Red Sandstone and Saints

We’ve been in the red state of Utah for almost two weeks and we’ve learned a few things. First, the natural beauty and abundance of National Parks make this state a great place to spend lots of time. Second, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS) is the underlying drone to nearly all of the harmonies that play out across this land. And third, the Church was very much involved in the economic history and settlement of the state and subsequently continues to have difficulties with the Federal government over many things. Historically, the church lost out on the subject of marriage equality ( ie. polygamy) but currently fights over Federal lands are alive and well. It seems pretty clear why the overpowering lyrics here contain the lines, “Don’t tread on me”. That being said, we have had nothing but gracious interactions with practically everyone we met.

Rehearsal of Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra

To get better acquainted we conducted a serious immersion program in Salt Lake City by accepting the LDS-sponsored shuttle from the KOA campground, which  included a drive-by tour of Temple Square, suggestions for our visit, and a ride home at day’s end. We followed some of their advice and toured the visitor’s center, where we were squired around by a couple of sweet Mormon Sisters, who, like young male missionaries who come to your door, were giving a year of service to share their faith with folks like us who are polite enough to listen. We also looked up our long -dead ancestors at the Family History Library, and very much enjoyed a rehearsal of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. 

Straying from the program, we also enjoyed a visit to the public library and a stroll through downtown. It appeared to us there were unusually high numbers of folks asking for handouts and sleeping on the streets in the area surrounding the opulent walled-in Temple Square which occupies several blocks in the center of town. This was similar to our experience at the edge of town where we had considered boondocking at the Wal-Mart. We had been quite excited about the covered 13- foot-high garage and the warm welcome from the management, but soon found there were a number of very decrepit vehicles and unhappy people hanging around the premises. Our discomfort resulted in a move to the KOA.

Fall Roundup on Utah State Route 89

After our day in SLC we were eager to leave the city and braved the freeway through the rest of urban Utah (a 150-mile strip from Ogden through SLC and ending at Provo) finally landing in the land of red earth and Mormon pioneer farms. Soon we had a delightful encounter with a 200-head cattle drive on a narrow, twisty mountain road and experienced the 10,500 foot altitude at Cedar Breaks National Monument, which confirmed our suspicions that we really are sea-level girls. 

Antelope Canyon (near Page, AZ) was breathtaking

Now, having ascended the Colorado Plateau repeatedly and having descended into countless river valleys, we’ve decided there are many reasons why we prefer looking up at red sandstone magnificence rather than looking down on it. We reached this realization from several experiences: the first being our visit to Zion National Park.  Unfortunately it fell on the weekend that apparently all of Las Vegas was celebrating Indigenous People’s Day by communing with nature. The shuttle ride up Zion Canyon reminded us of the Boston MTA on the way to Fenway Field. But at the end of the road, when we got out and walked up the Virgin River canyon, it was serene and comforting to be surrounded by sheer cliff walls of deliciously tinted red sandstone. We felt the same when we (again accompanied by way too many people) experienced the luscious walls of Antelope Canyon, a slot canyon carved by flash floods through soft red and gray sandstone. It was stunningly beautiful.

All American Road Utah SR 12 starts in Red Canyon

The alternative to being at the bottom of a canyon is being on top of the mesas, buttes, ridges and plateaus that rim them. This was our experience at Bryce Canyon and along the All American Road known as Scenic Byway 12 which runs through beautiful Red Canyon, past Bryce National Park all the way to Torrey, Utah. One of the most exciting parts of this road is Hogback Ridge where the land drops away from the shoulder-less road on both sides, the next level place being thousands of feet below. It reminded us a lot of  Montana's Beartooth Highway. When driving these stretches Liz reminds herself it’s just a road like all others, the point being to stay between the lines, and Janna keeps her eyes shut. We got to Arches National Park and enjoyed these kinds of views from the big screen in the Visitor Center, then went on to bicycle and camp along the river, happily looking up at the beautiful canyon walls.

