Lat/Long: 37.52988,
-111.99231
Location: Kodachrome
State Park, UT
Electric Hook Up: Yes
Water Hook Up: Yes
Bathroom: 200+ yard walk
WiFi: No (No Cell
service either)
Shower: Yes – FREE, 8
minute button push
Site: 28…and also the
“Camp Host” Site
After a 5 hour drive we arrived at Kodachrome Monday
afternoon. Was a gorgeous drive compared
to last weeks trek thru Arizona. As much
as we loved the Grand Canyon, this place may be on the “Top 3” list of places
to see. Monday we spent setting up camp,
showering, going thru all the wet things we brought with us from the North
Rim. It rained there EVERY DAY! Not sure what the weather patterns are, but I
have learned that the North Rim is in the path of a thunderstorm daily, often
twice a day and sometimes in the middle of the night just to keep you on your
toes. It felt like everything we owned
had a layer of rain on it.
Kodachrome however seems to be the storm “brewer”. It looks mean…but rarely rains. I have taken note…they are moving SOUTH,
towards the Grand Canyon. ;) The campground is perfecto! It’s quiet, it’s out of the way of
roads/noise, sites are spread out and boy oh boy, are we glad we have
electricity again! Dry camping was fine,
but we did miss the ability to charge camera batteries, laptops, have light
that we didn’t have to distribute out evenly between hours of the night, the
ease of use to turn the thermostat from “Off” to “Heat Pump”, being able to
listen to music…but the biggest concern was probably just light. With the pine tree coverage and the storms,
it stayed pretty dark. Thank goodness
for Coleman Lanterns though. I think we
probably could have run the furnace just fine as well as let the lights in the
camper on a little longer then we did—but we were definitely trying to play it
safe. I’d dry camp again in a heart beat
– easy money, we’re “old hats” now.
Monday evening we took a nice jaunt around our campsite.
There is a cool 2 mile loop that takes you up on top of some of these bizarre
rocks. Not sure why we didn’t bring any
water with us, but lesson learned for a hike later on in the week. Was a good little work out for us
though.
Tuesday we traveled to Bryce Canyon. I’d been to Zion a few years ago and I
remember the lady at the gate telling me to take some time and get to Bryce
while I was in the area. I remember
mumbling to myself, “No time, see this (Zion) – continue on.” I can see why she told me to take the time;
it was breath taking. When I visited
Zion I thought that it was absolutely gorgeous…hard to imagine that there could
be prettier places…there is: Bryce
Canyon. We got up at 0530 despite
Karon’s argumentative state, had a bagel, put on some warm clothes and headed
to the National Park. It’s 23 miles from
here, so was an easy drive. We arrived
right as the sun was peaking over the horizon.
The other bonus about going so early is we missed the crowds. We finished our “roadside” hike (also known
as drive to the next view point before “that guy” gets there…you know, “that
guy” that follows you around from view point to view point with his point and
click…k, maybe it’s just me) around 10am, just in time to see the masses of
tour buses roll in. Lots of visitors from
overseas, French, German and heard a lady at visitors center ask for a map in
Czech. Moral of this story…start early
unless you want to be grouped with 100’s of “that guy”. We stopped to eat at a diner for some chow
and to steal some internet access to email all the parents as we have had very
limited cell coverage this whole trip, which is fine by me!
Wednesday…now this was a treat! We got up, slept in as we had gotten our
Bryce Canyon trip out of the way and planned to make a day here at the state
park hiking. We had a delicious
breakfast and then got dressed accordingly, hiking boots, light jacket,
cameras, water and of course the Kayle dog.
Now…little backstory here. Anyone
who knows Kayle knows she has an adversity to other dogs. There is a lady who coincidently walks around
in a “children patterned Snuggie” who owns a Doberman Pincher. Every time they walk by our campsite Kayle
goes crazy…hair up, barking with foam at the mouth…very protective. So, back to the hike. We take note…it’s a little overcast—but, it
hasn’t rained since we’ve been here. Why
would it rain now? .60 miles in rain,
hard rain. Luckily we were right by a
cave (Indian Cave) and decide to wait it out.
