Enjoying time in Northern Utah

 

October 10^th – Old friends reuniting

In general, we have been avoiding big cities as we believed there would not a lot of things for the three of us to do (Kendra, Paul & Rupert); at least that is what we always assume.  Salt Lake City is the first “big city” that we actually visited as Kendra’s childhood friend lives in the greater area.  

After taking full advantage of the hotel room and their complementary breakfast we left Evanston around 11:30am.  After arriving in Salt Lake City, it was time for laundry, a blog post before heading out for dinner.

We had planned to just go out for dinner with Kendra’s friend and then finding a camping spot but their hospitality was incredible and before we knew it, we had a bed to sleep in, access to a shower and the WIFI password. Thanks Coulam family for your hospitality.

October 11^th – SALTA LAKE CITY

We woke up and decided to download the songs from the musical The Book of Mormon to get into the Salt Lake City mood.  The first things we decided to do was explore the trendy neighbourhood of “Sugar House”.  There wasn’t a lot going on outside, but the area was full of pubs and cute shops so I’m sure on a weekend or evening it would be just buzzing. 

We ended up going to a coffee shop in the area, which had amazing people watching.   

We then headed to The Avenues for some great views and wandering, before heading downtown to do a lot of the same.

We then headed back to Kendra’s friends house and joined her and her family for a hike in Mueller Park towards Elephant Rock.  This is easily our favourite time of year as the whole area is in full autumn colours.

Our favourite hike and place we went was Ensign Peak for sunset which looks out onto the Salt Lake Valley, the downtown area, and numerous other areas.  It was definitely the perfect way to end the day. The skyline looks amazing at sunset and lit up at night.

 

October 12^th – Back up North

When we left Alaska, we told ourself we wouldn’t backtrack unless it was required, well we broke this rule.  We had been told that Logan UT was a beautiful area with a must see valley area with some amazing hikes.  Well, we had a few days to kill as we were waiting for Kendra’s credit card to arrive at Kendra’s friends house, so we headed north.

This was a great decision as Logan Canyon and specifically the hike to some Wind Caves were well worth our time.  However, Paul, as the fearless leader he is decided to make an out and back trail into a loop.  He had scouted a goat trail that he was convinced would link up with the main trail so we started down this much less used trail.

The trail went beside a cliff face, into brush and most adventurous ended with us having to scale down an 8 foot rock face.

Paul went first and somehow found the foot and hand holds by “carefully” jamming his foot into different areas of the rock.  Once down it was Rupert’s turn.  He was placed halfway down, while Paul coxed him to walk a little further, against Rupert’s better judgement, to the edge where Paul was able to just barely grab him and place him on the ground.  Next was Kendra’s turn who was very unsure of this idea and with some help from Paul was able to make it 6 feet down the cliff face where she decided to “jump” butt first into Paul.

After such excitement we decided to find our campsite for the night, cook some pork we had in our fridge from a week ago and relax for the night.

Yup you guessed it the pork was off; it was green and smelled horrible.  Kendra kept assuring Paul it would be fine, but Paul refused to eat any of it.  Kendra followed suit after seeing Paul physically throw the cooked meat in the garbage.

 

October 13^th – Time for Tea

We left our campsite and explored downtown Logan. Logan is home to Utah State University so it felt very much like a college town with lots of bars and restaurants, all of which were closed. 

After walking around, we decided to go to Brigham City as Kendra read it had a cute downtown.  Unfortunately, we disagreed with the internet, but it did have a chocolate shop and a tea store with a little patio.  We decided to grab a tea and once again do some people watching.

The tea shop was extreme, hundreds of different types all brewed to perfection.  This is probably our favourite non alcoholic drink location we have been too in this entire trip.  If you are ever in Northern Utah Monarch Tea House is a must visit.  People watching wasn’t as good in Brigham City as it is a typical US city that has a lot of sprawl.  It appeared most people watched us as they drove by the tea house with one person even yelling at us say ‘WHAT DID YOU GET?  DO YOU LIKE IT?”

