On the Move (09-12-21)

 

Rather than stressing over finding reservations for Labor Day weekend, we decided to head to our friends Tom and Dianne’s house. We were soon joined by our friends Liz and Randy and the 6 of us had a fun filled weekend. Fun for the guys is having projects to work on, so they spent time moving wood and trimming trees, while we girls chatted, and cooked.

Tom and Dianne came off the road of fulltiming to return to homesteading, and their yard is full of fresh vegetables and egg laying chickens.  The dinner that Dianne cooked for us was amazingly tasty and fresh.

Of course, when it was our turn to cook we made our traditional Mexican meal.  It’s always a great time at their place, although we did decide that our day focuses an awful lot on food!

Moving on from TD Homestead, we stopped briefly in Green River Utah, before heading to Capitol Reef National Park. Our main purpose in Green River was to catch up with our friends Dave and Nancy, who are staying in nearby Helper UT.

Green River is known for their watermelons and Nancy asked us to bring her one. At the farm stand, they ask you when you want it to be ripe, and they pick one for you accordingly. When we opened it later, we discovered it looked and tasted more like a honeydew melon.

The town of Helper is one of those interesting old towns that works to keep their history alive, including some of their old buildings, which are still in use today. 

We strolled down Main St. looking at buildings and reading historic plaques. After a while we were approached by a woman who said that she could see we are obviously tourists, and she gave us a couple of brochures about the town. We asked how she knew we were tourists and she said “I’ve been following you down the street”.  In a big city that would be creepy, in a small town, it was awesome.

Helper actually got its name from a train engine. Back in the day, when trains came through town, they needed to add extra engines in order to make it over nearby Soldier Summit- and this is where those engines, called helpers, were attached.

After lunch we took a drive out to some mining ruins (always a fun time for Paul) where we enjoyed speculating about what each building was used for.

 

Paul and I have been to Green River twice, but for the life of us we couldn’t remember if we had ever been to the small museum in town.  I had to read through my blog to discover that in fact, we had not.

The museum was small but interesting, detailing not only John Powell and his expeditions on the Colorado River, but also others who came after him and made their living running  and exploring all of the nearby rivers.

Leaving Green River, we headed towards Capitol Reef National Park. Our path took us through the San Rafael Reef, created by a volcanic bubble which caused an uplift.

In the 1970s, it took 4.2 million dollars to create 8 miles of highway.

Within 30 minutes the scenery completely changed and we were now driving through green rolling hills. I really enjoy driving through Utah- the state is gorgeous, and its difficult to get bored.

The View from the Window

What does 1.9 million acres of remote and rugged landscape look like? We found out the answer today. Paul was not in the mood to drive on a major freeway, so when we left this morning to head towards Denver, we took Utah Rte 12, the Scenic Byway. This area was mapped by John Wesley Powell and his sister, and was the last area in the lower 48 states to be mapped. We passed through multiple National Parks and monuments along the way, with a constantly changing landscape. We climbed in elevation a couple of thousand feet, and then back down again. We stopped at scenic turn-outs along the way whenever we wanted and just enjoyed the beautiful day.
We went through the small town of Boulder Utah, not to be confused with Boulder Colorado. Boulder, UT was the last town to receive it’s mail by mule rather than automobile. They also didn’t have electricity until 1947. It wasn’t until the new Rte 12 was finished in the 1980s that the townspeople really had consistant access to the surrounding towns.

At the end of the day we landed in Green River Utah, and spent this evening booking campgrounds for the next week.