May 2008

We wake up to rain, lots of rain, and it keeps on raining. We need to put our bikes up on the truck, plus clean the seedpods from the top of our slides, dump/disconnect our hoses, etc. None of this will be fun in the rain so we decide to just stay another day. We'll stay in the dry trailer and get some work done. The weather is crazy! Yesterday they had a record high temperature of 93 degrees here; today they are forecasting a record-setting 'low high temperature' of 53 degrees. One day it's 20 degrees hotter than normal, the next day it's 20 degrees colder than normal. Crazy.

I spend most of the day putting together Joe's final portfolio for his home-school supervisor. I finish it by dinner (Yea!). I spend the evening uploading my blog and watching American Idol.

We're off to Great Basin National Park tomorrow.

We spend our morning touring the Kennecott Copper Mine in Bingham Canyon near Salt Lake City. It is not only the largest open pit mine in the world, it is also the largest man-made hole in the world and visible from outer space. It is actually a really interesting stop. They have a visitor center with a small museum and a movie to explain copper mining. But the neatest thing is to see these incredibly HUGE dump trucks hauling dirt around (from power shovels the size of a small office building). All of this to get some copper out of the ground.

We leave the mine, stop for lunch and then continue onto Antelope Island State Park. It's an island in the Great Salt Lake. Jere and Joe want to stick their feet in the Great Salt Lake and this is the place we were told to go to do that. We stop at the visitor center and then head down a trail to the edge of the water (the level of the water is low so it's a long walk to the water). We learn why people say the Great Salt Lake is a lake made for beauty, not recreation. It smells, and it's not a good smell, plus it is really buggy. Jere and Joe do manage to get their feet into the lake.

We take a drive to the other end of the island to see the historic ranch with it's huge buffalo herd. The buffalo are too far from the road to see very well, but we stop at the ranch and walk around.

Beside the road there is a very strange contraption. It has all kinds of fabric hanging on it, at least eight bicycle wheels, 4 solar panels and what appears to be a freezer in the center. We ask the ranger what it is and she said she is wondering the same thing. They're shooting a Harley Davidson commercial at the ranch so maybe it's related to that.

We drive back to the campground with hopes of a late swim, but the pool is drained and closed for repairs. Oh well. We spend the evening watching television.

Another hot day in Salt Lake City. We drive downtown to Mormon Temple Square. I don't agree with several beliefs of the Mormon faith, but it is an interesting religion with interesting history, so we spend several hours touring the Mormon (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) campus. They give us a tour of their facilities, including their unique convention center with a roof that has large trees growing on the top.

Interesting day; despite my disagreement with some of their beliefs. They are a fast growing religious group; one can't help but be curious about their history and current organization.

Large statue of Jesus is one of the first places they take us to on their tour.

Beautiful temple (which we are not allowed to enter; only Mormons in good standing with the church are allowed to enter):

Beautiful grounds:

Hot day, so we return to the campground and enjoy the swimming pool.

Beautiful sunny morning to pack up for our drive to Salt Lake City. We wake up early and get an early start, which is good since we plan to drive 300 miles today.

The scenery to the interstate is nice, but once we're on the interstate not much to see.

We stop for gas and Jere goes to check the tires and the gas station attendant says our one tire is in bad shape. Jere looks at it and decides the tire is fine...the guy just wants to sell us a tire (there's a tire shop at the gas station). So no problem. We get back on the interstate. About 100 miles down the road we stop at a rest stop to grab some lunch and a guy on a golf cart stops Jere and says our one tire is coming apart at the treads (same tire the other guy mentioned). He says that if we bring the trailer over to the garage they will switch out our bad tire with spare tire for free. Well, nothing is ever free so we're a little hesitant but say okay and drive the trailer over to the garage. This is when things go downhill...

The tire garage worker says that 3 out of 4 tires are coming apart at the treads. He shows us and they are indeed coming apart at the tread. He explains how heavy 5th wheel trailers need stronger tires than are normally put on the units by the manufacturers. Now our tires aren't that old (2 we put on on during our trip home from Alaska last year and then two new tires before we started this trip) so we are looking at each other trying to figure out if this is a scam or if this guy is being truthful with us. Everything he says makes sense and something is definately wrong since there is a large crack between the treads of 3 of our tires. He says they often see problems with trailers out here in the heat.

Bottom line: we buy 4 new heavy duty tires. $1000 that is not in the budget. Ugghhh. These Utah rest stops have quite a racket going on by looking at trailer tires, but we do not want a blow-out so hopefully the guy is being truthful and at least we avoided a blow out on the road.

We drive to Salt Lake City with 4 brand new tires, do some research online to see if we bought the right tires, set up camp, and go swimming to release some tension.

We can only stay in our campsite for two nights since someone has it reserved for tonight, so the first thing we do today is go to find which campsite to move to. Then we pack up and move to our new site.

It's our anniversary so we go into town for lunch (I'm sick of sandwiches) at Wildcat Willies. Unfortunately Wildcat Willies looks nice, but the food is so-so at best and a little over-priced. Oh well.

We go back to the park to drive through the mile-long tunnel. This long narrow tunnel caused us to take a 50 mile detour to get to Zion since vehicles over 50 feet long are not permitted. The tunnel is interesting since it is long, curved, has no lights inside, but several 'windows' cut through the solid rock mountain side.

After driving through the tunnel we drive to the east end of the park. The scenery is different in this part of the park versus the canyon. Some interesting geology--this is Checkerboard Mesa:

At the east end of the drive we see a sign about buffalo. So we drive a few extra miles to see a herd of buffalo. We visit their gift shop and then return to the park.

We stop just east of the tunnel entrance and take the Canyon View Trail for a short steep hike up to an incredible view of Zion Canyon. The trail has some interesting parts, with steep drop-offs, but nothing dangerous whatsoever.

The view at the end of the trail is worth every breathless step. We sit on a rock and enjoy the view.

After the hike we return to the campground. We stop on the way back into the canyon to look up to where we were standing at the end of the Canyon View Trail. We were standing above a large arch in the side of the mountain.

It is 100 degrees outside and 93 degrees inside our trailer, so we grab our folding chairs and head down to a shady spot by the creek. Jere and I relax while Joe plays in the creek. We even eat our dinner (cold sandwiches) in the shade (it's still really hot in our trailer at dinnertime). A few tubers float down the river. The water is 47 degrees, they shout hello but they all seem to have reservations about their activity.

After the sun goes behind the mountains, Jere and I take one last bike ride through the canyon. I wish there would be more bike trails like the Pa'Rus Trail in other national parks.

We end our day by looking at the moon rise above the canyon. I try to take a photo, but it really can't capture the beauty of the moon.