R and J in the USA

Utah is jaw-droppingly, neck-craningly, awe-inspiringly, indescribably beautiful. Let’s just get that out of the way right at the beginning. It is so beautiful, we had to write about how hard it is to describe how beautiful it is in a separate post. 

We have now seen a handful of states that not only have untold amounts of natural beauty in them, but for which we have found no spots that were NOT beautiful. We are adding Utah to that short but growing list in our travels. Spots without at least some degree of awe in view surely exist, but we certainly didn’t stumble upon them.

We came into Utah knowing it was a state that had so much more to see and gasp at than we would even come close to having time for. There were countless national monuments that we knew we would be driving within 20 miles of as we entered Utah at its southeastern tip, but would have to forgo. Though each seemed close enough, we knew that if we swung by them, every diversion towards something beautiful would rob us of enough time to soak in the handful of the stars of the Utah show that we would be able to catch on this particular adventure. We’d singled out Canyonlands, Arches, Bryce and Zion National Parks as our prime destinations in the state, hitting 4 of the state’s 5 National Parks, leaving Capitol Reef on the cutting room floor for this trip. We would miss so many features of the Utah landscape, from Dinosaur to Glen Canyon to Grand Staircase & Escalante, not to mention countless State Parks. So it goes with every state – there is only so much we can see. But, in Utah, the cutting room floor seemed fuller than most. 

No matter what we missed, we left Utah with our bellies full of experience, adventure and enough awe to last the rest of the trip – even though we know it only needs to last until the next state that will surely give us more to gawk at and be inspired by.

After we left our lovely stay in the beautiful Durango, Colorado, we hit the road for a three hour drive into The Beehive State of Utah. Utah is a place that has national park level beauty all over the place, just there as you are driving to get from here to there. As we entered the state, the beautiful orange sandstone rock formations became more omnipresent, more dense and more spectacular the closer we got to Moab. We wanted to stop and explore Moab, but time was not in favor of it – so we took it in from inside the windows of the van as we drove by. It was Julie’s first time seeing it and, for Ryan, it had been 15 years since he had come here with his brother when they had taken their nieces and nephews on a trip out west. For Ryan, who had long been enamored with the beauty of Utah and had consistently made it a point to visit, it was his 5th time here in total. As we drove through, he realized that he had forgotten how close the geologic formations were to the town of Moab, how the town was carved right out of them. He noticed how the town had grown since the last time he had been there and felt the rush of seeing it again, like the familiarity and joy of seeing an old dear friend. Julie was busy having the rushes of awe that come with a first-time introduction. She had been through Utah briefly, having driven on a prior cross-country trip through Arches – with the few images of that time that she had seen emblazoned in her memory like a beacon to return to at some point – a point that would soon be upon us when we headed to Arches the next day.

We passed through Moab and escaped into the wilds that would soon turn into Canyonlands National Park – our first destination for our Utah stay. We passed by a bike path that Julie was drueling to get out on. Alas, this wasn’t the time. 

We drove through the preamble to the park and passed the National Park kiosks at the beginning of dusk. We had about 6 miles to go into the park to find the first come first serve Willow Flats Campground that we had identified as our evening’s destination. We knew we would be hitting it just as the sun disappeared and that it had only 12 available sites. We crossed our fingers that at least one of those 12 would remain. We had found, since passing the busiest seasons of the year, we had a chance to get spots at a first come first serve campground, even when rolling in on the late side – so we were confident we’d get one on a weekday in November. We arrived at the gorgeous campground, rolling through one beautiful and occupied spot after the other. Just as we turned the bend towards the exit, we exhaled with relief when we saw the last two spots in the campground unoccupied and quickly and quietly grabbed a spot that would provide us stunning views of the sunset and the sunrise before we ventured out the next day. 

Ryan stepped out of the van at round 8:00 PM that night. It was a bright, moonlit night, the sky was clear, the air was crisp. It was cool enough to be wearing a jacket and warm enough to feel comfortable without a hat and gloves. The air felt great. It smelled great. The moon was bright enough to light up the night. Ryan could see the cars and vans in the nearby campsites. It was so bright, you could probably read by the moonlight if you’d wanted to. The moon also lit up the terrain. Stepping out of the van, he could see the brown of the ground, the outlines of the scrub brush and the rock formation looming above one side of the campground. He could see, not just the silhouette of it, but all of it – the surface of it, the brown of the rock, the horizontal lines between the rock layers and the dark dots of shrubbery scattered about its surface.

The whole scene was energizing. Ryan took a moment to stop and take in the scene,  to let it fill his chest. He breathed in the air and let that fill his chest as well. 

