Utah: #Vanlife Elevated

Utah, we meet again.

Bryce Canyon has been on my list of places to visit for quite some time, and now was the time to go, as we were making our way to Salt Lake City to visit friends. To get to Bryce we hopped on Scenic Highway 12, which may be the most beautiful highway we have ever been on, with oodles of free camping and a surprising amount of dinosaur exhibits scattered across it.

Dill finally made bread in the camp oven, which was a success! We had a delicious spread of olive oil and balsamic vinegar, anchovy paté, fresh mozzarella cheese, green olive spread, avocados, and Dill’s signature, perfectly cooked boiled eggs.

Driving through the Escalante National Monument, we saw a couple of cool rock tunnels, and this fear mongering poster, and dinosaurs!

Oh, Bryce. It was every bit as magical as I had hoped for. We did a 6-7 mile hike wandering around the crazy rock formations, oohing and aahing (this was mostly me, Vocal V) along the way. It was one of those places where you had to put your camera away because you were taking too many pictures, but couldn’t keep it away for too long! Just too much beauty in one place for one to handle.

Queen’s Bridge Trail

Peekaboo Trail

Wall of Windows

Thor’s Hammer

Natural Bridge

Back on highway 12, here are some pictures showing how pretty and windy the road was for a while.

A cool coffee house where the line was so long we just used the internet for a little bit and left. (Who am I kidding, buying coffee out is not in our road trip budget!)

The mostly red rocky landscapes quickly turned into a sea of white aspens as we approached Capitol Reef National Park. We unfortunately did not go into the park(I was still recovering from how much I loved Bryce Canyon), but it looked cool. Scenic Highway 12 abruptly ends once you pass Capitol Reef. We quickly mourned the end of a wonderful drive (which almost never happens) and shifted gears towards Maple Canyon, which Dill had his eyes on for climbing.

We accidentally got on the wrong end of a loop trail that would take us to the climbing wall Dill decided we would go to. What was supposed to be a 20 minute approach trend into over an hour of strenuous hiking, but we got to see this pretty view and heard a cool story about hidden gold in these hills, buried by Native Americans years ago. Thanks local dudes.

Eventually we made it to the Pipedream cave, and Dill got his fill of classic Maple Canyon climbing.

Dill on the left, some badass on the right.

The most perfectly smooth and round and blue pebbles were gathered in this spot. I want to believe a magical little critter had collected these and put them here.

Afterwards we grilled some pork loin and I made a dish reminiscent of what they called “ratatuyo” in Spain (I am assuming it can only be inspired by the french ratatouille), meaning sauteed veggies(eggplant is key!) in a thick tomato sauce. Yummy.

We are pretty good at this camp cooking thing now.

Next up on the itinerary was Salt Lake City! Our friend Kat from Virginia Tech has been living there for the last few years, which made it a destination to visit for a while, On our last cross country trip, however, she was out of town and we had no reason to stop. Luckily she was in town this time around and even had a free weekend to hang out with us, amidst her extremely busy work schedule. We had a great time hanging out with her and her boyfriend Sundev and his lovely dog Raina.

Approaching Salt Lake City!

Little Cottonwood Canyon is beautiful climbing area just a 20 minute drive from the city. The landscape, the rock, and the high concentration of boulder problems reminded us of Leavenworth, which made us excited to travel to Washington soon.

Kat is an amazing recipe-abiding cook, so we were very well fed during our stay at her house… Just look at this magazine worthy grilled halloumi!

Kat in the Cat Hat

Lovely evening stroll on the Bonneville Shoreline Trail for sunset

Multiple snakes were out too, thankfully not rattlesnakes

Dill is disappearing in to the beautiful backdrop of Salt Lake City

Of course, some van related tinkering happened

Only in Salt Lake?

Thank you so much for the warm hospitality, Kat and Sundev!

This concludes our adventures in Utah, at least for a while. I still have a list of places to see in Utah, so we will definitely have to go back, hopefully as soon as this fall when we are making our trip back east.