We waited a good 10 minutes for the storm to pass and when we thought it
had – we ventured on…mistake. About .4
miles after the cave it REALLY started to dump, hard. Mother nature decided an added bonus to the
rain and bitter wind would be lightning.
At this point we are a little frantic, we immediately try and find
shelter…we thought we had—we see where the cliff offered a little shelter. With our heads down and a running pace we
head for it. Who’s there…Snuggie and her
Bestest bud. Karon out loud said,
“Great, just our luck.” So, we go
FURTHER down the trail to find NOTHING.
If you can imagine it’s now raining harder so we do what makes sense,
double back…Snuggie is gonna have to share and Kayle is going to have to make
nice with the man eating friend or we could get struck by lightning.
By the time we get back to the shelter, they had moved on so
we sat…in the mud and waited…for the storm “to pass.” This term “to pass” should have never entered
our minds because it never did. After we
heard no thunder for 10 minutes, we started our trek back to the car—by Indian
Cave the rain was no lighter, but no thunder or flashes of death light – so we
continued. The other factor we were
dealing with was flash floods. I’ve
never experienced rain in the desert, but I now completely understand the term
“flash flood.” Rain finds that low spot
and it runs and collects there at a very rapid pace. With all the mud that is collected, I can see
why they are so dangerous. We made it
back to the car, get back to the campsite and try and figure out what’s first –
shower for us or Kayle. Kayle gets the
first round at the dump station, luckily the potable water was luke warm for
her. Then we head straight to the
showers and notice it’s raining hard again.
We don’t think too much about the campsite, with exception as to how
nice it will be to sit in the camper and enjoy a bowl of hot soup. Upon arrival we both just groaned…flash
flood—thru our campsite. The cornerstone
to every campsite…the green carpet is ruined.
Thankfully when we peeled it back, there was no mud there. Brandon, a Utah State Park Ranger came to
check in on us…noticed we had quite the issue with our tiny riverbed. Offered us the camp host site, which we very thankfully
took. We did a very quick “three wolf
moon pack up” and hustled over there. Rest
of the day we spent with our feet up and faces pressed against the
windows. Mother Nature put on a lovely
showing of blue skies and some sun later in the day, but right on schedule as
Brandon predicted it would…another scary scary storm. We’ll definitely be sending Utah State Parks
a nice letter about Brandon’s helpfulness.
The National and
State Parks this country has to offer really are something else. I can’t tell anyone to go “enjoy it”, but I
would encourage you to take your own journey and appreciate what you see along
the way. We have only hit a minority of
the parks out there, there are so many others that I would love to get to. At the rate we are going (2-3 new ones each
year) we’ll get to all of them by the time we’re 103. ;) My
next big plan is to win the lotto, get a big Tacoma truck-put an Airstream
behind it and go for a year or two from national park to national park. After that I’ll apply to be a ranger
somewhere. Realistically…the lotto will
never pan out, so I’ll retire from the Air Force in 5 years and apply for a
National Park job, use my retirement paycheck to make payments on a Tacoma and
an Airstream. ;) For now, the T@b is absolutely perfect for
us. It’s been a dream to have, hard to
think we’ve had it for a little over a year—it’s made a lot of fantastic
trips!
Campsite was great, very quiet - which is what we prefer. Think once school breaks and summer vacations get going - it will fill up rather quickly. It was a JOY not having to walk to the bathroom, worry about taking turns showering - I took pride every time my bladder filled up thinking I didn't have to walk any amount of distance doing the pee pee dance to anywhere but to OUR very own bathroom. We did hear rumor that the ticks were bad up there and I did pick two off my sweatshirt - but haven't found any (yet) on the dogs. Beware, there are some thorns out there that are a pain in the ass for dog paws and socked feet. 
Dogs enjoyed it - Lola however did NOT pee...I really have no idea what we're gonna do. We didn't package up any of her business to bring with us - but that's our next step. A friend of ours gave us a tip to put some shaved crayons in her food so we can distinguish her poo from Penny. Lord...the things we do for our pets. 
We set up our tent room. Once we can get some decent stakes to keep the tent in place and figure out the screen part that goes by the tires it will be a completely isolated room for us. So much room for activities! I honestly think it took longer to take it down then it did to put it up. Think dealing with our T@b shade gave us a leg up though. 
