On The Road Again…back to Utah

With our time coming to an end at the house, we headed back to Utah where state parks have reopened with social distancing guidelines. Our first stop was Sand Hollow State Park. The park is on a reservoir of crystal clear water and a hot spot for boaters and dune buggies with lots of off road vehicle dirt tracks.

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We spent three days enjoying the heat at Sand Hollow. Piper wanted to have a picnic lunch one day, so we packed our lunch and waded out to a small “island” of rocks and had a picnic. One evening we tried our luck at fishing and caught some nice large mouth bass. Harper caught the first one, Piper got one almost to shore before he got off and then brought the next one all the way in and Trevor caught two. We had a nice fish feast for lunch the next day.

Next stop was Snow Canyon State Park. There we only about 20 campsites in the small campground, but our site was very secluded and surrounded by all kinds of hiking trails. We hiked several trails, over rocks, through sand dunes and even climbed into a lava tube. The scenery was terrific and so were the hiking trails. We were told to keep an eye out for desert tortoises coming out of hibernation and crossing the road, we didn’t see any but we did spot a pair of Peregrine falcons and the girls saw a kit fox on our campsite.

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The plan was to spend the next couple of nights at Otter Creek State Park, but we arrived to find the May hatching of fish flies had just taken place and they were out in swarms. Although they don’t bite, sitting outside you were covered in them in seconds. The breeze picked up in the evening and Trevor caught a couple of nice rainbow trout, but between the flies and the crowded campsites, we hit the road early the next morning.

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Freemont Indian State Park was not a planned stop for us, but having a few extra days on our hands, and it was along our route so we decided to stop and check it out. The park turned out to be a hidden gem. With an empty visitor center and museum, we were able to check out the exhibits and learn how the indigenous people of this area lived. Outside of the museum was a replica pit house that you climb into and lots of petroglyphs on the rocks in the hiking trails around the museum. Our first night in the park they had a “Tipi site” available and we decided go for it, what an experience! Our site was very private with a stream and trail behind it and a teepee to play and sleep in. The girls played in the tipi and stream all afternoon. We went for the full experience and although we weren’t really set up for it, we relocated our beds to the floor of the tipi for the night. Being in the mountains, the temperature dropped below freezing and we all had to snuggle under one blanket to stay warm in the night. The girls slept great, Trevor and I – not so much, being in bear/mountain lion country and with large holes along the base of the tent, I spent a good portion of the night thinking about all the little critters that might join us in night. Luckily, none of them did and we warmed up with coffee, hot chocolate and a campfire in the morning. There were icicles in the river in the morning. We spent the next couple of nights in the park in our RV in a first come first serve campsite and did a really fun hike along the creek into the national forest area. We found evidence of bears and elk along the trail and had to cross the creek on many spots along the trail. Some of the most interesting and fun spots we have found on this trip have come from unplanned stops.

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