Sat, May 28, 2011

Saturday, May 28, 2011

If you enter a restaurant anywhere near Bryce Canyon National Park you will hear many different nationalities represented.  It’s the one time that the waitress actually appreciates our Southern English. – Donna Downey

I’m pretty sure we were in the minority at the motel where we stayed in Tropic last night.  We were definitely in the minority at the restaurant.  Even one of our waitresses was Russian but everyone seemed thrilled to hear our slow southern twang.  It seemed preferable to many of the hand signals that were going on at the large table of French tourists. 

We had already made a reservation for tonight at the Defiance House Lodge on Lake Powell because we knew rooms would be hard to find on the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend.  So part of our day was “set in stone” so to speak. 

We had picked out a new dirt road to take for the morning and were excited as we drove along on new territory.  Just yesterday we went over a mountain pass in excess of 9400 feet that was completely dry and less than ten miles from this new road so we were pretty confident we would be able to make this route.  And we did make it thru the pass on this road at almost 10,000 feet with just a few patches of snow remaining on the sides of the road but that was on the “sunny” side of the street.  Unfortunately as we began a slow descent that entered the shady side of the mountain we were met with about a 100 foot section of a deep snow drift right across our beautiful dirt road.  We discussed continuing and even drove just into the edge of the snow with the front wheels but it was way too deep so we backed out and turned around. 

We whined a little bit but have always had a policy of not taking any chances where road conditions or weather are concerned.  We drove back out and found a nice place for a picnic alongside Pine Creek and even had about a 4 foot waterfall to enjoy.  After a nice break we picked out a route off the mountain.  Since we were just a few miles from the Hell’s Backbone road we returned to it and made the trek across it again.

We were soon back at Highway 12 and took the short drive to Boulder, Utah where we once again left the pavement behind and headed down the Burr Trail.  You might remember we took this same road just a couple of weeks ago on our way out but it always looks totally different to drive a road “backwards” and with another day of very nice weather it was a beautiful drive.

Again today the wind picked up as the afternoon progressed and after a nice break at an old set of cattle pens located in Capital Reef National Park (still on the Burr Trail) we noticed the winds were really beginning to blow.  Just a few more miles and it was windows up.  We were getting sandblasted by the combination of the extreme winds and the desert sands.  The combination was intolerable.  We made a few stops to take a photograph or two but it was like extreme photography, the latest reality show!  I have enough nice shots today… forget this!!

We were glad to get to the motel and to get out of the wind.  We had a good dinner in the restaurant overlooking Lake Powell and then headed to our room.  As I sit here typing, the wind is howling outside but we are comfy and cozy.  There again, I like to photograph landscapes not become a permanent fixture in them.

We are well tonight and hope that y’all are too.

Peace, Hope & Love,

Donna, Charles, Paris & Dodger