We didn't rush out of Craters of the Moon National Monument in the morning as we knew we had a full day's run down to the Timpanogos Cave National Monument area which is south of Salt Lake City in Utah. We traveled down some pretty lonely roads while we were in Idaho all the while keeping an eye out for deer and pronghorns in the ranch lands around us. The scenery started to change as we passed into Utah and not for the better. Utah (at least in the Salt Lake City area) is rapidly growing and there are lots of developments lining the highway where all of the expensive houses sit on postage stamp sized lots and they all look exactly the same. I wonder how folks find their own house in this type of ghetto (oops! I mean development). As we approached Salt Lake City the highway changed from two, to three, to four, to five and then to six lanes on each side and the traffic was horrific! I swear the Mormons believe that god is watching out for them so they don't bother to look or yield when they enter the highway which made for a pretty scary drive for us. We both breathed easier once we got through the city and found the turn off to American Fork Canyon where Timpanogos Cave National Monument is located. We passed through a couple of towns that looked like they had just been built in the last year. All new strip malls, housing developments (each which centered around a newly built church) and chain restaurants. These towns are just yuck in my opinion as there isn't any diversity in the building styles and the houses are piled on top of each other. Anyway once we entered the national forest the scenery was spectacular with gigantic cliffs surrounding us and a swift moving river beside us that the road followed. Even though it was late in the afternoon we stopped at the visitor center for Timpanogos Cave to make reservations for a tour the following day. We were able to score the 9:50am tour and were told to be hiking up the 1.5 mile trail to the cave's entrance by 8:20am - I'll provide the details on the hike in the August 17th post so stay tuned! After we left the visitor center we secured a campsite in the Little Mill National Forest campground which is just a couple of miles down the road from the cave. Little Mill is one of the nicest campgrounds I've ever stayed in with paved sites, concrete pads for the picnic table and raised cement fire pit. And the view of the cliffs and river is icing on the cake! All this for $17.00 a night, a huge value. After we setup camp we took th
e truck back into one of the towns right outside of the national forest and found a self service car wash where we spent some time scrubbing dead bugs and dirt off it's finish. Boy was it good to have a semi clean vehicle for a change. As it was late we decided to spurge on a dinner out and it took us three attempts to find a restaurant that had a bar. The second restaurant we stopped at was a Chili's, and it didn't have a bar! Seems pretty darn un-American to me. Finally we found an Applebees which had a bar where we ate a nothing special meal with a couple of expensive and not so great drinks. We found out from the bartender there that Utah has some interesting rules about bars, you cannot just purchase a drink, you must purchase a substantial portion of food along with it which is why so many restaurants don't bother having a bar (Note to self, do not move to Utah). After dinner we headed back to camp to retire because we'd have an early start in the morning.
We didn't rush out of Craters of the Moon National Monument in the morning as we knew we had a full day's run down to the Timpanogos Cave National Monument area which is south of Salt Lake City in Utah. We traveled down some pretty lonely roads while we were in Idaho all the while keeping an eye out for deer and pronghorns in the ranch lands around us. The scenery started to change as we passed into Utah and not for the better. Utah (at least in the Salt Lake City area) is rapidly growing and there are lots of developments lining the highway where all of the expensive houses sit on postage stamp sized lots and they all look exactly the same. I wonder how folks find their own house in this type of ghetto (oops! I mean development). As we approached Salt Lake City the highway changed from two, to three, to four, to five and then to six lanes on each side and the traffic was horrific! I swear the Mormons believe that god is watching out for them so they don't bother to look or yield when they enter the highway which made for a pretty scary drive for us. We both breathed easier once we got through the city and found the turn off to American Fork Canyon where Timpanogos Cave National Monument is located. We passed through a couple of towns that looked like they had just been built in the last year. All new strip malls, housing developments (each which centered around a newly built church) and chain restaurants. These towns are just yuck in my opinion as there isn't any diversity in the building styles and the houses are piled on top of each other. Anyway once we entered the national forest the scenery was spectacular with gigantic cliffs surrounding us and a swift moving river beside us that the road followed. Even though it was late in the afternoon we stopped at the visitor center for Timpanogos Cave to make reservations for a tour the following day. We were able to score the 9:50am tour and were told to be hiking up the 1.5 mile trail to the cave's entrance by 8:20am - I'll provide the details on the hike in the August 17th post so stay tuned! After we left the visitor center we secured a campsite in the Little Mill National Forest campground which is just a couple of miles down the road from the cave. Little Mill is one of the nicest campgrounds I've ever stayed in with paved sites, concrete pads for the picnic table and raised cement fire pit. And the view of the cliffs and river is icing on the cake! All this for $17.00 a night, a huge value. After we setup camp we took th
e truck back into one of the towns right outside of the national forest and found a self service car wash where we spent some time scrubbing dead bugs and dirt off it's finish. Boy was it good to have a semi clean vehicle for a change. As it was late we decided to spurge on a dinner out and it took us three attempts to find a restaurant that had a bar. The second restaurant we stopped at was a Chili's, and it didn't have a bar! Seems pretty darn un-American to me. Finally we found an Applebees which had a bar where we ate a nothing special meal with a couple of expensive and not so great drinks. We found out from the bartender there that Utah has some interesting rules about bars, you cannot just purchase a drink, you must purchase a substantial portion of food along with it which is why so many restaurants don't bother having a bar (Note to self, do not move to Utah). After dinner we headed back to camp to retire because we'd have an early start in the morning.
Hi Michelle
ReplyDeleteFound you blog & sent a link to Robin. Now she can follow you without doing anything radical like creating a profile anywhere.