Posted in: Campground Review, Exploring Utah, YouTube Video Link

Spanish Trail RV Park: Campground Review

For our first stop in Utah, we stayed at the Spanish Trail RV Park in Moab, UT.

The campground had a laundry room, pool and hot tub, and fenced in dog area. There were also waste bags along the fence line for dog clean up. It seemed like it had a good layout. The boys made a YouTube video of the campground.

Top: shower/bath house, pool, office

The pool is nice, with a few fountains off the side shooting in and a basketball hoop. The pool is not heated, so it will cool you off on a hot day. The hot tub is off to the side of the pool. There is a changing/bathroom and an outdoor shower in the pool area as well.

The office was small and only offered a few things for sale, although they do have brochures for local attractions. They did sell ice for $2.75/bag (City Market, aka Kroger, had for $1.99/bag with loyalty card) and also had some individual ice cream items (most were $1.75). The office closed at 5:00pm. They do lock the ice after hours, so get any ice you need before then. There was a spot on the office desk for outgoing mail. TIP: There is a small holder of postcards on a shelf for $1/each of area landscapes with the Milky Way. You can get these for free in various Biz Card holders around town (Two places that I know of: McStiff’s Plaza-outdoors on side of wall near right side of their parking lot and Red Rock Bakery-inside towards the back). There was also a lounge attached to the office, but was closed for COVID.


The campground offers Wi-Fi and cable. We didn’t have much luck with the cable, just a few channels, and the WiFi was the standard campground kind.

The laundry room was nice. It was even air conditioned! There were plenty of machines and there was a change machine in the room as well. A wash cycle cost $2.25 and the dryer $1.50.

The shower/bathhouse was amazing. It was the nicest one so far. There were separate rooms that contained a toilet and shower with locking doors.

I believe the campground is all RV spots, with most sites being pull-through. We had a 50 amp site, which we definitely needed in the heat to run both A/C units. No tents/gazebos/pop-ups are allowed. There are trees and grass at each site. The trees help a little with the heat. We had an end of the row site, which was great for parking, but meant that we only had shade on one side. If you wanted more shade, I would try to get a spot further in so you get trees on both sides.

Each site had a picnic table with a concrete pad that sits right next to your RV steps. No fire pits or grills are provided in the campground. Utah also had fire bans going while we were there.

The campground is close to town (7-10 minutes), Arches (15-20 minutes), and Canyonlands (45-60 minutes depending on traffic). There are several grocery stores in town, although pricing seems a little higher here than back home. We mostly shopped at City Market (Kroger) for the fuel points and coupons.

SUMMARY OF CAMPGROUND:

Our rating: 3 out of 5 hitches

Cell Phone Reception: AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile

Laundry: Yes

Bathrooms/Showers: Yes

RV Sites: Pull Through, some back-in

Pop Up Tents/Gazebos/Outdoor Rugs On-Site: No

Amenities: Picnic table, cable, fenced dog area

Cabins: No

Tent Camping: No

Full Hook-ups: Yes. 30 or 50 Amps.

Pool: Yes

WiFi: Yes

Food On-Site: No

Camp Store: Yes, extremely limited

Fishing: No

 

 

Posted in: Broken/Damanged Things, Costco, Newbie Mistakes

Moving Day: Goodbye Moab!

It’s moving day!

We had a good start, finished packing up inside and worked on the outside. I went to line up the truck and bumped the hitch into the trailer. It wasn’t raised up with the jack yet. I obviously needed coffee and to not rush. Luckily nothing happened, but not a great start to my morning.

The drive was uneventful (thank goodness) to our next campground in Hurricane, Utah. We checked in and they led us to our campsite. It was a back-in and they helped direct us in. We set up the RV. It was pretty hot out (104 degrees F), but at least the site had some shade! I am so glad we had a 50 amp site and could run both A/C’s.

The town was bigger than I thought it would be. There were several restaurants and grocery places close by. The one grocery store was within walking distance!

