My Utah Journal ~~ Pambling Roads

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Utah was soooooo beautiful. It's a great place to visit...

Wendover Will welcomes you and the Bonneville Salt Flats

 This is well known in the racing world where they have races on the salt flats. For as far as we could see it was white salt sparkling in the sun. Wow, it is something we will probably never see again. It amazes me that the earth has places like this. The Bonneville Salt Flats is part of the Great Salt Lake Desert.

http://historytogo.utah.gov/utah_chapters/the_land/bonnevillesaltflats.html

The World Famous Hat Tree!! Tribute to the Pony Express.

Navaho Lake, Utah

The park is just outside of Cedar City, Utah. 

Mt. Carmel, Utah

Wow, Utah drivers are really dangerous drivers, pushy, and rude. It wasn’t just one incident, it was almost every driver. We noticed how they drove practically from the moment we crossed the state line. Speeding, passing multiple vehicles on double lines into our oncoming lane, talking on the cell phones, swerving back and forth. I even saw one man texting while he was passing us! Another truck was in front of us tailgating another car so badly that they pulled over, onto the side of the cliffs with no guard rail, to let them pass.

However, the worst story of our Utah adventure that is still very prominent in our minds. (I don’t think I want to ever go back to Utah and I would not recommend people to vacation here unless they do not plan to do a lot of driving.)

The Royally Obnoxious Ford Lady: we were going through the curves and cliffs of Zion National Park and this one lady in a Ford escort type car kept tailgating us and beeping her horn, waving her hand at us to hurry. It’s not like we could pull over - there were very high cliffs and very winding roads. She was so close to us we could not even see the grill on the front of her car. We were doing the speed limit and my husband is not going to take a chance and drive faster than recommended. We don’t care how many times you blow your horn and flail your hands around.  It’s not like we were going two miles an hour. The speed limit said 20 mph on the curves and that’s what we did. When she finally passed us when we turned off to go into the visitor’s center…there was no license plate and just some piece of paper stuck on the window. We reported her dangerous driving to one of the rangers at the visitor’s centers desk but he said there really wasn’t much that could be done about it.

I wanted to leave right there and then. I had no desire to go driving around high cliffs and mountains with rude inconsiderate and pushy drivers from Utah but my husband talked me into going on the tour shuttle bus.

Zion National Park

We took the tour bus and then left immediately after we were finished with the tour on the shuttle bus. Zion was absolutely gorgeous, however, it was not worth the terrifying ride to the visitor center. There are more than enough parks like Zion that are friendlier and just as pretty.

This time I was behind the wheel driving and it wasn’t much better, just not as bad as Royally Obnoxious Ford Lady. It isn’t like we aren’t used to driving in mountainous areas. We have quite a bit of driving experience in all sorts of terrain. We do not recommend visiting Zion National Park if you are driving.

I repeat, I would not recommend driving through Zion National Park. Even the beauty of the park was ruined for us by the rude drivers and the obnoxious lady. Leaving the park wasn’t any better, it just wasn’t worth the white knuckling fear of someone back-ending us on high cliffs and pushing us over the edge.

This part of Utah was not a very good stay for us. The hotel that we stayed in was very disorganized. It was our first bad experience with a Best Western Hotel. The room was dirty, the beds unmade, bathroom wasn’t cleaned, so we went back to the front desk and they gave us another room.

Then the next day, they didn’t change the sheets. Yeup, you read that correctly. They made the bed without changing the sheets when it was requested to change them. I called the front desk and made them bring me new sheets. The young girl who was obviously not from housekeeping, brought me new sheets -- wrong size so we had to call the front desk again. Then she brought me another set of new sheets, apologizing because she was not familiar with the rooms. I thanked her and made the bed myself.

The restaurant attached to hotel had slooooooowwww service. The food was good, but it was flagrantly obvious that none of the restaurant staff were happy working there. Everyone frowning… ugh.

The gift shop attendant - frowning - hotel front desk clerk - frowning - maintenance worker – frowning. We now call it the town of the perpetual frowns. We could not wait to get away from all their negativity.

Beautiful Beautiful Utah

Traveling down Hwy. 89, we saw a really cool-looking house that was built into the mountain. As we were traveling through Utah to Arizona we experienced the typical Utah drivers – pushy and rude.  

 

***What we highly recommend in Utah:

Coral Pink Sands Park and the Moqui Cave.

There are two major exceptions in the very southern portion of the state! You can go in from Arizona and not have to bother with the rest of the rude Utah residents.

Coral Pink Sands State Park

This desert is gorgeous. We scared something underneath the stand, not sure what it was, but we heard it hit the rails when it ran. We did trek out onto the dunes, walked about a half mile and then turned back.

Awesome people working there, very friendly and courteous. It is a great park with camping spots for those who want campsites and RV spots as well. There are picnic tables, outdoor grills, and ATV rentals and tours. Inside the visitor center/gift shop they have a display of different sands from all around the world. We chatted with the employees and they were very receptive to our desire to learn about the park and the history of the area.

They let us take a small cup of the coral pink sand for a souvenir.

We met a couple near the stands who were also on vacation and enjoying the park. They were from Arizona, taking a fun run-away weekend mini-vacation.

http://stateparks.utah.gov/park/coral-pink-sand-dunes-state-park

Moqui Cave

Wow!!! Family owned and operated, Moqui Cave is a decent sized sandstone grotto cave with a museum filled with antiques, early pioneer and Native American artifacts, dinosaur fossils, and footprints in rocks. There is a magnificent, breathtaking display of fluorescent rocks. Visitors can learn about history of the area and the Chamberlain family.

 

 

Their gift shop is wonderful. I wish their website was current because there were a lot of things I would like to purchase and have them mail to us. This was a great place to go for kids and adults.

We chatted with Mr. Chamberlain and just absorbed all the wonderful stories and history he was willing to share with us.

 

http://www.visitsouthernutah.com/Moqui-Cave

 

 I must admit that Utah is breathtakingly gorgeous. The beauty of the state is overwhelming.

Sad to say: Our last stop in Utah was at a fast food restaurant. Even the customers there were unhappy and frowning. One lady was looking at people as if they were the devil’s spawns. I just didn’t see the majority of Utah residents as being happy. We decided that we don't like all the negativity we saw in Utah, do not want to return, and do not recommend people to vacation there. (Except for Moqui Cave and Pink Sands Park, they were awesome.)

Thank you for taking the time to read about our adventures traveling the United States. It has been a great adventure, meeting the Americans, and meeting people from all over the world.

 Have you been to any of the places I have mentioned? Do you have stories to tell as well? Share with us, we want to hear all about it! Take advantage of comment section below and tell us your stories.

It has been a great adventure, meeting the Americans, and meeting people from all over the world. Share with us, we want to hear all about it! Take advantage of comment section below and tell us your stories

 

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