Well family and friends, we’re getting close to the end. There is still some adventure left in this ol’ rust bucket though. Let’s give her a kick and see what falls off her underside, yeah?

This last week was a bit of everything. Long bouts of driving, a very comfy few days of house lounging, and plenty of outdoor spectacles for our viewing enjoyment. When Kate left off at the end of last week’s post we had just arrived at the house we’d be staying at for the majority of the week. Thanks again to my dad and Tammy for hosting us for the few days we were there. Your hospitality is always appreciated and we’re glad we got to visit with you both.

Monday was a pretty lazy day for us. In the week or so prior to our arrival here we hadn’t done any laundry which meant that we wore the shackles of laundry for most of the day. This required us to stay in the warm and comfortable house instead of wandering about in the freezing temperatures. It was horrendous….ly relaxing. We stayed in bed talking about the near future, where we might be living when we got back, and doing some online searches for apartments and jobs. This trip has been amazing but we are definitely hitting that point where we’re looking at what life will be for us when we settle back in Vegas for a while. There were some prospective jobs and housing that intrigued us but as we weren’t in town to go look at things or apply and show up for interviews, all this online looking was just that – looking.

After agreeing that we still had time on the trip and that we should enjoy it while it lasted we ceased our search and figured out what to do with the rest of our days here in New Harmony, UT. Knowing that our only real plans for the day were to do laundry and catch up on conversation with Tammy, we felt justified rolling out of bed and rising into the world of the waking about halfway through the day. When we eventually got up we headed upstairs from the fully furnished basement apartment we were staying in to make breakfast. We were immediately tasked with heading out of the house to the chicken roosts to gather up any eggs we might want for breakfast. Daily farm fresh eggs? Yes, please!

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I suppose it is about now that I should describe where we would be staying a little. Dad’s house is a 2.6 acre plot of land at the edge of New Harmony, Utah. The house sits in the middle of a valley. The front of the house faces west toward the northern end of the Pine Valley Mountains. The back of the house has large windows and faces east toward Kolob Canyon, which is the mountainous area located in the north west corner of Zion National Park. The property is set up in the ranch style with two separate farm-bird areas. They keep chickens, ducks, and even a couple of eagerly honking guard geese. The’ve got a large solar array set up at the edge of the back yard and a couple of shipping containers not too far away from the house which serve as workshop and storage. Running around the yard at any time is Daisy, the sweetest dog you’ll ever meet!

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Anyway, back to breakfast – eggs, potatoes and shallots from our stash in the car, toast, home made apple-butter, and coffee. We sat around the table chatting with Tammy and enjoying the view out of the back windows. My dad works in a remote location and will head into work for a few days at a time. Unfortunately as the two of them would would be leaving to head up to Idaho the following weekend my dad was stuck away at work for the first few days of our stay.

After breakfast we were cleaning up a little bit and I accidentally broke a plate. It is a funny thing about accidentally breaking a plate, you always feel guilty but everyone knows that it just happens sometimes.

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The rest of the evening was spent playing with Daisy and then hooking up the Chromecast to the tv in the living room to watch some Frasier. Kate has never seen the series and I only watched occasional episodes when it originally aired as I think I was slightly under the age of the target demographic. We burned through a lot of episodes this week.

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The next day when we got up we were determined to venture out of the house and into the beautiful parks located so near by. After a bit of weather review online and comparing the different hikes available we settled on heading into Kolob Canyon later that afternoon. We again made breakfast and helped handle some bird related tasks outside. During the meal Tammy informed us that if we wanted an even better view of what we could see out of the back window that we should head up to the cemetery in town. So we did.

The drive out to the cemetery is pretty quick and along the way we got lost in conversation about vintage stand mixers – when we pulled over and looked back toward the mountains on the opposite side of the valley we were glad we took the detour. What a view. The Kolob Canyon area has 5 protruding mesas referred to as fingers. Here is a bit more info. We snagged a few pictures and then turned the car around to drive right into those canyons.

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One exit down the interstate is the entrance and visitor’s center. We popped into to say hello to the staff there and to pick up a map of the area. We then drove the road up through the hills and parked where we’d be hiking. What incredible views. We took tons of pictures before losing all daylight. When we got back to the house we settled in for some pasta leftovers, did some photo editing, and watched more Frasier.