Humorously the owner had just been to British Columbia and was telling us how much she enjoyed it, especially Icefield Parkway as well as Banff and Jasper. We didn’t have the heart to tell her that that is Alberta. We also told her the area we were from and she was pretty sure she would have remembered it if she had went there, but then told us how she took the Cassiar Highway down (so she would have had to go through Prince George).

We continued driving South, stopping for a cider break outside of Salt Lake City before heading towards Nevada.  We had heard there was some salt flats near the Utah/Nevada border so we pointed our compass west and started driving.

 

October 14^th – Salt Flats!!

If you are ever in the Northern Utah/Nevada area, specifically on interstate 80, the Salt Flats are a must do and are totally amazing.  They also taste as salty as they look!

This was the go to spot for road trippers and van lifers as the whole area was full of people taking pictures of themselves and/or their vehicles for the ‘gram.  Well obviously, we had to do the same so after spending some time walking on the salt flats we made the decision to drive the van 500 meters or so onto the salt to do our own photo shoot.  It was so fun setting up the van we decided to use the van properly and cook some lunch.

Our next stop was West Wendover NV, a super small scale Las Vegas type place for all Salt Lake City Residents who want a sinful weekend away.  Of course, that meant our first stop was at a casino, but we didn’t end up gambling.  We had some boring life stuff to do so instead sat in a 24 hour Starbucks and did some work.

We ended our night looking for camping, we were recommended to go to Blue Lake, but the road was one of the worst roads we had ever seen.  To say it was mostly washboard was an understatement, there was washboard on the washboard.  It was evident that most people who traveled this “road’ had driven on the shoulder/in the desert.  After about 250 meters Paul decided that we would be taking this off road road that looked better than the real road, and although there were some scary angles that made us feel like the van could have easily gone onto its side if a large enough breeze pushed us, we got to our campsite.

Our campsite was horrible, there were mosquitos every where and they were vicious.  Not only that there were signs everywhere saying that the US military used the area for weapons testing.  We decided to leave.

After tackling the off road road one last time we ended up finding an amazing spot on top of a hill a place that we decided to make our home for three nights.

 

October 15^th – Nothing

You know those days at home when you wander around the house not doing much of anything.  You do a bit of cooking, bit of cleaning, bit of work but that is about it?  Well, that was today, we didn’t do much.  Highlights would probably be having a fire, sunset and watching the Mole on Netflix.

 

October 16^th – Metropolis

Paul didn’t want to do another nothing day, instead he wanted to explore northern Nevada so he spent an hour searching for everything to do off the I80 in Nevada.  There was not a lot.

He did decide upon a ghost town called Metropolis, a community that was built on home, prayers and agriculture, but the community ended up facing “biblical plagues” (according to one article we read).  There were fires, a drought as well as insect infestations resulting in the town literally running dry of water and people.  All that remains is the basement portion of the school as well as the archway where the kids would have entered the school and the foundation of an old hotel.  It was interesting but not worth the 3 hours round trip drive.

Finally, we decided try our luck at the casino.  We both walked in with $20 of which Kendra walked right to the penny slots and started playing.  Paul walked towards the blackjack table and started playing.  After playing 3 hands, Kendra let Paul know that she had lost all our money and was going to go to Starbucks.

Paul continued to play and tripled his money, so together we won $20 at the casino.

As an aside, blackjack in West Wendover is really weird.  It is only played with one deck of cards and all cards are dealt facedown with the exception of the dealers second card.  There is no banter at the table as you don’t know what the other players have, so you can not cheer them on when they hit 21 or act sympathetic when they bust.  Paul wasn’t a fan of this style of blackjack.

 

October 17^th – The Return to Great Salt Lake

We made our way back towards Salt Lake City, but decided to check out a few sites along the way.  The first was middle canyon which after climbing up a dirt road to the top of a mountain had a view of the worlds largest copper mine.  Pretty neat.

From there we went to a house designed to look just like the house from UP.  Definitely a good picture opportunity, but we wished it was jammed between two skyscrapers for that true authentic feeling.