Another interesting stop along the way was Angel Canyon, home of Best Friends Animal Society. Janna had time to practice her new musical instrument, while Liz toured the 4000-acre center, home to over 1500 animals, including many dogs, cats, horses, parrots, rabbits and wild animals as well. We enjoyed the $5 vegetarian buffet at their Angel Café, a nice surprise and well-kept secret. 

Colorado River near Moab, at sunset

The past couple of days we’ve been enjoying the interesting town of Moab, filled with athletic looking people of all ages who drive monster all-terrain vehicles or muddy mountain bikes. We shopped at the well-stocked community co-op; also found a few items at a unique outdoor retail establishment called the Gearhead; and did some trading with a business called Gear Trader. Liz got a music lesson in the park from a local fiddler and Janna got a Skype music lesson using the internet at the local library. Now we are headed further south and east to San Juan County (Utah that is), then on to Colorado, with Lilypad sporting a new bike rack.

Water in the Desert

Bison roam Antelope Island 
and across the water is Salt Lake City

We’re ten days into Part Two of Lilypad’s great adventure and find ourselves at Antelope Island State Park in the middle of the Great Salt Lake. Meadow larks greeted us this morning as we walked around the campground, marveling at the huge harvest moon setting into the lake to the southwest while at the same time, the sun came up over the mountains in the east. This island is a refuge for birds, bison, prong horn antelope, big horn sheep and people. Yesterday we toured the historic Fielding Garr Ranch, the first permanent residence on the island. We looked across at Salt Lake City, dwarfed by the vastness of the lake and mountains surrounding it. The buffalo were all over the road, but the long-eared jackrabbits out in the prairie refused to hold still for pictures.

Main Street in Joseph, Oregon with sculpture and fall colors

A week ago we briefly toured Joseph, Oregon, identified by National Geographic as one of America’s Small Town Great Escapes, and a site along the Hell's Canyon National Scenic Byway. Blessed with three bronze foundries, the town has public statues on every corner and the ornamental maples along the historic downtown main street delighted us with our first blaze of fall color. The flourishing little shops spoke to the power of art to support a small town economy, although no doubt the beautiful surrounding ranches and remote recreation areas don’t hurt either. Then we enjoyed the paved Forest Service road through the Wallowa Mountains, stayed in a $3 campground, and stopped at the spectacular lookout over the Snake River at Hell's Canyon. 

Connie, Liz, California Condor, Janna and Craig

In Idaho we stopped to visit dear friends Connie and Craig who recently moved from Alaska to an airpark near Nampa. While we were there, we managed to visit briefly with Janna’s sister and brother-in-law, and another old Alaskan friend, Carol and her partner Judith. Connie and Craig took us on excursions to Boise and Nampa where we were impressed with the friendliness of the people and the prevalence of paved bike trails. We also stopped at the World Center for Birds of Prey. Perched high on a ridge above the prairie we watched half a dozen different kinds of raptors soar and interact with human handlers. The facility is famous for breeding California Condors and we met the grandparents of some of the birds that now fly free in California and Nevada. 

Pool at Banbury Hot Springs

We are surrounded by desert, and surprised to find hot springs everywhere. Next door to Connie and Craig’s house, we took a swim at Givens Hot Springs, a funky old pool that was established in 1881. Then we followed the Snake River and the 1000 Springs Scenic Byway, landing at Banbury Hot Springs where we enjoyed a virtually empty campground and solo swims in a large pool constructed in 1920. This area is also famous for the discoveries of ancient equines and other fossils in the million year old fossil beds and hosts the Hagerman Fossil Beds National Monument. 

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Leaving Idaho, it was on to Crystal Hot Springs in Honeyville, Utah where we encountered a surprisingly international clientele at a lovely campground. There are four separate pools here where both hot and cold springs occur at the same location. If you get too hot swimming in the 100 degree pool, go stand under the cold waterfall. Want to be warmer? Go stand under the hot waterfall. (Have we mentioned we have had weather in the 70’s every day?) 

Bridger Bay Camp Ground on Antelope Island

So now we are on the Great Salt Lake, another oasis in the desert. It's too salty for fish, but it's perfect for brine shrimp and algae making it a paradise for birds and people who love birds and beautiful views. Last night we paired up with neighbors in the campground to play some not great, but enjoyable music with Liz on the fiddle and the neighbor on the guitar.  Water in the desert; music in the desert. What could be better that this?