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Wednesday would have began with us waking up to an alarm but as I’m sure you could’ve suspected, we turned off the alarm and snoozed a bit longer than intended. Why the alarm in the first place? Today would be another venturing-out-of-the-house day. Today we had set our sights on Zion National Park. The main entrance to the park is about 45 minutes to an hour away from the house, which is pretty great if you like to get out and hike. We again made breakfast: eggs, potatoes, avocado toast, etc. Then hopped in the car and got to driving.

Luckily this week falls right into the small window of weeks where you are allowed to drive in Zion. Normally they run a shuttle service throughout the summer months and again right around Christmas time as visitors start to pour in for the holidays. We drove in and used our America the Beautiful pass to waive the entrance fee. That pass has paid for itself half a dozen times over. For anyone looking to go on their own adventure some day – that pass is one of the few things that I would say is a must have. We drove all the way to the end of the road-accessible portion of the canyon and got out to start the River Walk Hike. It is an easy two-mile round trip walk next to the river. At the end of the trail is the beginning of The Narrows, which is a trickier hike that takes you much further into the canyon by walking in the Virgin River. This will be a hike for the future though as the cold, cold weather does not make for a good time splashing around in the river.

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After spending a couple hours around the park, taking pictures of the thousand-foot rock walls, the river, and the cute deer we got back in the car and drove back to the house while listening to the last hour or so of the impeachment proceedings. Listening live to the House of Representatives participate in an event that will go into the history books is exciting. Civic engagement is important. Voting is important. Reality matters. When we got back to the house we watched the final minutes live on C-SPAN as well.

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Dinner was lovingly prepared by Tammy – she had been slow-cooking teriyaki chicken throughout the day and we came home to a very filling and satisfying meal. The rest of the evening was spent watching a couple episodes of Frasier and the film 20th Century Women and eating a couple slices of pumpkin pie.

Thursday was the day my dad would be returning from work and we decided to be lazy and hang around the house all day. We had breakfast, talked about the politics of the night before, played with the animals, and spent a lot of time reviewing/editing pics from the trip. Kate finished another book and collected some pics online to serve as potential inspiration for a haircut. When my dad got home in the evening we caught him up on our activities of the previous couple of days. We ended up talking about all kinds of things until the wee hours of the morning. Eventually around 2:30 we all agreed it was bedtime.

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The next morning we got up and began packing our belongings as we’d be heading out later in the evening. The morning was spent cooking breakfast, looking at photo albums, and sharing memories. We showed off the car/living space we’d been using for the past five and half months and then generally loafed about until our last load of laundry was done. My dad has a passion for radio engineering, and before we left he had to show me his SDR set up. He has an at-home weather station on the property and has some software that runs to record all of the data that it spits out. Same for his home power meter. He intends to turn all this recorded data into some quickly viewable charts and graphs to monitor the weather and power consumption. I offered to help convert the raw files he is getting into a database and will be working with him on that over the next few days or so when back in Vegas.

Finally, before leaving, Tammy presented us with our Christmas gift from them – a custom designed photo album. It is entirely travels-themed and has tons of amazing little pockets and photo displays. They offered it as a way for us to help physically catalog all of our travels. We love it and will be filling it out as we can. We’ll put in lots of the thousand plus pictures we took that didn’t make it onto this blog. Thank you so much Tammy for making that for us!

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The time finally came for us to hit the road. We loaded into the car and set off. …..and within 10 minutes had to turn around as I got the text message that we had left the Chromecast behind. D’oh! So we went back and met my dad at the gas station near the freeway exit to pick it up.

Here is where Kate deserves some big credit again. After all this delay we didn’t end up leaving my dad’s until about 5pm – and then we had to drive about 5 and a half hours all the way to the south rim of the Grand Canyon.

We stopped almost 5 hours in to grab a couple Impossible burgers from Burger King. They are running a promotion at the moment where you can win free stuff if the peel-off sticker on your cup has a winning code. Feeling lucky, I peeled my sticker to see I had won a free chicken-sandwich. I also peeled Kate’s cups’ sticker and that revealed another code. With the two cups left behind by previous people seated near us I snagged their cups and won two more items as well. Who doesn’t love free stuff? Anyway…

When we left to drive the remaining 30 or so miles, the GPS suggested this may take up to an hour or more. When we got to the dirt road that held our final destination we saw why. About 5 miles down the highway was the pull off toward where we were supposed to sleep for the night. It was a dirt road that led back through national forest land. We were greeted almost immediately by a family of deer and a little kangaroo mouse. Washboard roads for 14 miles with rabbits popping out now occasionally and then snowy, icy roads for the last 9 miles or so. We made it almost to the very end when about a mile from where we were supposed to camp for the night we were forced to turn around. We couldn’t climb up this hill as it was covered in ice and my car just didn’t have the traction to do it. It was a bit hair-raising to say the least. Slowly but surely we reversed down the hill and at the bottom were able to turn the car around. Not wanting to drive back over 14 miles of dirt roads which were determined to shake my car to pieces, we made it past the snowiest parts to a clearing where we could park for the night. Stressed and exhausted, we set up the bed and promptly went to sleep.