We ran into St. George (about 10-15 minutes away) to go to Costco. This Costco was not very different from others we have seen, although they did sell ice and had diesel at the fuel station. It was very crowded. It was the least amount we had ever spent: $34, including a pizza!

Yes, I do get a picture of Will at every Costco 😉

We unpacked the groceries and Ben took the boys into town to try to find a replacement cup and forks. I got to read for an hour by myself! It was so relaxing. The boys came back, but didn’t have much luck at the nearby store. We called it a night and settled in.

Posted in: Exploring Utah, Food, Sightseeing

Trying Local Bakeries

Friday the boys did not have live school sessions, so we ran moved back the start of school by an hour and ran into Moab to try some of the local bakeries. They were usually open from 7:00 am until 12 or 2pm. It hadn’t worked out yet to try them with school hours.

We found a parking spot near our first stop, Red Rock Bakery. We grabbed a plain and an everything bagel with cream cheese. They were delicious! It is a really cute bakery.

We walked over to Doughbird. It is a super cute donut shop. They also sell chicken at 11:00, but we were too early for that. Nick was very disappointed. We got an Oreo Cheesecake, a Caramel Apple Pie, and Raspberry Delight donuts. These looked like more artisan type of donuts.

Next stop was just for me…coffee! It was a very nice mocha, which I really enjoyed. We also got a cinnamon roll there.

Our final stop was at The Donut Shop. This shop had more traditional donuts. We bought a few donut holes, a Bavarian Cream with chocolate icing (like a Boston Cream), a raised glaze, and a Raspberry Bismark (filled).

Donuts were definitely more expensive in Moab than at home. A glaze was $1 and the other donuts were $2 to $3 per donut.

We brought our goodies home and cut them up so everyone could experience each one.

The Raspberry Delight and Raspberry Bismark were everyone’s favorites for the donuts.

After breakfast, the boys worked on homework. When they were done with school for the day, I took them to the pool and worked on laundry.

It was the night before we left for our next stop, so we also started getting ready and packing up. It was a pretty good day.

Posted in: Exploring Utah, Museums & Tours, Sightseeing

Hole N” The Rock

We had always turned left out of the campground to head into Moab. This time Ben wanted to turn right and see what was the other way.

After driving for a little bit, we came across the Hole N” The Rock. It’s hard to miss with a Jeep sitting on top of the rock and huge white letters painted on the rock face. We stopped in and walked around the outside. They have a petting zoo, a couple of stores (souvenir/gift shop type of stores), and a few wacky outside decorations. There is also the “hole in the rock”, which is a house built into the rock. It started as a homesteading site in the 1940’s. A couple dug out their home in the side of the sandstone. They created a diner that catered to local miners and later added a gift shop. There is a 12 minute tour of the inside of the house for $6.50/person.

They didn’t have electricity in the house until the 1960’s! The inside is incredible, and just goes to show what people can do when they don’t have video games (Ben’s pep talk to the boys to encourage them to do more instead of playing on electronics.). The house is quirky and honestly, they must have been bored out of their minds with no electricity to get it all done. The bathtub itself is carved out of the rock, which is pretty cool to see.

I would say it is worth the side trip if you are near Moab (it is maybe 15-20 minutes from town). We did not go to the petting zoo, just took the house tour and browsed the stores and the outside grounds.

After the tour, we went back towards Moab and stopped at Lop’s Pop Stop (a soda stand). The boys tried Gummy Bear water (made with fruit juice and puree) and I tried a Happy Camper soda.

We were getting a little hungry and saw a local diner (Milt’s Stop & Eat) that was crowded, so we gave it a try. We ordered an onion ring, fries, cheeseburgers, and one cheeseburger with fried bacon and an egg on top. Everything was very tasty. We continued further into town and stumbled upon a local outdoor market. They had puppies to pet, so I got my dog fix in! We got some groceries and headed home.

Posted in: Exploring Utah, National Park, National Parks, Sightseeing

Stargazing

Ben has seeing the Milky Way on his bucket list. We had heard Canyonlands was great for star gazing, so we headed there right before sunset.

