Today by the Numbers:
Coldest Temperature Observed Today: 33°F
Highest Elevation Passed Through on Drive: 9,896’ at Midway Summit on UT Highway 14
Another State on our Travel Map...
Last night a storm passed through with lots of wind and some rain. Good thing that we had already put much of our outdoor stuff away in anticipation of leaving today. GP did have to get out of bed to bring in the flag because it was keeping us awake waving in the wind. The first order of business for today was to add the Utah sticker to our USA map on the back of the RV. We add the stickers after we have spent a night in our RV in each state. Technically, we could have added the sticker a few days ago.
We headed towards Cedar City, fueled up, and proceeded on Highway 14 towards Bryce Canyon NP. We considered a stop at Cedar Breaks National Monument but weren’t sure we could safely pass with the RV (AKA Jen was nervous on the narrow windy road). The scenery changed dramatically as we climbed in elevation. Last night’s storm left a dusting of snow on the mountains and the trees which made for spectacular vistas.
Approaching the Bryce Canyon area we entered “Red Rock” country; they aren’t kidding when they say the dirt is red! There were some hoodoos along the road that provided an excuse to stop and take some pictures. Trivia Question for Today: Why are they called “hoodoos?” As usual, answer is at the end of the blog.
We pulled into the Bryce Canyon RV Resort at about 1:00 PM and planned to get set up and spend a few hours in Bryce. That’s when our day took a turn for the worse. It seems the linkage between the transfer case shift lever and the transfer case on the Jeep broke so there is no way to get the transfer case out of neutral. We headed back to the town of Bryce City where there was a repair shop. They looked at it and decided they didn’t want to try to fix it as it could take a week to get parts. As a result, we made a change in our itinerary. We will skip Bryce Canyon and head on to Moab tomorrow, a day early, to see if we can get it repaired there. It’s a bonus when you can do your own towing of a broken down vehicle, but it’s a real bummer that it is broken. We may need to modify our plans a bit more depending on our luck in getting it repaired.
Back at camp we did minimal set up (by minimal, we mean the basics of power, water, sewage, and internet) since we will now only be here one night. But, we did make good use of the down time; we did laundry, made some calls to try to set up a repair appointment, the latter with no luck yet, and Jen did some work (gotta pay for the Jeep repairs 🙄). On the positive side, we broke in our new grill and had grilled chicken and veggies for dinner.
Tomorrow, we head to Moab and see about getting the Jeep fixed.
Trivia Answer: A hoodoo (also called a tent rock, fairy chimney, or earth pyramid) is a tall, thin spire of rock formed by erosion. Hoodoos typically consist of relatively soft rock topped by harder, less easily eroded stone that protects each column from the elements. Hoodoo comes from a Southern Paiute word, oo’doo, which refers to a thing that is scary or inspires fear (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoodoo_(geology)).
There’s a state space on the top left corner of your map that’s looking conspicuously empty… just sayin’!! 😉
Such a bummer on the jeep, fingers crossed you can get it fixed in Moab!! Arches is a gorgeous park, the only one I’ve been to on your itinerary. We did a couple of short hikes there and they were all great. One of my faves was the Park Avenue trail at the crack of dawn (before 7 AM, we didn’t have appointment slot for that day) after a huge rainstorm the night before, lots of reflection pools for great photos, and no people.
PNW is our target trip for next year! 😊