Tower Family Trip: More Utah!

We set off from Zion today and traveled scenic Rte 12 to a beautiful campground between Boulder and Grover. We reached elevations of 9600 ft! The landscape is breathtaking and in spots we had views of 360 degrees. This campground looks like it was taken from the pages of "Big Bad Bruce", a children's story all my kids loved. It is exactly what I think of when I think of a campground- spacious sites, pine trees, a needled and bouldered forest floor with pines cones littering the ground, refreshing breezes and cool crisp mountain air. Oh! And a babbling brook :)

The extra plus is the hummingbirds!! We saw a nest today and within minutes of spotting it, momma came and perched on it. We had attended a hummingbird talk at Zion that was fascinating. Bridget will be blogging about many of the things we learned.

After our 4 hr adventure in the Narrows yesterday, we spent the hottest part of the day rafting and lazing by the Virgin river. We went out for an early dinner at an excellent restaurant called the Bit and Spur. Bridget had a virgin strawberry marguerita, and loved it! We sat on the outdoor patio right near a hummingbird feeder and were entertained by their constant presence! They are such amazing little creatures. Then back to the campsite for an evening bike ride to Canyon Junction and back. We loved it so much we decided to get up at 6:00 and load our bikes on the shuttle bus. We rode up to the end of the canyon on the bus and rode our bikes the 10 miles back. We saw a Momma with two fawn, a buck, and several heron. It was the perfect way to end our visit at the park. We ate breakfast, packed up and were on the road by 9:30. Heading out the east side of the park you have to go through a mile long tunnel constructed in the 1930's. They basically blasted through the Navajo sandstone- quite an undertaking, but not that impressive when you consider that they had to make four such tunnels to construct the Hoover dam. Anyway, you must purchase a tunnel pass if you have an RV and the Rangers block traffic entering on the other end so that you can drive up the middle. Needless to say, Bridget thought that was "cool beans"!! When you emerge on the other side it is like entering a different world. The big horn sheep dot the hillside and the rocks look like checker boarding. With our caravan on the narrow roads there wasn't a good place to stop, but we grabbed a few photos out the window with the camera.

Since I wasn't able to post this yesterday, above are photos of our Utah mountain campground in the morning light and Mark cooking breakfast :)

Still won't post so the following pictures are the day after Capitol Reef. We stayed at the campground and enjoyed the day. The views above and below are just a short walk from our site.

This is our babbling brook :)

Singletree Waterfall- Mark getting ready to carve our names in the sandstone. There is a wall dedicated to people being able to do this. Here I am next to our name looking from the other way. You can see part of the "Tower 2013" by my right hand.:)

We spent the rest of the afternoon building a lean to from the bows, sticks and pine needles already on the ground. It was great fun! Bridget had a ball! Above is the early stages.