Ken & Diane Travel

 March 29, 2023 Yesterday we took a drive up Cedar Canyon Mountain. We tried this once before several weeks back but it was snowing quite hard and decided to turn around. Yesterday, however, was a beautiful day with temps in the 40's when we started up the mountain. Temps dropped to 34 when we reached the summit at 9200 feet. That is 5000 feet higher than where we are camped.  The snow was deep along the highway and we saw two large snow blowers cutting through the snow on the shoulders of the roadway. At one point on the highway there were two Snow Cats pushing snow back farther off the shoulders. They made a mess of the highway and reduced the road to one lane for a bit.  Utah has seen record snowfall this year as you can see from the pictures and video.  We stopped and looked out over the valley below. Breathtaking! This video below is from Duck Creek a small town at the summit. Most of the town is inaccessible during the winter months as the roads are not cleared...

 March 27, 2023 We ended our stay in Zion last Sunday after a week of mostly rain. Luckily the river did not overflow and we did not have to make ready to exit the park, thank God.  We were going to head to Mt. Pleasant, Utah but because of potential snow and very cold weather we canceled that reservation and just headed 30 minutes from Virgin to the Orchards RV Park. It sits along HWY 15 and is a new park. Upon arriving the managers said to swing wide when entering the site due to soft ground. Soft ground indeed; many sites had deep wheel tracks where a rig had been parked. I will bet they had to be pulled out. I did as told and got into our site which seem stable for the coach.  Utah has had record snowfall reaching at one location to 754 inches of snow. That's equivalent to 26.1 inches of rain. Their reservoirs are rising making everyone happy. Last night the temp here dropped to 17 degrees and we had snow also. Guess we are still in Wisconsin. We will spend a week han...

 March 18, 2023 Diane spent some time this morning searching for a trail that we could take Buddy with us. Most trails in Zion and Bryce Canyon do not allow pets. What she found was a pet friendly trail called Water Canyon Trailhead in the Canaan Mountains. It was a 40 minute drive, part of which were dirt roads 😅😅😅😅😅. It was just outside a small mountain community of Hildale, Utah.  It was about 40 degrees and windy and I had second thoughts about doing the walk after we got out of the car, but Diane convinced me and away we went. At first the trail was easy as we walked along the river. However, it did not take long to turn into the hill climb over large rocks and boulders. And up the side of the mountain for most of the walk.   Going uphill took its toll on me as I had to stop a number of time to catch my breath. Holding Buddy back with the leash also did not help as he wanted to move along faster than we were moving.  We thought the trail wasn't going t...

 March 17, 2023 A little excitement this week, It rained on Tuesday and all day Wednesday with snow coming down in the mountains. Because of that the Virgin river was overflowing and rising to flood stage. The river behind the campground was about 75 feet from the campground. About 6 PM on Wednesday the manager from the campground knocked on our door and handed me a sheet of paper; it stated that flood level was 18.9  feet and we were at 14.6 feet. The river circles the back side of the campground and there is a berm about 4 feet high around the campground.  At 7 pm the water, if not for the berm, would have been in the parking lot of the campground. We were told that we needed to prepare to leave the campground should the water continue to rise. We hooked up the Jeep, disconnected everything but electric and raised the jacks. We were ready. About a half dozen RV's left the campground.  I went to the river at 10 pm and the water was still at the same level as at 7 pm...

 March 15, 2023 Raining all day today, 95% chance of rain they say; they are right for a change. Working on this blog, making dried pork in the oven; Thought I would see if it works to dehydrate the meat. Marinated it overnight and it did not turn out to bad. Used pork as we still have quite a bit in the freezer.    On Monday we found a hiking trail not too from from the campground. It was about 11 miles long, longer than we would walk, but we decided to see how far we could go. We walked until there was a water crossing and decided to turn around and head back. We got our 6000 steps in so we were good. Yesterday we headed back into Zion; the scenic drive was closed to everything but shuttle busses. It is the start of spring break and there is a lot of people here this time of the year. We kept driving to Bryce Canyon, stopped a half dozen places along the canyon and did a little hiking. We got close to 5000 steps in.    Water is where we [meaning Diane] dr...