It was all a lovely welcome to a state that would fill us up in so many ways.

We woke up in the beautiful spot and worked our tails off to finish as much of our Colorado song and blog writing before it was time to turn our full attentions to Utah. And, once we did, the awe that we had already been experiencing just driving through the roads and towns of Southeast Utah was about to get turned up to 11. As is typical on this trip that is a survey course of America’s landscapes, history and culture, we had only a little time to take in the sights, so we always went right for the most featured ones. 

After a brief stop at the visitor’s center, we headed to Grand View Point, a spot that is aptly named and quick to take breaths away. We enjoyed a short hike along the rim, gawking in awe at the colors and formations around us on all sides. Ryan was enjoying the beauty as always. For Julie, it was all new, and Ryan was also enjoying watching her face as it twisted and expanded in various shapes of awe when she laid first glance upon the scene.

The next stop would be Arches National Park. We had hoped to have the entire afternoon there, but, as is common on this trip, we had chewed up a few extra hours in the morning and would have to settle for the back half of the afternoon to take in what we could of it. 

We had to decide whether to give our time to driving to sites that would provide one amazing arch after another, or to do one hike that would have one amazing payoff. The decision was easy.

We set out on our hike towards Delicate Arch a few hours from sunset. The rocks at the parking lot glowed a turquoise blue-green that had Julie scratching her head in awe and confusion as to how it was possible that such a color found its way into the rocks. 

There are really no words to describe the mix between the sunset skies, the glowing orange rock formations and the layers upon layers of every other color that could possibly exist somehow squeezing into the nooks and crannies of the scenery in the moment where the Delicate Arch is first revealed. Julie found herself maxing out in awe, bent over and repeating “I can’t even, I can’t even” with consistency at each turn. She found herself not only boggled by the beauty, but also ruminating on why it was all so beautiful. Somehow that amazed her just as much.

”It’s just a process of things falling into place in response to the practical and physical forces of the world. If you described it without seeing it, it would just sound like something dry. But somehow, it does something to us, something in us. That’s amazing.”

So, she was doubled over in awe from the outside and from the inside, amazed by the beauty and even more amazed at the experience of beauty itself. Luckily, we grabbed a few pictures that give a little glimpse into the scale of gorgeousness. 

We hiked back from Delicate Arch into a sunset that produced more and more inability to even. 

We left the park and Julie was quite sure that Arches was one of her favorite places on earth. Ryan had no disagreements.

We had decided to drive that evening as far as we could towards Salt Lake City to eliminate some of the driving of the next day. We planned to make it at least as far as Salina, half way there taking an indirect route after our friends in Colorado had done their best to scare the pants off of us about going the more direct route via US 6. They told us they knew of at least two friends that had died on that road and a google search confirmed it as the most dangerous road in Utah and one of the most dangerous roads in the US. We were curious about it, but not curious enough, so we enjoyed an extra hour to make it to our next destination of Salt Lake City. 

There was much we’d hoped to do and see near and around Salt Lake City, but the van had other plans for us. When we first made our itinerary for the trip we discussed how, at some point, the van was going to insist we change our itinerary for whatever mechanical upkeep and attention it necessitated. We’d tend to the regular maintenances of tire rotations, oil changes and air fill ups, but, we expected there would be other things that would arise at some point or another and we’d just go with it when it did. Our first such experience was right out of the gate in state one, Virginia,  where we had had to miss a few stops and make a few changes to tend to our house battery. Here in Utah, it was time to replace a wheel, get some new tires, have our shocks tended to and, once again, even after 3 prior stops, our heater was still giving us the same error message over and over and also needed attention. It seemed to still be working, so we continued to stay toasty warm each evening, but it would repeatedly turn itself off unexpectedly (fortunately, not at night) and we didn’t want to push our luck with these error messages even though mechanic after mechanic could find nothing wrong with it. On top of all of that, Thermo King in Salt Lake City had a much longer line. 

We stopped at a great dispersed campground near Salina before rolling into the Salt Lake City Thermo King for what we hoped would be a couple hour stop, like the many we’d had before, before heading over to the State Capitol. After waiting a few hours just to get seen by a mechanic, we had to make a call. Julie hopped in an Uber to take in the capitol solo while Ryan stayed with the van and waited for Thermo King attention. 

During Ryan’s trips home, he had already missed two other capitols (Indiana and Ohio) and Julie was 27 for 27, so Ryan made the sacrifice so she could keep her streak. While Julie visited the statehouse and took in its majesty and all of its wonderful historical and cultural exhibits (which was fortunate, since the state museum wouldn’t open until 2026), Ryan sat with the Thermo King folks as they spent hours trying to figure out the issue and leaving us at the end of the day with no answers and a need to return the next day. 