The colors over the canyons were amazing while the sun was setting. There was a full bright moon though, so while we saw some great stars, we didn’t really see the Milky Way. There is a faint shadow in some of the pictures that might (maybe…hopefully…) hint at the Milky Way, but I think we will have to try again when the moon isn’t as bright.

After Canyonlands, we drove to Arches to try our luck there. Still no Milky Way, but gorgeous nighttime landscapes.

The pullout area we were at for Canyonlands did not have a bathroom. I got to use my camping funnel* for the first time. It was…different, but when you got to go…It worked though, so funnel for the win!

*Amazon affiliate link

Posted in: Exploring Utah, Hiking, School, Sightseeing

School Problems and Hiking

The day started a little rough. The school had done an update to the software and students and teachers were having a hard time accessing their accounts. The boys couldn’t log on at first, then their “live” session links were missing, and once those showed up, their assignments disappeared. Some of their classes were cancelled because of the issues. Hopefully, it all gets resolved for tomorrow!

Once school and work were finished for the day, I wanted to go see some of the dinosaur bones and petroglyphs in the area. It was much cooler today, so it was perfect for hiking. The morning was in the 50’s and the high forecast for 82!

Our first stop was at Mill Canyon. It is right off of 191. The drive starts off going through private land and ends up on BLM land. Mill Canyon is a dirt/gravel road until you reach the Track Site. You might be able to use a car on this road to reach the dinosaur track site, but they do recommend 4-wheel drive. If you want to get to the dinosaur bone trail, you definitely need 4-wheel drive and probably a vehicle that sits higher up (SUV/truck/Jeep). It was the first time we had tried a more challenging terrain or used 4-wheel drive in the truck. We did alright and didn’t get stuck in the deep sand.

The bone trail is left open to the elements. There are informational signs at each stop, but it was really hard to see the bones in most of the locations. We had the information pamphlet and the plaques to help guide us, but other than look “four feet to the left” or look for purplish spots in the rock, there wasn’t anything to really guide you to find the bones. It would have been super helpful to have a simple diagram of the rock or something.

At the end of the bone trail, you can see the remains of a copper mill. It looks like the back wall and corners of a stone foundation.

(NOTE🙂 I have a lot of pictures from the trails. I only put the a couple above, but if you scroll to the end of this post I have a few more pictures as well.)

We went back to the truck and headed back toward the dinosaur track site. There is also a path for the Halfway Station, an old railway station. However, that sandy path looked even rougher than the one we had just gone on and we didn’t want to risk it.

At the Mill Canyon Dinosaur Tracksite, there is a gravel parking lot, a campsite, and a bathroom. There is a short trail down to the dino prints. The site is fenced off and once through the gate, you walk on a wooden boardwalk in a loop around the footprints. There are informational plaques around the trail/boardwalk. Some prints are easier to see than others, but you can definitely see some.

I think this is where we lost Ben.

I think my expectations were a little too high. Will and I still enjoyed it, but I think Ben and Nick were not very impressed. Ben especially started loosing interest when the dinosaur track plaque stated they didn’t know what kind of dinosaur made the track and then showed what they thought it would look like. There are a few other dinosaur sites near Moab, but it seems that they all require off-roading or 4-wheel drive.

After Mill Canyon, we went to Poison Spider Trail. Poison Spider has two slabs with dinosaur tracks and some petroglyphs. The trail information I read beforehand claimed you could see them from the parking lot. I guess technically you can, but you would need to know exactly where they are and probably need binoculars to really see the tracks and petroglyphs. We took the trail and saw one slab with tracks. These tracks were a little easier to see. We didn’t see the petroglyphs until we were almost back to the parking lot. I turned around for one last look and just happened to see them.