We had hoped to see Kendra’s friend again but she and her husband and three kids have very busy lives so unfortunately, we were not able to connect, so instead we headed towards a campsite for a night.

Kendra had picked out one she thought would be perfect, the only issue was it was up a dirt road near the summit of a mountain.  We started our ascent but were surprised when all the other 2WD vehicles seemed to slow down or stop, but we continued.  The next hour was a harrowing drive up a road that the internet said was “challenging”.  We feel this was an understatement.  The other vehicles we encountered were side by sides, dirt bikes and 4x4 trucks, all of which seemed bewildered by a 2WD minivan climbing up the mountain. 

Thanks to Paul’s excellent driving we arrived unscathed; but Paul decided to do nothing but sit by the fire for the rest of the night.

 

 

October 18^th - Utah’s inconsistent drinking laws

We dragged our feet this morning, dreading the drive back to civilization, so we had a very late breakfast (lunch) and did quite a bit of TV watching, but alas it was time to tackle the road once again.

Similarly, to the drive up we were the only 2WD vehicle I saw until we were almost at the bottom.  Paul’s favourite moment was when we turned a corner saw a 4x4 truck and the driver got a big smile and started to laugh as he waved at us.  I doubt he expected to see an “extreme” minivan captioned by some cooky canucks.

Thankfully we made it back in one piece, but learned we had some time to kill, so where is best to kill time, well a dog friendly brewery of course. 

Utah has some pretty interesting drinking laws, with many of them seeming to be inconsistent.  At one place each person had to have their own bill and settle up individually, i.e., Kendra had a bill and Paul had a bill and they could not be combined.  At this brewery dogs had to be vaccinated for rabies and we had to have proof that he had been vaccinated on us. (Thankfully we did).  At another place still we could not have a beer without ordering food first.  Each place we went to was roughly the same, a dog friendly brewery that sold food, why we were treated different at each one is a mystery, but they all blamed the state of Utah.

Another annoying drinking law is related to their state liquor stores, they will only accept US drivers’ licenses or passports as ID and they are required to ID everyone, but only care about the person purchasing the liquor.  We have our passports hidden/locked up most of the time thus rarely have it on our person

We got word that Kendra’s friend was finally free so we made our way back to their house for a night of socialization.  We truly can not express our gratitude for these people, absolute gems!

 

 

October 19^th – Disappointment in Canada Post

We had been hanging around the Salt Lake Area for many reasons, but one big one was to get Kendra’s credit card.  Kendra’s credit card had been delivered to our place in Prince George and my sister had run out and shipped it “Worldwide Priority” to Kendra’s friend’s house.  Canada Post said it would be there the next day, unfortunately it was 5 days later and when we tracked the package it said it was “Delayed”.  Today, the tracking status changed to Delivered, in PRINCE GEORGE!!!!  We paid worldwide priority (i.e., next day shipping) for it to take 5 days to travel a little over 5 blocks?!?!?!

Paul’s sister enquired with Canada Post and no one at the post office understood or could explain why what happened happened.  So, the credit card needed to be resent.

We had heard that there was a fun city close to Salt Lake City called Park City.  We started to look for places to stay but were surprised to not see any campgrounds in the area and many messages saying that they heavily fine you if they catch you camping in the community.  Luckily there was an Airbnb close to downtown that was within budget!

Park City is a lot like Whistler, it is where many of the Olympic events occurred when Salt Lake City hosted the Olympics. This community is 2.4 km above sea level, which supposedly really affects some people, so much so that the grocery stores sell air.  Historically it is a mining town with hikes to hold mines and mining infrastructure.  This was something we had to see the second we arrived in Park City.

After a hike we decided to go to the local brewery as it was Trivia night; our name the Toonie Twosome.  We lost, in fact we came in last, but at least we had fun (damn American history, sports and pop culture questions- even the question about the Queen was related to American Presidents!).

 

October 20^th – Window Shopping in Park City

Today we had planned for a lowkey day.  We would get coffee and people watch then go into the cute stores on the historic main street, then head to the distillery and plan our next couple days since Canada Post expected delivery date was going to be Monday October 24^th. -_-

Well, we did all those things, the best part was watching a woman with her mother talk at the coffee barista’s when they were done talking with her, then have her try to exchange her mother’s meal.