Julie walked through Temple Square and down into the heart of downtown Salt Lake City, taking in the sights, including all of the very welcoming signs to any visiting Gallivans.

We planned a rendezvous at a boba shop (of course) and Ryan picked Julie up with the news that we would have to return to Thermo King the next day after our scheduled stop at Big O Tires. Our plans to swing by Park City and the Homestead Crater hot springs would be nixed. We have found, on this trip, there are no bad reroutings. Each thing we don’t get to do leads to something else cool we do, and this was no exception.

We ran into one of only a handful of nights on the trip having to scramble to figure out where to stay that night. We were tired and hungry and grabbed some delicious Thai food at a local spot and eventually settled on the Salt Lake City KOA after realizing we wouldn’t find a free spot close enough to town for our early morning tire appointment. We usually don’t like to do KOAs because they are expensive, but they have great facilities and the location was right, so we went for it. We were surprised, once again, in Utah, for a spot that didn’t seem to be in the prettiest part of town, the views from the campsite were stunning. Utah’s beauty is completely unphased by any attempts by anything as piddly as a drab industrial area to dull her. When the sun came up on the site in the morning, the Wasatch Mountains and the Utah sunrise simply said, “Hold my cappucino.”

Even though we had a day full of mechanical errands to run, we both ended up having such a spectacular and much needed “normal” day. We love this trip and, even though the breakneck pace is tiring, each day we wake up and we can’t wait to hit the next set of sights on the list. That said, a day forced to be in place, we both found ourselves excited to settle into some of our more familiar habits of our life back home, even if just for a couple of hours. Julie took the opportunity to schedule a massage and was over the moon when next to the massage place, there was a movie theater and a health food restaurant with acai bowls right down the street. She grabbed an acai bowl and some gluten free dairy free coffee cake before heading into the movie theater for a midday showing. Ryan was delighting in his time at the Cielito Linda coffee shop, after raiding the Mexican bakery next door, not only having one of the best breakfasts he’s ever had, but also enjoying one of his favorite home activities, a few hours of writing and to do’ing at a coffee shop. 

While our van was getting a doctor’s visit, we both enjoyed a day not doing anything spectacular, but because we were in Salt Lake City, we did our not-much-spectacular surrounded by the jagged peaks of snow-capped mountains. We winced a little as we paid the couple grand to keep our shocks and tires in working order, but relaxed because we had budgeted ahead of time for expenses like this. We paid almost $300 bucks to have Thermo King basically tell us there was not much they could do and left Salt Lake City with our heater giving us all the same error messages, but continuing to heat us just the same. 

The major thing we missed during these prior 48 hours that was the first thing on the trip that Julie was truly bummed to miss was the Golden Spike where the country’s western and eastern rail lines had come together in the middle of the 19th century and finalized this industrial transformation of the nation. It was a an important piece of history and she had really been looking forward to seeing it. We had originally planned to drive the 1.5 to stay there after our first day in Salt Lake City. Though the van work had been part of the reason to miss it, even more so was when we realized that the Golden Spike museum wouldn’t even be open on that day and it would add a lot of inconvenience to our schedule to get there. All of that added up, and we needed to skip it. We also missed our stay next to the Great Salt Lake that we had been curious to see, even though, as we understand it, locals are not as impressed with it. Still, with 5 times the salinity of the ocean, Julie had hoped to have a freezing float in it. Alas, there will definitely need to be a return to Utah someday anyways. 

We would miss our Park City stop as well, which included the hot springs in which Julie had planned to get in her Utah swim of the trip. 

As we headed out of Salt Lake City, we searched for other mineral springs knowing that, even with a wet suit, without the earth’s water-heating capacity, the waters of Utah would be just too cold for Julie to brave. 

We stumbled upon a small town park called Inlet Park. Walking towards it reminded us of walking the path at home to Mendon Ponds Park. It was clearly a gem of beauty that the locals enjoyed, as we passed a handful of others coming and going with towels to grab a dip in the small warm pool at the end of the path. 

What we saw there was one of the most stunning displays of scenery of the trip…and this is right after we were at Arches! The scenery was so perfect it didn’t even seem real. Julie hopped in the warm muddy waters and took in a slice of bliss while Ryan looked on and enjoyed the perfectly crisp air in the unreal setting. 

