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Sunday, 6/6/21: The Laundry Monster
I hadn’t realized that the last time we did laundry was way back on May 23rd. We ran out of clean clothes. The mountain of dirty laundry was crawling out of the overstuffed laundry bag in the van, like zombies looking to feed. Price had a Sudsy Duds Laundromat. How could you pass on a name like that? We sure couldn’t.
As good as we were in fighting off Walmart’s gravitational pull yesterday, I admit that it captured us today. So, Sudsy Duds, Walmart, and a very lazy morning didn’t leave us with much time to explore.
I had hoped to visit the Little Grand Canyon, a section of the San Rafael River that flows though the San Rafael Swell Martian-like landscape. Accessing it involves bumping along 30 miles of dirt road to the Wedge Overlook. I just wasn’t going to put Saturn through another crazy dirt adventure. Very reluctantly, we passed.
By scratching the Little Grand Canyon, it was time to move on. Tomorrow, we head for the Flight Park State Recreation Area between Salt Lake City and Provo.
Monday, 6/7/21: Tampanongos
Again, Google Maps wanted to route us on some crazy roads that would take 4 hours to travel 150 miles. Apple Maps laid out a shorter 124 mile route and figured only 2 hours. Something smells fishy. Something is rotten in Denmark. I think Duende, the trickster, is playing a prank.
I dug into the Google Maps settings and sure enough, the app, totally on its own, turned on the “avoid highways” button. Gotcha, you little charlatan. No wonder it has been suggesting gravel roads. A quick swipe of the “use highways” button and off we went.
The Flight Park sits on top of a tall dusty hill, in front of a giant sand mining operation. It was fascinating to watch as a ridiculously tall sandstone mountain is slowly being whittled down to mounds of light-tan beachfront sand. One small bulldozer was pushing an insignificant little swath of sand down a long, nearly vertical slope of sand. How the brave operator kept the dozer from just tumbling down the 500 foot slope was beyond me.
I see why the Flight Park was positioned at the top of its own steep mountain side. The winds were fierce. When I say Flight Park, I’m not talking airplanes, or any variety of powered flying vehicle. This Flight Park is exclusively for paragliders and hang-gliders. I guess they need hurricane force winds to fly.
The camping sign at the Flight Park states that there is a 14 day camping limit. The fee envelope states that the maximum stay is 2 days. We want to hang out for 7 days. My strategy is to keep feeding the fee stand every two days for our week’s stay.
The Tampanogos Cave National Monument and the Unita-Wasatch-Cache National Forest is just up highway 92 from the Flight Park. Time to explore.
After viewing barren rock cliffs for 2 months, we weren’t prepared for the snow-capped alpine mountains that overlook Provo. These mountains were majestic and cool. As Provo hovered around 91º, it was a delicious 82º in the green mountains. With crystal clear snowmelt creeks tumbling down the mountain slopes and tall pines giving off an aromatic scent we were revitalized.
I wanted to drive the Highway 92 loop back to Provo, but the highway was closed for repairs halfway through the loop. No matter, the part that we could drive was terrific.
The Tampanogos Cave is another one of those deals where you have to get tickets online, and they are hard to get as they sell out quickly. We can try tomorrow morning at 7 am sharp. Don’t dilly-dally, the ranger told us. They go fast.
We basically basked the whole afternoon in the wonderful forest. Tomorrow, we have to find a beach.
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