Then Paul decided he wanted to checkout the surrounding area and some views that come highly recommended from TripAdvisor.  Well, this turned our lowkey day into a day of almost 20,000 steps with walks to viewpoints and a hike Blood Lake.

The benefit of getting all those steps is that by doing so we felt we could be very lazy in the evening having a bottle or two of wine and watching stupid videos on our computers/phones.

The Big WY O

 

 September 29^th – Entering the big WY O

Roughly every 10 days or so we need to do laundry so before we started our time in Wyoming and its most famous national park(s) we decided to get our laundry done and get a shower.   Usually, laundry days are not that interesting, akin to a laundry day at home, but we got to see quite a show. It started with another couple overpacking the machines and getting very vocal with the owner about the dryers not drying a full load of towels in 30 minutes (the towels were soaked from the washer because it couldn’t spin because it was so full), who eventually kicked them out after being called a few names. Foolishly they forgot one load of laundry in one of the machines and after an hour the owner threw them out.

The other bit of news was Kendra’s credit card, our main credit card for our trip was compromised with $15,000 of attempted charges from that morning across the USA and UK from numbered companies. Don’t worry we still have cards we can use and Kendra’s new card will be sent in 5-10 business days..to Canada, but luckily we have amazing people there who will help us reunite with the new credit card.

Right before heading to Yellowstone National Park, we headed to the visitor’s information centre and I highly recommend asking them all your questions if you ever find yourself in West Yellowstone as they were able to plan our four days stay in Yellowstone almost to the hour to maximize our time. For day 1 visitors information recommended seeing Old Faithful, and its geyser basin, known as the Upper Basin. 

Old Faithful was, of course, on time and a must do, but the other geysers around the area were almost just as dramatic and beautiful with our personal favourite being the Morning Glory Pool.  The best viewpoint for Old Faithful in our mind was the Observation view point a slight walk up a hill, but we were rewarded with a better view with no other tourists. Plus, with Old Faithful’s estimated next eruption time being posted it was easy to time out our walk.

Our first day in Wyoming ended with a beautiful sunset across the Upper Basin as if to reaffirm that we were about to have some most excellent days in Yellowstone.

September 30^th – Northern Yellowstone Loop

The morning came quickly as we had decided to head to the north east section of the park where wildlife is known to graze around sunrise.  The issue was that the north east section was an hour and a half drive from our campground and sunrise was at 7:15am; but we made it and it was worth it!  There were bison, elk as well as pronghorn and best of all we had the place to ourselves. 

After doing a self-guided wildlife safari we saw the other key locations on the northern loop which included waterfalls and viewpoints of the Yellowstone River.

We then headed to Mammoth which has an elk “problem”.  You couldn’t go 5 minutes without worrying you were a bit too close to an elk.  This area had some of the most unique and amazing looking Hot Springs we’ve ever seen, pictures can not do them justice, they are something you just have to see.  The calcified hot spring lattices and unique land formations are things we’ve never seen before.

From there we traveled south and encountered a huge herd of bison which ended up surrounding our van (and causing a multi kilometer traffic backup in the other direction).  I don’t think we will ever forget seeing so many bison so up close.
Surprisingly our wildlife viewing was not done as just as few minutes down the road we ended up seeing a grizzly bear.

Next stop was the Norris Geyser Basin which is the hottest basin in the park.  The whole area looked like a wasteland with Geysers sporadically going off.  It was such a cool place to walk around where, once again pictures did not do the area justice; this would be a common theme.

We then stopped in to see Mud Pots, which looks like boiling mud that is made when Hydrogen Sulfide (H2S) from the earth’s core is turned into Sulphuric Acid “melting” the mud or creating lakes with similar acidity to battery acid.

