Utah & Colorado trip 7-9-14

My dad passed away last January, and my brother Richard and I wanted to take his ashes to his home town of Logan, Utah, and have them buried next to our mom. We had a memorial service for him in March, and my cousin John came to it from Colorado. He invited us to come see him sometime, and it sounded like a good idea. We thought we could work out a trip to visit Logan, John's place, and some country in between. Maureen wasn't too thrilled by the prospect of driving across Nevada, so we came up with the idea of flying to Salt Lake, renting a car, driving to Colorado and flying home from Denver. It's not that we don't like Nevada — we have visited a lot of beautiful places there — but I-80 can be long and tiring.

So we took off from Oakland on Monday, June 30, for a 10-day trip. We don't really like to fly very much, but one thing that I like about it is being able to look out the window and see all of the interesting patterns of the land. Unfortunately, we didn't get a window seat and as soon as we were in the air, the young woman by the window shut the shade and went to sleep. In Salt Lake, everything went smoothly, and we were on the road to Logan in a little Toyota Yaris. We had asked for a compact, but I wasn't expecting a car that small. But it worked out fine since we didn't have a lot of stuff with us.

It was really great to come over the hill and see Cache Valley and Logan up against the mountains. It always brings back fond memories of vacation trips when I was a kid and we visited with family in my parents' home town. After getting a motel room in Logan, I called my cousin Leo and we found our way to his home. He and his wife, Susan, took us out to dinner at the Bluebird, a restaurant that my parents always talked about as the fanciest place in town. Leo and I were able to catch up a bit on the last 30 years or so since we had seen each other, and reminisce about some of the crazy things we did together as kids.

My maternal grandparents' home in Logan

Tuesday morning, Maureen and I walked around the old neighborhood where my mother's family lived. It hadn't changed much from my childhood memories. My grandfather had built his own home there along with many of the other houses on the street. The houses of two of my aunts and uncles were only a few houses away from my grandparents' home. We also walked around the neighborhood where my dad grew up, near the Logan Temple. Logan is really a nice looking town, with old tree-shaded streets and views of farmland and mountains all around. We were struck by how green everything was. It seems that northern Utah has not suffered from drought this year like California has.

Richard and three of our cousins, Charlotte, Leo and Joy, at the Logan Cemetery

In the afternoon, we went to the cemetery, and had a little informal memorial for dad. Leo had contacted some of my other cousins and relatives and I was very pleased that they all came. I hadn't seen them in many years and it was nice to be together again. We all shared memories of dad and I was surprised that they remembered so much about him, since they were from my mom's side of the family and only saw dad when we visited from California. Later, we spent the evening at Leo's home and got to talk some more.

Logan Canyon

View from the trail at the summit of Logan Canyon

On Wednesday, we packed up and drove up beautiful Logan Canyon and stopped at the summit where there is a wonderful little loop trail through the forest. There were firs and aspens and lots of wildflowers, and sage meadows with mountain views. I always loved seeing Bear Lake, but it was a little disappointing that day because the air was very hazy. A little later, we passed through Randolph, Utah, which I was interested in seeing because my dad's father spent his first year in the U.S. there after emigrating from England in 1901. Randolph is still a tiny town in the middle of nowhere, and it must have been quite a shock for my grandfather to come alone from an industrial area near Birmingham to such as remote place. After passing through Evanston, Wyoming, we could see the snow covered peaks of the Uintas ahead, and we were soon up among them. I had good memories of a trip my family made with my maternal grandparents to Mirror Lake, and I wanted to see it again. Maureen and I took a little walk along the lakeshore and it was every bit as beautiful as I remembered it. We came down out of the mountains into Heber Valley, and stayed in a funky old motel in Heber City.

Mirror Lake

Thursday morning, we drove for a few hours east to Dinosaur National Monument. From the visitor center, a shuttle took us a short distance to the dinosaur quarry, where a building against a cliff face protects the site where many fossilized dinosaur bones were discovered. It is pretty amazing to see the bones of many dinosaurs packed together and sticking out from the rock. We drove a short ways to the Split Mountain campground and walked along the Green River. It was very scenic, but the day was rather hot, and we didn't go far. We drove to the end of a road that crosses the river and goes to the ranch of a woman who lived there alone and raised cattle until she was nearly 90. There was a log cabin in a pretty green spot in the cottonwoods, and we hiked the Hog Canyon Trail through meadows and into a box canyon heading into the sandstone face of Split Mountain. I didn't mind the heat so much because it was such a beautiful place. We spent the night in Vernal, Utah, and found a pretty good Mexican restaurant for dinner.