There was a saving feature to our adventure today, one that everyone loved: Utah Highway 279. We passed this turn-off (toward Potash) every time we drive back towards Moab. This time we took the road to get to the Poison Spider Trail. We saw people rock climbing along this stretch of highway and there was the Colorado River near the road as well. The main attraction (for us) were the petroglyphs along the cliff walls. Some were faded, but most of them were easily visible. There is a small sign stating “Petroglyphs” by a small pull-out, so look for it as you drive by. There were so many of them, it was amazing. Ben claimed everything was worth it just to see them.

The top row is the pictures as I took them. The sun was shining off the cliff faces, so some of them were hard to see in the pictures. Others were faded by time. The bottom row, I added a filter and darkened it to make them easier to see.

(Side Note: At the corner of 191 and the turn-off to 279, there is an UMTRA Energy Project. The area is fenced off with an electric fence and there were radioactive symbols around. I looked it up later and they are removing uranium tailings. I guess there used to be a uranium processing plant there.)

Non-dinosaur information at Mill Canyon Bone Trail
Posted in: Sightseeing

Not Much Going On Today

Monday was a pretty boring day. The boys had school, with a lot more live sessions with teacher. Nick had guitar lessons after school. Ben had work today as well. I managed to get a lot of pictures downloaded, but still have to work on the videos.

After everyone was done with work, we went into Moab to explore the town some more. We found two Little Libraries and the boys each found a book. Nick’s is more of a workbook (do 1 thing a day). I am loving this Little Library idea. We had a couple near us at the house, but with the city library not far from us, we didn’t use them a lot. These are helping so much on the road. The boys get to find new books and return ones that they brought with them or found on the road. It is really helping with storage space.

We ordered a pizza for dinner and ate back at the RV. The boys finished the evening with some time in the pool in the evening.

Posted in: Animal Sightings, Exploring Utah, Hiking, National Park, National Parks, Sightseeing

Arches, Arches, Deer and a Lizard

Today we went back to Arches to see a couple of the arches we had missed before. We hiked to landscape arch (longest in world), the Windows, Turret, and Double Arch. On the way out, we saw Pothole Arch. We had missed this one earlier in the dark. It is harder to see because it is a horizontal arch (like a pothole) instead of a vertical arch.

Landscape Arch is in Devil’s Garden, which is at the end of the park road. You don’t hike the whole Devil’s Garden trail (which is good because it is long), but you do get to see some of it’s towering sandstone. There was also a smaller arch to the right of Landscape. We saw a few lizards along the trail and a small herd of female and baby deer right near Landscape Arch. We all just stood there for a minute starting at each other. Their ears are so much bigger than the deer’s back home!

Next, we headed down to the Windows and Turret Arches. These were pretty busy. North Arch definitely had the most people, as it as the first arch. South Arch was pretty empty. It’s not much further, but you do hike around a turn, so I guess a lot of people skipped it. The Turret Arch is across the way and on the same loop.

The final (planned) arch for the day was Double Arch. It has two arches out of the same base. It is across from the Windows and you can see it partly from the parking lot. You can see the arches, but will get a better view if you move closer. It was a nice sunny day, so you could really see the Double Arch really well from the lower parking lot. We did walk to it and it was neat to see.

Because we got such an early start to the day, we headed back to town for brunch. It’s been much harder to make pancakes in the RV and everyone was craving some fluffy pancakes.

The day ended with a Nerf battle between Ben and the boys and a dip in the pool. We had the pool to ourselves and it was amazing!

Posted in: Animal Sightings, Exploring Utah, Hiking, National Park, National Parks, Sightseeing

Canyonlands National Park

We had not heard of Canyonlands National Park until getting ready for this trip. It’s not too far from Arches, maybe 30 minutes, so we left early in the morning to go see it.

It was crazy to see these deep canyons. It must have been shocking for people coming through to have mountains, then flat land, and then bam! suddenly huge holes in the ground. Apparently they also tried to mine for uranium in Canyonlands during the 1950’s.

Our first hike in the park was to the Mesa Arch. The trail is pretty easy and is only about a mile. It was a warm day, but we had a nice breeze for most of it. It made hiking much easier.

