Enoch, Utah and surrounds

March, 2015
We left Panguitch, pretty happy to be out of the dodgy hotel and drove to our house exchange place in Enoch, Utah, near Cedar City.  Stu arranges all the house exchanges which can sometimes be difficult especially when we can't decide where we want to go, and we hate being committed to a place!  Anyway this was a lovely detached self contained cottage.  It had a bathroom, washing machine and dryer (so handy), fully equipped kitchen, and sitting room with a bed in the corner.  It was ideal.  The owners house was right behind the cottage and we met him a couple of times, and then he left us to ourselves. 

Stu spent a day in the cottage after catching some sort of tummy bug that laid him low for a day and then we did a whole lot of day trips checking out the area.

 We went up to check out Cedars Break National Monument, but due to the large amount of snow couldn't quite get there.  The views as far as we were able to get were sensational!

I just loved the colours!  By this time it was starting to get a bit cold so we turned to go back to the car, which proved a little difficult to find!

It was also around this time that Stuart started to feel a bit cold, so he went to the boot of the car to get his blue snow jacket out.....and it wasn't there. 

So we did (I did) a bit of backtracking in our (my) mind and remembered he had stuffed it in the pillowcase at the dodgy hotel in Panguitch and had forgotten to take it out...ala London, Ontario circa 2013 (but that time it was his entire US wardrobe he left behind!).  This wasn't a complete disaster...we would just ring the hotel and drive the 120 kms to go and get it.  So we rang, and rang, and rang and rang and of course they didn't answer.  So we figured we'd drive back, get the jacket, and go back to Bryce Canyon for another look...and a speccy drive it was too.

We got to the Panguitch hotel and there was the familiar note on the door to ring them if the office was unattended...so we did...they didn't answer.  I remembered what area they had appeared from when we had arrived there the other night, so I told Stu to go and knock on the doors over in that direction and see if they were there.  But instead of knocking on their door, he saw a sign on another door that said LAUNDRY, and this door was ajar, so in he went, a quick look around and lo and behold, there was his blue jacket, hanging up!  So he grabbed it and we fled....not looking back to see if they were chasing us.  So in the end it worked out OK...and we got to visit Bryce Canyon again and this time Stu did a walk down into the canyon, which he described as the best walk he'd ever done!

There was a small ski resort up in the mountains called Brian Head, so Stu was able to get a cheap midweek ticket and he spent a day up there...Spring Snowboarding, while I was able to do the important things like getting my hair done and eyebrows waxed!!
Here's a link to a short video he made: Briand Head, Utah

Goblin Valley State Park, Capitol Reef NP, Grand Staircase Escalante and Bryce Canyon NP, Utah

March  2015
We left Linda's place in Grand Junction reasonably early as we knew that even though we were only travelling a few 100 kms it would take us all day! John suggested we visit Goblin Valley State Park. Its eminent feature is its thousands of hoodoos and hoodoo rocks, referred to locally as “goblins”,which are formations of mushroom-shaped rock pinnacles, some as high as several meters. The distinct shape of these rocks comes from an erosion-resistant layer of rock atop softer sandstone.

We spent a good couple of hours here and it was such a surreal landscape....we loved it!

Unfortunately I do remember seeing Goblin Valley SP in the news a few years ago, when a group of men, who also happened to be be Scout leaders, toppled one of the "goblins" over and put the footage on youtube.  It's quite unbelievable when you see the footage and for these guys to think it was OK and then to share it with the rest of the world.
The drive to Capitol Reef NP was spectacular.  There was still enough snow around for it to look amazing, and the Kimberley/Pilbara colours with the snow was breathtaking!

We visited the NP over 2 days and during the second day walked through a gorge/canyon, which we had to ourselves.  It was fantastic. Huge sheer rock walls reaching all the way up to the blue Utah skies, and the sound of the crunching snow at our feet.  Loved it!

The drive throughout the NP was miles of gorgeousness....and hardly another person in sight.

We spent the night in Torrey at a nice hotel and went out for dinner that night.  When we are travelling for so long, it is unaffordable to go to restaurants every night...as there is the cost of the meal, tax and a tip, which all adds up, so the rare times we do go out is a treat.  The lady at the hotel recommended a little cafe to us so we went there.  The lady who served us was incredibly rude (something you rarely encounter in the US), took our order and 15 mins later, threw a paper plate with Stu's dinner on it onto the table and said to me, "we don't have any nachos left, what else do you want?" I replied with, "well I can't remember what else was on the menu", so she eventually came back with a menu for me (she was annoyed that I'd asked for the menu again), and I decided that it wasn't worth the wait for her to come back, take my order, and have the meal cooked, so instead shared Stuart's meal with him.  It was very disappointing and in hindsight, we shouldn't have given a tip!  But I must reiterate this kind of rudeness is very unusual in our US travels.
The next day we took Hwy 12 Scenic Byway, as recommended by John.  WOW!

Again, we virtually had the road to ourselves and it was stunning.  Amazing views overlooking Capitol Reef where we had just been, the whitest snow, blue skies and gorgeous aspen.

We drove over Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument...another amazing drive over the ridge of mountains, with more outstanding views.

When I knew I was coming back to the US, there were two main places I wanted to see...Bryce Canyon NP and Zion NP, both in Utah.  So it turned out well that we were driving past Bryce Canyon NP around sunset, and we only had about a further 40 minute drive to our accommodation, so decided to check it out. We were there for probably about 1 hr and in that time took over 300 photos.  It was such a sight, like nothing I had ever seen before.  So we had to cull a lot of photos and here are a few we kept.

Again we were so lucky to nearly have the place to ourselves and to see it with snow was very fortunate.  We drove to Panguitch, where we had booked a hotel for the night...a cheap hotel. We were the only ones in the hotel for the night and  the only way you could get hold of the owners was to ring a number that was taped to the office door and if you were lucky, they might answer! Yep a bit of a dodgy place, where it took ages for the room to warm up (it was bloody freezing), the "free wifi" was free of any wifi and there were only 3 pillows on the bed....which is of significance as it meant Stu had to use his blue snow jacket to plump up his pillow, by inserting it into the pillow case...a trick he learned while in London, Ontario back in 2013...and a trick he didn't learn from as we found out a few days later!!