Our final stop was the Grand Prismatic Spring; a beautiful multicolored pool, indicating the different temperatures of the spring by the different bacteria and fungi that grow in that location. The spring has two viewpoints, one at the same level as the spring which is not that impressive and a boardwalk crowded with other visitors to the park and a second lesser known viewpoint that is a kilometer hike down the Fairy Falls trail.  This viewpoint was well worth the extra couple thousands of steps on a day where our Fitbit commended us for being active for almost 12 hours.

 

October 1^st – Happy Birthday to Paul

For Paul’s Birthday we tackled the Southern Yellowstone Loop which started at Canyon City where the Yellowstone River cuts through the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone as it passes through various Waterfalls.  Although there were numerous “Million Dollar Views” our favourite was probably the Artists Point on the Southern Rim; the view was unbelievable.

Our next stops were the West Thumb Basin and the Black Sands Basin both of which were great and reinforced the unique beauty of Yellowstone.

After completing the loop, we returned to Old Faithful to watch the Geyser without our phones and grabbed a shower before heading the city of West Yellowstone for a birthday dinner and a phone call to Kendra’s Mom.  Fun Fact she shares the same birthday as Paul!

Another thing we had discussed about before leaving on this trip was what we would do about birthdays.  We decided no gifts since we don’t really need anything or have space to store new things.  For the past few weeks Paul had been looking to get a new Nintendo game, but was not motivated by the price. On Sept. 30 while stopped on the side of the road to take a picture of a bison, Kendra had hopped out of the van and crossed the road.  When she stopped to take a picture she noticed what she thought was an SD card in a case. It turned out to be THE Nintendo game Paul was contemplating buying. Needless to say we are still not buying birthday presents, but it doesn’t hurt if you find one in a ditch.

 

October 2^nd – Grand Teton

We thought we had never heard of the National Park just south of Yellowstone, known as Grand Teton National until Kendra’s sister reminded us that in recent history a couple traveling in the area in a van started a nation wide manhunt for a murderer.

We crossed into Grand Teton and were blown away at that natural beauty of the Grand Teton Range. We once again started our journey in that national park at the visitor center where the tourist information woman recommended some key areas to view and hikes to complete.  Surprisingly and maybe as a reminder of the implications of climate change the water levels were at historic lows with the area known as Colter Bay being dry and the marina and docks sitting on the lakebed. The lake that supports the marina provides power in Idaho, even though the lake is in Wyoming in a National Park, and Idaho needed more power so they ended up lowering the lake to extreme levels.

Each view that we turned down was beautiful but our favourite was the local favourite that was recommended called Schwabacher Landing which was both beautiful and full of bridal parties and families taking photos.

Our final place to explore before heading to our campsite was a location called Mormon Row which is the location of an old commune that has become a favourite location of aspiring (and professional) photographers.  It’s pretty easy to see why.

 

October 3^rd – The Banff of Wyoming

Although this may be an unfair comparison it appeared to us that Jackson WY, the city just outside of Grand Teton, was reminiscent of Banff.  This city was a tourist town, which wasn’t a bad thing as it gave us a lot to do and see within its historic downtown as well as get our grocery shopping done and go on a date night at the local brewery. 

If you’re in the area it definitely a city to check out!

 

October 4^rd – Teton Park Road

The main tourist road in Grand Teton Park was Teton Park Road where all the hikes and best viewpoints are located.  We stopped at every viewpoint but found the hikes had the best views. 

We completed the two most popular hikes in the park, the first to Hidden Falls which we continued to Inspiration Point with beautiful views of Jenny Lake and the Hike to Leigh Lake.  Although Paul felt it would only be a 5 to 6 km day, we ended up hiking almost 13 kilometers.

We returned back to the campground for dinner but quickly left to watch sunset over the Teton range.  We then returned to Jackson to have drink at the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar, a Wyoming institution, which was a bit overpriced but neat to see.  Paul even jumped up to steal seat at the bar to sit in a saddle.

 

October 5^th – A Hippie Dip

During our time at the Brewery in Jackson a couple days ago we learned that there was a hot spring an hour drive from the city that we decided we had to check out.   We read it was a spring that flowed into the developed pool (like an outdoor swimming pool) but were undeterred as it had been a couple weeks since we had soaked in a natural hot spring.