Green River at Split Mountain Campground, Dinosaur National Monument

Hog Canyon Trail

On Friday, we drove east into Colorado, and up a side road back into Dinosaur. This time we were on a plateau high above the rivers, and at the end of the road, we hiked the 1 mile trail to Harper's Corner. It follows a narrow ridge through Pinyon Pine and Junipers to its end where you can look down thousands of feet to the place where the Green and Yampa Rivers flow together, a really spectacular view.

Steamboat Rock from Harper's Corner Trail

Next, we drove on to Maybelle, a tiny farm community, and made a side trip in hopes of seeing some wild mustangs. A few miles northwest is Sand Wash, a large area of BLM land where wild horses have been relocated. There are a couple of loops of dirt road where they say that with luck you may see horses. As we started out off the pavement, a large, dark cloud loomed in the west. Several miles in, the road wound up to the top of a hill, and raindrops began to fall. Suddenly, it was a downpour with some hail coming down too. We stopped, thinking that it might soon blow over, but then I realized that the ground was really getting wet. I decided that we had to try to get out of there, and started driving down the hill. The road was getting very slippery, and several times, we almost slid off it. I was really getting worried that we would get stuck out there in a very remote place with no cell phone service. But we made it back to the highway as the storm moved on by, and with no harm done except for the mud-covered car. We got a motel in Craig, and spent the fourth of July evening hearing fireworks but seeing nothing because we were on the wrong side of the building.

Near Sand Wash

In the storm, Sand Wash

On Saturday, we drove on east through lots of nice country — sagebrush flats, green farmland, and pretty mountains — and up over Berthoud Pass to the rushing traffic of I-70. Then up through Central City to the mountains west of Boulder where we found our way to my cousin John's home. He and his wife, Pat, have a big log house on a good-sized piece of land with green meadows and pine forest, a couple of horses and four dogs. It was really a wonderful place to stay. They fed us great meals, took us on great walks, Maureen got to ride with Pat a couple of times, and I hope we didn't stay too long, but we had the best time there.

John and Pat's place

Walking the dogs with John and Pat

Pat and Maureen with Ben and Ruby

Besides several walks around the area with their dogs, on Monday we drove a few miles for a hike at a place called Brainard Lake. Parking at the two trailheads was full, so we had to park a mile or so down the road, but it was well worth a little extra walking. We did the trail around Long Lake, about a four mile loop. At over 10,000 ft. elevation, below 13,000 ft. peaks, it was a gorgeous place. We soon discovered that the going wasn't so easy because there were many patches of snow and muddy trail to go through. But it was still a very enjoyable hike. Back at John's house, I helped him unload and stack a load of hay. John kept at it until it was done, but I had to stop and rest every few bales. I guess I'm not in shape for that kind of work.

On our hike around Long Lake

On Tuesday, John and I walked the dogs again while Maureen and Pat rode the horses, and then in the afternoon, we packed up and left. We drove through Boulder and into Denver, where we wanted to see the Denver Art Museum. We found a parking garage and walked a few blocks to the museum, passing the capitol building. We saw a lot of interesting stuff there, but museums are tiring after a couple of hours. Now it was rush hour and we had to get out of downtown. After wandering around a while trying to avoid the gridlock, we made it to the freeway and to a hotel near the airport. We were a bit concerned about how to manage the logistics of returning our car and finding a restaurant because the airport is way out of town and everything is too far apart to walk. But we found that there are shuttles that make it possible.

We got up early Wednesday morning for an 8:30 am flight, and soon we were on our way home. This time I got a window seat, and got some great views of the Rockies. Clouds covered much of Utah and Nevada, but they cleared over the Sierra and let us see Yosemite, and it was fun to see some familiar places from the air.