Tomorrow we will explore the history and modern reality of Salt Lake City. Then it's back to nature as we head for the great national parks of southern Utah. 

On the Road Again

The hot tub is a great addition to the cabin

The past six weeks have flown by, filled with re-connections with friends and family, as well as many activities and accomplishments at home on San Juan Island. We arrived just in time for the San Juan County Fair, and felt fortunate to have our 12-year-old granddaughter Olivia with us. She was a great help with settling in and getting the spiders out of the corners of the cabin. We were grateful for the ministrations in our absence of island friends Mary and Nikki, and Seattle friends Annie and Shelli who  made sure the grass was mowed around the cabin, litter was gathered off the beach, and all systems were operational when we arrived. The rest of the Vashon family came the next weekend, put up tents, and we loved playing with them in the water and around the campfire. As always, they left the cabin a better place than they found it, clearing out the garden, building compost bins, and reconnecting the hot water system for evening soaks in the old bathtub.

Colleen, Albert and Liz talk manure

The following weekend, our other daughter and son-in-law (Colleen and Albert) arrived from Kentucky. Albert fixed the wiring in both the cabin and A-frame, caulked the cabin windows, brought up a huge wood round from the beach to make a perfect breakfast table, helped Liz get a load of horse manure for the garden and still found time to help out some of our friends as well. He is the newest member of our family, and we feel lucky to have him.

It was great to catch up with island friends and others who have followed our adventures via TravelLily.com. We also managed to take in several cultural events with the highlight being a trip to Everett for the induction of our dear late friend Maggie King into the Snohomish County Sports Hall of Fame for her work on behalf of girls as a coach and Title IX activist.

We moved into storage on Paul Illg's 100th birthday

 

We rented out the condo and had the huge job of extricating all our belongings from the upstairs where we stored everything last year. This is the first time in our thirty years that we have stuffed our stuff into a storage locker. It was exhausting and freeing, as well as a little traumatic. The condo has had an outdoor makeover which included the sale of the hot-tub and replacement of the deck and fence. Both these projects were long overdue so it was nice to have them done before our new tenants moved in. Speaking of tenants, we were very lucky to get two competent people who can deal with anything that comes along,, including three issues we left them: a malfunctioning kitchen light, a broken faucet and rats! You might wonder what kind of landlords we are, but they signed a two year lease and then turned out to be amazingly adept at keeping a positive attitude as all of these problems began manifesting the day before they moved in. 

 

The best thing that happened during the homestay was the acquisition of a fabulous violin for Liz. After our brief fiddle experience at the Celtic Music Interpretation Center in Judique, Nova Scotia, Liz decided she was going to learn to play. When we first landed on Vashon Island in August Liz sat next to Xan’s violin teacher Sarah at a softball game. They chatted and Sarah mentioned she had an old violin that required some work and offered it to Liz at no cost. We took the tattered but well-loved violin to Kirk Fuhrmeister in Friday Harbor who managed to transform it into a very nice playable instrument by the time we left. Now Liz practices every day and can play a recognizable rendition of “Ashokan Farewell.” (Janna, too, has acquired a new instrument, but announcements about her instrument of choice and her progress will have to wait. Now there’s a nail-biter that will keep you coming back to read TravelLily.)

Roger, Lisa, Xan, Liz, Janna, Angela, Dylan, Carrie, Olivia and Ann Marie on the bike trail in Tacoma

As we get ready to hit the road again, we’ve been enjoying our Vashon family for a few days. This included a multi-generational bike ride in Tacoma. We piled many bikes into the truck and took them to the south end of the island where 10 of us walked our bikes onto the ferry. The younger set went 14 miles from Pt Defiance along the Tacoma waterfront while the three grandmothers were happy with six miles and a great chat. We are now sadly saying farewell to our Vashon family again, promising to return in time for Little League and spring performances. We will keep you all posted as to our itinerary….as soon as we figure it out!