We drove down one of the roughest roads we had driven during this road trip but it ended in a free campground by the Granite Creek.  We read online that the hot spring closed at 8pm so decided to cook some dinner, unfortunately online was wrong, it actually closed at 6pm, and we arrived at 5:45pm. 

This ended up being a blessing in disguise as we heard that there was a natural pool at the base of a waterfall that could be only reached by crossing the Granite Creek.  We crossed it, and although it was freezing the natural pools were amazing becoming one of our favourites on our entire trip, second only to Liard River Hot Springs.  Interestingly we learned that these natural hot springs in Wyoming are known a as a Hippie Dip.

 

October 6^th – Traditional Day of Camping

We were burnt out after a week of exploring and hiking the national parks so we decided to drink a 6 pack of seltzer, have a fire and reorganize key areas of our van, specifically our long term storage location of the van.

We spent most of the day beside a fire talking and relaxing.  It just felt like a day of camping we would have had on a random weekend in the summer while in Quesnel.

 

October 7^th – Problem and Solution

We decided to start the day with another Hippie Dip, which was great as we had the place to ourselves, however, it was hard to relax as the van was making an odd noise again and it was a Friday, meaning we only had that day to figure it out or we would have to wait until Monday. Luckily Paul was driving this time so Kendra didn’t “break” the van.

We left the hot springs around 12:30 and made our way back to Jackson, the sound was loud and reminiscent  of the sway bar issue on the drivers side we corrected in Nelson, but this time it was on the passenger side.  Kendra phoned OK Tire’s warranty line who gave us a couple shops we could go to in Jackson.

We quickly learned that every shop in Jackson was booked for the next 3 weeks.  Thankfully, Shervin’s Mechanic Shop had their service manager crawl under our van to take a look.  The bad news was it was not the sway bar as they were both solid and tight, meaning it was something else unknown to us.  Good news, the Service Manger called in a favour to his colleague in  Pinedale, a community an hour and a half from Jackson who said he could look at it on a Friday afternoon. 

We cautiously drove to Pinedale and sat in the waiting room to learn the issue, worried that it was an issue warranty would not cover.  After about an hour the service manager in Pinedale came out to let us know that it was just loose hardware associated with the suspension work, we got done in Quesnel and that they were not going to charge us.  We got the issue fixed for free!!!

We decided to celebrate by going out for dinner spending all the money we thought we would have had to spend by having a mechanic look at our vehicle for an hour.

 

October 8^th – The Star Valley

While we were in Yellowstone, we ran into a man recommending we check out the Star Valley as we drive towards Utah; unfortunately, he was pretty vague on the route we needed to take.  We knew it was either Highway 89 or a Forestry Road.  Based on the conversation we had with the man we assumed it was the Forestry Road since he provided specific miles to turn at but didn’t mention a highway number.  We aren’t sure if we were wrong, but the forestry road, at least in some spots was not up to the British Columbia forestry road standard.  We turned so many heads of drivers of side by sides, quads, and trucks in 4x4 as our van dumped and jumped around some parts of the “road”. 

The road was nice but probably not worth the drive.  We decided to camp near the mountain path which according to Kendra’s phone was almost 2.5 km above sea level.

 

October 9^th – Hotel Party

It was Kendra’s decision day and she had two objectives, the first was to drive towards Salt Lake City, the second was to get a shower.  She looked a various community but could not find a shower that would cost us less than $30 for both of us to get clean.  Paul decided for another approach, that would be to check for cheap hotels and he was able to find one in Evanston WY for just over $60 a night AFTER the pet fee.

Believe it or not the hotel was not the worst, it was clean and the shower was hot.  Although the WIFI seemed intermediary, the two queen beds ensured both of us could stretch out!

The town itself was fine, being that it was a Sunday everything was closed except for the local brewery and a hibachi dinner place which we can attest was delicious.   The downtown was odd, it seemed like something out of our horror movie as it was deserted with pop music being played from speakers on every light post.

The best part of the day was watch TV and drinking wine while being at minimum 6 feet apart!

Next Stop Utah!!