a mountain climber’s paradise, methinks!

Today, Monday April 13, we paid our fees for exiting the Park to the east in a few days. (We must pass through a tunnel, and because of our width, traffic control blocks traffic both ways until a bunch of wide RVs are through. We have to pay $15 for this pass which is good for 7 days. We also acquired an annual Park pass for $80, as we will probably be in quite a few of National Parks on this journey.

Since there is no vehicular parking within the park area, you must visit the park vistas via a shuttle bus (free). So, we caught the shuttle bus to the end of the route, and walked up the river canyon trail with many others. Some rented dry suit pants and water shoes and continued walking up river past the end of the trail. You can continue up through several bends in the river canyon by wading in the river. Its temperature at this time of year is about 40 F. (Today’s air temperature was 82 F.)

This morning, while cruising through the campgrounds checking out the recently vacated sites, suddenly a woman in one of the most desirable river-side sites came out and stopped us to say that they would be leaving within the hour and, if we left chairs, we could have their site. (The folks at the next site wanted to interview me for suitability!) We jumped on the opportunity. Strange coincidence: it is exactly the same site that we had here about 7 years ago – the only other time we have visited Zion! We have booked our very special campsite for 4 nights. Tonight we met our neighbours from San Diego. Jack and Cici have travelled extensively in this area, and may be visiting Vancouver Island and BC in the near future.

All is well. High winds are forecast for tomorrow afternoon and evening. We’ll rock and roll, and I’ll probably think a lot about sailing!

Love and best wishes to all!

Sandy (the Quilter) and Tony (the “Quill”)

As usual, it was a bit of a wrench to leave our Lindsay clan in Walnut Grove, and this year, the melancholy was a bit deeper perhaps, because they have sold the beautiful house. The good news is that they are moving into one of my favourite urban areas in BC – Fort Langley. (See also Atlin, and Kaslo!) So, although we were able to assist with a bit of ‘getting ready to move’, there is much to be done, and the move will still be in play when we return in mid-May.

Rather than plow through all the traffic circles down to Linden, we opted for the Pacific Border Crossing south of Cloverdale. Nice run from WG, and although we still don’t have our Nexus Passes, it was only a 20 minute wait at the border. The Border Guard was typically unreadable, and somewhat curt, but he asked “Where are you off to?” (I decided not to tell him that he shouldn’t end a sentence with a preposition!)

“Santa Fe”.

“How long will you be gone?”

“About 5 or 6 weeks.”

“How much US cash are you carrying?”

“About $50.”

“That won’t get you very far.” (No smile, but WE thought it was hilarious!)

He followed up with a bunch of questions on our finances. What is it with this information requirement? (The Nexus Pass interrogation was another unsettling experience at the Vancouver Airport in mid-March.)

In any case, we are now on our way. We cleverly dodged Portland rush-hour traffic by hiding out at Fabric Depot. (We could have also hid out at Rockler Woodworking, but apparently it isn’t as safe.)

We arrived too late at Woodburn to do a check-in, so we chose a spot and asked a fellow traveller for the numerical key to the washrooms. Since I also found the password to the WiFi, all is well. We will now head for northern California before cutting east…unless we change our minds – a 50:50 chance!

Much love and best wishes to all!

Tony, (the Quill) and Sandy (the Quilter)