Saturday, Sept 9, 2017 - Part 1
It rained most of the night last night and most of the morning this morning. Once it quite raining we decided to drive to Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park just a short distance from our RV Park in Kanab.
These pictures don't show the coral pink color as much as the actual color was. It was amazing to see so much coral colored sand.
The cloudy sky started to show some blue making our drive back to our home-site more beautiful. There were some very fascinating rock formations and interesting sites that caught our attention.
Guess that is enough of rock formations. We are intrigued by what we consider unusual formations.
We even saw a rock carved totem pole. It was behind a fence that had a sign on it that said due to vandalism you must get written permission from the owner to enter this property. Property was being monitored by cameras.
Just to the west side of the totem pole was this little pond. The pond water is so still you are seeing a reflection of the rock wall in the water. This picture doesn't do it justice.
Then to the east of the totem pole was this "house" built into a cave? We could not get any closer so don't know the story. It did not look like any one lived in it at this time.
The day had brightened up so we decided to go on another excursion. See the next blog post.
Friday, Sept 8, 2017
This morning we move from Salina, UT to Kanab, UT. The Salina area is beautiful and the Kanab area is supposed to be just as beautiful so we are looking forward to our new home.
As we headed south, the mountains had various colors. These looked white with green trees.
Then to the west was this colorful mountain range just beyond the valley.
More of the same range as above. I couldn't decide which picture I liked better so you get both.
This is Candy Mountain in a canyon we drove through. The road was following along side the Sevier River. The whole drive to Kanab was gorgeous!
This is our site at the Kanab RV Corral. It is a wide site but the space next to us is actually another site. Hopefully no one will be put there today or tomorrow.
After getting settled and having lunch, we headed to the Visitors Center here in Kanab.
The Visitors Center was closed for lunch. It was 12:50pm. We hoped (because it did not say) that the center would open at 1pm. We decided to hang around. Above was a red mountain behind the Visitors Center. Below is a fountain behind the parking lot and another red mountain.
We wanted to find the directions to the Paria (Pahreah) Mountains. We had seen pictures and wanted to find it. We found the directions, so took off to find them.
As we headed down FS road 585 the mountains started getting more colorful!
WOW look at the colors! We found the Paria Mountains. See above and the next several below.
The colorful mountains are almost as colorful as my top.
WOW it was absolutely stunning. There used to be a movie set here, but it was washed out by the Paria River which flooded the movie set.
In Kanab, we saw Mater! How cute!
Thursday, Sept 7, 2017 - continued
We also took an 80 mile loop drive to Fish Lake today. The scenery was beautiful.
As we started the drive we could immediately see multi-colored hillsides.
There were a few private farms along the way. This unique fence ran close to the road for a short distance.
We kept climbing in elevation. Look at this magnificent view.
There were lots of aspen trees mixed with the evergreens creating this beautiful pattern on this hillside.
Here we are at the summit of our drive at 10,506 ft elevation at Niotche-Lost Creek Divide. Our RV park is about 5200 ft elevation so we came up over 5000 ft.
At this higher elevation, the aspen trees were started to get their fall colors. The cattle are included in this picture to give perspective as to the huge size of this valley.
More fantastically beautiful views!
We saw a couple eagles soaring overhead and Tic was able to get this picture. They are so graceful and beautiful to watch.
This small grove of fall-colored aspen were right along side the road.
We saw lots of creeks and ponds, but this pond was unique.
We finally made it to Fish Lake. Fish Lake is considered to be a high alpine lake nearly 5 miles long and 1 mile wide.
We were told to stop at Fish Lake Lodge. Below are several pictures of the Lodge including the inside dining and sitting area.
The whole building is made of logs and rocks. I'm not sure how long it is, but long. Below Dusty is standing under the peaked entry to show perspective on the massive size.
All the inside roof timbers still have the bark on them.
We are glad we stopped to see this wonderfully constructed building.
The aspens were so thick. It makes such a beautiful picture.
As we topped a curve on a hillside, I noticed these 3 perfectly round ponds seen above and below.
These perfect looking circles must be human made. Or could it be from outer-space aliens landing???
Not far from where we were standing we saw.....
YIKES! The heads are gone. Hopefully they are animal bones.
This is Fish Lake and the surrounding from the same viewpoint as above. See the thunderstorm on the right side?
We thoroughly enjoyed our drive today seeing more of God's glorious wonders!
Thursday, Sept 7, 2017
We woke to a beautiful blue non-smokey sky this morning. What a blessing!
This morning we saw a few more of the birds around here.
Here in Salina we found a CCC/POW Camp Museum.
This statue was just outside the museum. The CCC, Civilian Conservation Corps, was created by President Franklin D Roosevelt in 1933, during the Great Depression. It was designed to employ unemployed, single, physically strong young men 18 to 25 years old (later expanded to 17-28). We learned they men were required to be young due to the extreme physical requirements. Salina Creek Camp F-32 CO-479 was located here until 1942 when the CCC program ended.
Over the CCC's 9-year life, about 3 million young men were employed. They were paid $30 a month and $25 a month was required to be sent back to their family. During the time of the CCC, enrollees planted nearly 3 billion trees to help reforest America, constructed trails, lodges and related facilities in more than 800 parks nationwide and upgraded most state parks, updated forest fire fighting methods, and built a network of service buildings and public roadways in remote areas.
We found this museum very interesting. Then we learned that after the CCC closed the camp, the US Army used it as a German POW camp.
This is a small part of the camp that was reconstructed.
This model shows what the POW camp looked like. It housed 250 German POWs.
This Willys Jeep was used at the POW camp. It still runs and is used in parades and special events.
This was a very interesting excursion today. See the next post for our next excursion of the day.