After several hours of cold tossing and turning the alarm went off. Why do we even bother setting them? After a few more hours of actual restful sleep, we got up and drove out of the dirt and back onto the highway. It was only a short distance to the entrance to the Grand Canyon National Park, which was nice. We entered the park and drove just up the hill to Desert View which is the first of the lookout points if you come into the park from the eastern entrance. We parked and headed over to the railing to look out at this magnificent example of geologic time. Looking at this enormous hole in the ground it is a little hard to imagine just how much time went into its making. Hundreds of millions of years. Carved by the draining of a now non-existent sea. Nearby a large stone observation tower sits adjacent to some smaller modern structures, like the restrooms, a small cafe, etc. and in the base of the tower is an info center and cultural display area. We climbed the steps to the top of the tower and again looked out at this mind-boggling scar in the earth.

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Once we got over how impressive it is just to behold, we hopped back into the car and drove to the next lookout point, Lipan. This observation spot offers views of the Hance Rapids, a mile long stretch where the elevation drops about 3 stories. It is one of the most challenging section of rapids in the entire canyon – and from our vantage point was a tiny section of white almost 4 miles away. This lookout point is also a globally important spot for birds as it is one of the more narrow areas of the canyon and makes for a wise choice for hawks trying to cross the canyon safely. We stopped a couple more times to look out at the view before making it all the way over to the Grand Canyon Village where at the western end of the village is the Bright Angel Trailhead.

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Bright Angel Trail is one of the few trails that leads all the way down the canyon to the river. We descended just a very short distance down the trail before turning around and come back. The trail was pretty icy and I slipped my footing momentarily causing Kate to have a minor heart-attack. I didn’t fall or anything but we weren’t wearing appropriate gear to navigate the trail and there were a LOT of warning signs about how the trail can be deadly if not taken seriously. In the future though, I would love to return here for a two or three day camping trip, to hike down to the river over a day and then back up the following days.

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I had wanted to visit this trail specifically because the Bright Angel Shale for which it gets its name, is unique and offers a fun talking point. The Bright Angel Shale is geologically continuous all the way over to Las Vegas. Running underneath the ground is a giant layer of shale that pops up and out of the ground at the base of Sunrise Mountain in Las Vegas. You can walk right up to it and touch it. You can even dig through it a little and find tons and tons of fossils. I think it is just fascinating that the rocks you can touch at the base of the mountain in Las Vegas are the same layer as the one popping out of the side of the canyon in northern Arizona.

After our short hike, we got back into the car and had officially checked off everything that we had wanted to do on our road trip before heading back to Las Vegas for Christmas. Our plan for the evening was just to drive about halfway home and camp for the night. However as we had gotten everything we wanted done and still had a good amount of daylight left I had the energy to make the whole drive. So we texted our friends for whom we’d be house-sitting over the next couple of days and asked if we could show up a night early. They enthusiastically said yes and that they were excited to see us. Thanks again Tom and Juliana, we promise we’ll take care of Milo and Mila (their beautiful kitties).

Our excitement grew as we noticed the glow of the city against the clouds more than a hundred miles out of town. We made it into town, stopped for food as it had been half a day since we’d eaten and then drove over to T+J’s right as my car odometer neared onto 149,998 miles. Nearly 22,000 miles of road trip! We were greeted at the door, smothered in hugs, and then had a fun night to catch up and slip back into a comfortable and familiar friend hangout session. It is a little crazy when you experience that time warp of catching up with your normal life as it was six-months prior. In many ways nothing has changed, and at the same time there is so much that has been missed out on.

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It is now the next morning and I’m finishing up writing this post before we go out and see all the other family and friends we’ve got here in town. Our adventure isn’t quite done though as this is a 26 Sundays blog and not a 25 Sundays and let’s ignore the last week blog. So adios for now, but stay tuned!

‘Til next time,

– Brian.