Two Miles and Four Feet from Home: Highway 12 Utah

Well we slept all night to the sounds of a river going by with the occasional bird calls. The temperatures were perfect. I am guessing the low 70's all night. Jasper and I got up early and did one of the nature walks taking in some more of the great views here. Today the plan was to head out to Bryce Canyon NP. As we headed out of the park we stopped at the entrance sign to get a better picture then the day before. As we got out a couple pulled up in their BMW convertible. We took each others pictures and since they were coming from the other direction we told them what a treat they were in for at Capitol Reef. They said that they had come early because their friends told them it was their favorite park and they wanted o make sure they could get a campsite. They also told us that we were going to be blown away by Highway 12. Awesome! Lets get this traveling party started! We headed out of the park and came to a welcome area that had WiFi so we went in and tried to update the blog but the WiFi was not strong enough to download and up load pictures so after catching up on some of our light internet needs we headed out on Highway 12. The plan was to stop for lunch at Anasazi State Park. The park was home to an ancient Native American Village. It looked small but interesting and it was just over half way to Bryce. As we started down Highway 12 we could see that the couple was right. It was beautiful. The landscape changed many times and the speed limit was slow due to the facts of the curves and the fact that it was an open range area for cattle meaning they could easily be in the middle of the road. We drove and drove and just took it all in. We stopped at too many scenic overlooks to remember. Each had their own special beauty in there own way. Finally about 1 we pulled into the state park and noticed right away it was going to be a great lunch spot. Big trees with large grassy areas and a beautiful sign that said free WiFi. Lyn got Jasper out and grabbed a table and I went in and used the WiFi to upload the blog. The WiFi was fast so once everything was uploaded I headed out to let Lyn go in and catch up. When I got out I found that she was already caught up because the WiFi reached our picnic table. Heaven. They even had a food truck and we decided to give it a try. We each got a taco. Lyn's was pork of course with other yummy vegetables and mine was sweet potato, portobello mushrooms and goat cheese. Yummy on all accounts! After that we decided to tour the ruins. They told us Jasper was fine to tour as well and I would bring him through the visitor center as long as he went straight through. We toured the ruins and learned a few things about ancient life. All and all a great stop on all fronts. We got back on highway 12 and were amazed how much our scenery could change on every turn. We climbed large hills and dropped into many valleys. Usually as you climb you have the mountain wall on one side and a cliff on the other. Most times if you are lucky you may even have a guard rail. But at the top of one hill the view opened up and we no longer had a wall on one side. We were actually going along a ridge with cliffs on both sides. The road had been newly paved and there was no guardrails in sight. It was stunning. When we got to the top they had a pull off and we took pictures and just marveled at how crazy this road was. You can see a video here if you are interested. After another hour we made it to our campground that was literally just outside of the Bryce Canyon gates. The Bryce shuttle bus even had a stop there. We found out that they had no campsites for pop-up campers and only could allow us in the overflow area. The overflow area was behind a hotel nearby and after going to check it out we saw that it did not have the same feel as their beautiful campground! I went back in and asked if we could camp in a tent site reminding him that my camper was super small and I could push it by hand. He agreed to let us try and within 15 minutes we had a beautiful site that was just perfect for us. It was near the bathroom and pool area and plenty of shade for all of us. Oh yeah it was also $10 cheaper! After we set up many people stopped by and asked about the camper and of course came and petted Jasper. One kid walked up and said "Hey mister why is your tent on a trailer?" Of I told him it was a modern version of the tent and that all tents would be this way one day. Ha Ha not sure what he thought about my answer but he did walk around the camper a few times. After we set up, we sat down and just enjoyed the 80 degree temperatures. While relaxing a man came up and noticed our NC sign and my Joymongers hat. As it turns out he grew up in Greensboro and after some conversations we learned that we had a mutual friend that is one of my coworkers at Southern Guilford High School! Wow super small world! The only thing our site did not have was electricity but we noticed there was a plug by the pool so we plugged everything in went back and had another great dinner prepared by Lyn. After dinner we went back to get all of our fully charged devices and Lyn actually heard Tagalog (her native language) and even a little Ilokano her local dialect being spoken jut a few campsites away. It turned out to be a big family of Filipinos camping here. The wife had just run the Bryce half Marathon earlier that day. They were fixing all kinds of good Filipino foods and invited us to join. We told them that we had already eaten but they insisted we joined them so we did. They had a crazy big spread of food and we enjoyed our second dinner with them and also the great conversation. After dinner number 2 we went back and walked Jasper and then went back to hang out with them. They had a fire going and smoked oysters on the grill. We had a few beers while eating oysters and just enjoyed each others company. Finally at 10:30 we called it a night and fell asleep quickly in the nice cool temperatures of our new home away from home.