We’re Home! (For a While)

Our home on the Rock (photo thanks to Jim Maya)

We’ve been on the road 46 weeks, traveled 22,000 miles, visited 37 states and 3 provinces, and now we know for sure that we live in the most spectacular, hopeful, and climatically welcoming place in North America. The Pacific Northwest seems to be the most comforting place on the continent, with its gracious weather, conscientiously raised food, natural stewardship ethic and opportunities for all sorts of people. We are grateful that we live in a place where we do not have to go to great expense and care to cool, heat, or dehumidify our living space. We have huge respect for the resiliency of humans who are tied by poverty or tradition to lands which experience ice and snow as in Cape Breton, humidity as in the Southeast, dust as in Eastern Washington, or hurricanes or tornadoes. We appreciate our great good fortune to have seen so many places and returned home safe and sound. Our little cabin on the southwest side of San Juan Island was lovingly stewarded by friends in our absence, and aside from shaking a few resident spiders from the corners, we had little to do in the way of making it operational. Two batches of baby barn swallows (who fledged the day after we arrived) and the deer and the fox born since we were away, all seem nonplussed about our presence. 

Cousins Patty, Denise, Renee, Addy, Janna, 
Burt and Melvin say goodbye to Aunt Mary

We did have a few great experiences since our last post, lovely times involving friends and family. Most touching was a gathering at the home of Janna’s cousin Burt and his wife Joan. Janna’s sister Addy (and brother-in-law Al) were there, and other cousins joined us as well to inter the ashes of Aunt Mary on the land where she was born: her parents' homestead in the foothills near the Beartooth Mountains in Montana. Mary was a spitfire and a loyal friend to many, and this gathering of friends and relatives made us all remember the importance of leaving a life well lived. We were invited to present some music so we sang Homeward Bound, a song about leaving the farm and returning again, and a remarkably poignant statement about Mary’s life. 

From there we took a leisurely course to Missoula where we over-nighted with Liz’s lifelong buddy David and his wife Shan. Besides being long-time friends they were our gracious hosts in Cetona, Italy a couple of years ago, so we had lots of catching up to do regarding families, friends and recent experiences. 

Sign at Sandpoint Farmers Market

Then we spent a couple of nights getting to know the town of Sandpoint, Idaho with some new friends: Amy and Glen, who we met last summer over the matter of the Illg Beach solar panel. Their small Idaho business produces the frames that support solar panel arrays and we were able to negotiate an exchange of a few nights stay on San Juan Island for personal delivery of our heavy new solar mount. We found we have much in common:  similar politics, music, and time spent in Alaska, so we had a good time singing and being shown the Sandpoint they love, including the Saturday Farmers Market and the best places to swim in Lake Pend Oreille.

We knew we were almost home when we finally crossed into Pacific Daylight Time and were greeted at the Washington border by our Vashon family, Angela, Lisa, Olivia and Xan who were returning from their annual visit to Grandpa Will’s place in Canada. We got to bring the kids home in Lilypad while the parents stuffed their car full of cases of organic fruit destined to be the canned goods we’ll all enjoy over the winter. We took our time getting back, stopping to swim near Spokane, camp overnight at Lake Easton and enjoy the wonder of Snoqualmie Falls. Then we were warmly welcomed by our extended family on Vashon Island where we got to see all the home improvements that have happened in the year we’ve been away. We also were delighted to enjoy the final games and awards banquet of Lisa and Angela’s slow-pitch team, the Hasbians (motto: “You should have seen us back when”). It reminded us of the community and family we have missed in our travels and made a future base of operations on Vashon Island an even more appealing idea.

Although we had always planned to return to San Juan Island in late summer (Liz got back in time to volunteer for a shift at the County Fair) there are a few states missed that we want to visit before we actually settle down again. We have places to go and friends to see in southern Idaho, Colorado, Utah, Arizona, Texas, Louisiana, Oregon and California so we plan to keep Lilypad for another year and fit in those travels over the fall and winter. Our great adventure is not over. We appreciate all of you who have followed our blog and sent us comments and ideas for visits. Please stay tuned while we have a vacation from our vacation at Illg Beach. We’ll be back in Lilypad again early in October.