We knew our day would push us to have a much later drive than we usually like. We always try to get where we are going in time for a nice relaxed dinner and evening. We love to get where we are going by 6, but 7PM will do. Occasionally, we’ll settle for an 8 o’clock arrival. We are early to bed and early to rise folks, usually in bed and asleep by 9 and up somewhere in the 5 o’clock hour. Despite our preferences, we knew we wanted to wake up at Bryce Canyon, so we drove until we arrived at the campsite just before 10PM.

Julie had never been to Bryce Canyon. Ryan had insisted we find a way to include it in the itinerary. The next day, when we headed into Sunrise Point, Julie understood why. There’s not much to say about Bryce that can’t be better said with pictures. We took a 3 mile hike through hoodoos and rock formations that are otherworldly. One of Julie’s favorite things about National Parks, other than the striking beauty of course, is the linguistic fireworks popping in her ears. We passed German, French, Spanish, Mandarin, Russian and at least a few other Eastern European and Asian languages that Julie didn’t recognize. No matter what language was being spoken, all who hiked on this gorgeous fall day had looks of awe. We took the Queen’s Garden Trail to the Navajo Trail to the Rim Trail and then headed off to Inspiration Point. We were, as predicted, inspired. 

Our race in Utah was the next morning in St. George. We headed to the Visitor’s Center in Bryce in time to leave the park by 3PM. We planned to drive through Zion towards St. George to be able to get the amazing views available just by driving through the park before we would return after our race the next day. 

We drove south to a state park just a bit east of St. George called Sand Hollow State Park. We arrived just after nightfall and took in a glowing moon and the most wonderful smelling air. We lamented that we would have to leave this beautiful spot so early in the morning, but were used to such scenarios on this trip. We woke up at our usual early hour and were happy to take in the showers at the park, happy that, unlike many parks, the showers were still on. 

We headed into the town of St. George and found ourselves quite enamored with it. We always play the game of “could we live here” in each place we visit. St. George was one of the handful that got a resounding yes from both of us. Even the ugly street that is in every town, the one with all the big box stores, the one that has no character in any town, because that is not what is there for, even that street in St. George was beautiful. Not because the street or it’s big boxy residents were any more beautiful than anywhere else per se, but the backdrop overshadowed the mundane but practical busy-ness that those streets typically contain. 

We arrived at the race to find it was a huge happening. The high school parking lot was full, and we were amazed to find a stunning view in every direction and with a different stunning set of colors and shapes each way you looked – whether bright orange sandstone in or green tree-covered hills in another or snow-capped mountains. They were all there. 

We both had a great time at the race. The air was fresh, the course was beautiful and we were both feeling strong and energized.

After the race, Julie had hunted down a place for some gluten free treats and we made our way to gather what they were selling at Cafe FeelLove. We did. It was delicious and there was food for both of us to enjoy.

We stopped at the post office to mail home some Xmas and birthday presents and cards and drop off our postcards a day earlier than we usually get to them. Even the post office in St. George was beautiful.

We swung by a grocery store for way longer than intended and then hit our final glorious stop of Utah, swinging back up north for one more night, this time in Zion National Park. 

We hit the visitor’s center and then hopped on the shuttle into the canyon. A family got on the shuttle and sat across from us. We were thoroughly impressed by them as they were encircled by 5 little humans that they somehow were managing to keep track of. One was holding his hand in pain as they deduced he must have put his hand on a cactus and learned the hard way that that is not a great idea. We chatted and were impressed by the hikes they had done with so many little humans along for the ride. 

The shuttle passed by the famous Angels’ Landing that Ryan had already hiked twice and Julie looked up at with hopes and dreams of a someday. 

We went for what we both decided had to be classified as a long and gorgeous walk into one of the canyons. The flatness and the paved walkway took it out of hike category for both of us – but it was still squarely in the “oh my goodness, this is so flippin beautiful” territory. The walk felt good on our legs after a nice run earlier in the morning. 

Both our stomachs were still heavy from our delicious post-race breakfast at Cafe FeelLove and we pulled into our campsite right next to the visitors center with Zion’s formidable and gorgeous Navajo stone walls encircling us on all sides. We both had a very light dinner and faded off into a blissful sleep in such a gorgeous setting. 

In the morning we woke up to the gorgeous surroundings of Zion as we got to work doing our write ups…which is what we are doing right now!

Sometime in the next hour and a half, Julie will grab a quick bikeride and write a song about Utah while Ryan finishes our race write up and then we will hop in the car to say goodbye to the Beehive State with the memories and images we have seen seered into our brains and our lungs full of the sweet Utah air. 

It is nothing new to hear us say we don’t want to leave this place and it is nothing new to hear us say that we want to come back. As far as Utah is concerned, you can bet on it.