We then drove on to Upheaval Dome. The dome overlook was quite the hike with several areas close to the edge. I think it was about 1.5 miles. The beginning of the trail is marked pretty well, but then you get onto solid rock surfaces and the trail is only marked by cairns. The views were amazing. Upheaval Dome was pretty neat, with all kinds of colors and jagged edges.

We saw a few small lizards and a couple of chipmunks. As Will was sitting on a rock, a small lizard came right up to him and almost climbed on his boot!

After Upheaval Dome, we took a few minutes to chill at the picnic area at the trailhead. We all enjoyed cold waters from the cooler and a few snacks. We drove along the road and stopped at several pull-outs and overlooks. Several areas were hazy, so we didn’t get as clear of a view as I would have liked. As we were reading about the dryness of the area and how it only gets about 10” of rain a year, it started raining on us!

Top picture, right side: Rain in the dessert

NOTE: I would use bathrooms along trails in the park, not at the visitor center. The visitor center had squat toilets!

Posted in: Animal Sightings, Exploring Utah, Hiking, National Park, National Parks, School, Sightseeing

Arches National Park, Stop 1

Our first adventures in Moab were in Arches National Park. We missed the beginning of the sun rise because we were all lagging and dragging, but at least caught the tail end.

We brought lots of water and sunscreen with us in our day bags and in the truck. We wore our boots since Utah has several varieties of rattlesnakes.

The colors are amazing! When I think of dessert, I picture brown. However, there are reds, browns, whites, and greens here. The minerals in the earth make a lovely canvas across the land.

Our first hike in the park was to Delicate Arch. This is the arch you see on the license plates. It was listed as a moderate hike, about 3.5 miles (there and back). There is a trail in the beginning, and then you hike up a large slab of slickrock and follow a few signs and other people around a ledge to finally see the arch.

The views are amazing once you get there. It was a little crowded, and so far the people in the parks in Utah are not as good at wearing masks in outdoor crowds as in Montana or even Colorado.

You are not allowed to climb on the arches (you would think this is obvious, but we have seen people climb them despite the signs), but there are other rocky areas to climb. The boys love stretching their legs and testing their climbing skills. Of course, the “look where you put your hands and feet” is cautioned before they attempt anything. Within minutes, they came running back yelling about a snake. Will almost ran into a snake…again. Luckily Nick saw it and they ran away.

Ben and I walked over to see what they saw, and it was a small snake curled up on the rocks. It looked like it could have fit (while curled up) in the palm of your hand. I had my zoom lens with me, so I zoomed in for a picture and Will asked a Ranger later. She seemed very surprised and said it looked like one of their smaller rattlesnakes that live in the park. We think it may have been a midget faded rattler. Luckily they are usually nocturnal and he didn’t wake up from the boys climbing right near him. So…the boys were done climbing. We also saw a small lizard and a blister beetle.

After that excitement, we walked back along the trail to stop at Wolfe Ranch. It is a small pioneering type of cabin from the late 1800’s. Mr. Wolfe was originally from Ohio! There were also petroglyphs in the area that we walked to see.

As part of the boys’ online school, we are allowed supplemental hours. We wanted to incorporate learning into a lot our daily fun/activities. When we got home, they researched what kind of snake we saw, blister beetles, and petroglyphs vs pictographs. We learned that if you see lizards out, the snakes are probably going to be active as well. Some adult snakes can control how much venom they inject during a bite. Petroglyphs are etchings/carvings in rocks, while pictographs are paintings.

After the boys were done with their research, they went with Ben to the pool while I worked on the laundry.

In the evening, we went into town and explored. Moab is a cute town! Lots of things to see. They have a Food Truck Park, which is super cool. Unfortunately, there have only been a few of the trucks open each time we have gone. We got a shaved ice to share and then went to The Spoke for dinner. It is a cute building with interior brick walls and it looks like original wood floors. We were on the second floor by a window, which is always nice. They have really good burgers and Brussels Sprouts.

It was a pretty good day, although I think we were all ready for bed by the end.

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