Mon Oct 5 2020 Heading for Salt Lake City

 The Covid-19 pandemic is still with us which limits our travel options. But we have been healthy since the ordeal began last March so we are taking the opportunity to venture out on another road trip, not too far from home and to places where there are not lots of people. We'll stop in SLC to visit John McGrath, our financial advisor, then on down to Cedar City, Kanab and over to Death Valley. We've been to all these places before, but October is a great time to do it!

This has been a terrible year for fires in the west, particularly northern California and Oregon. The result has been days of smoke settling in the valleys to the east, like the Boise area and, as we learned today, Salt Lake Valley. When we reached the first views of the Wasatch Front you could hardly see it.

We arrived in SLC about 5:00 and checked into a flea bag Quality Inn right downtown. Pretty run down but good location (what do you expect for $51.00?) Dinner around the corner at Alberto's Mexican Restaurant. Meh.

Then, unexpected excitement! On Wednesday evening there's a debate here between Mike Pence and Kamala Harris. Seems they both arrived in town today. Just as we left the restaurant we were stopped by Pence's motorcade going by on 300 St. Cop cars, motorcycles, flashing lights, ambulances, the bomb squad and a bunch of black Suburbans. Good grief! Seems a bit much!

Tomorrow we'll walk around Temple Square for a bit then go up to Park City to meet John M. for lunch.

Tues Oct 6 Temple Square & Park City

 After breakfast from our cooler (the hotel doesn't serve anything during Covid time) we headed over to Temple Square. Whenever we come to Salt Lake that's always a required stop - to see what seasonal flowers look like! Always beautiful! Well, to our shock and surprise, we found a major construction project going on around the Temple. Apparently its a four year project to "earthquake proof" the Temple. They've completely torn down the South Visitor Center and excavated all around the base of the Temple. What a mess! And a fascinating construction project! (On our way over we came across security preparations for tomorrow's V.P. debate - a long line of very large dump trucks).

In spite of the mess, there are lots of late summer flowers around that are beautiful as always. We then crossed the street and wandered around City Creek Center - a high end shopping center. Very few people around. It seems like the center has only recently re-opened after being closed down for Covid-19. In fact, the whole downtown area is quite deserted - its really creepy, in a way!

The weather today is sunny and mild, although there's still a lot of smoke in the valley.

After visiting downtown, we drove about 30 minutes up to Park City on I-80 to meet John for lunch. He doesn't live right in Park City, but a "suburb" called Kimball Junction. Its all new with lots of apartments, condos, restaurants, anything you could want. Very attractive. And very monied. John has a small two bedroom condo in walking distance of everything. It adjoins a 1000 acre nature preserve and has access to a paved bike path that goes for many miles, up to Park City itself. There are three major ski areas here.

After a great outdoor lunch at Hearth and Hill  John drove us on a tour of "Old Town Park City" about 5 miles further up the hill. Lots of art galleries, quirky eateries and pubs. A ski lift passes right over the main drag.

We were back in SLC by 6:00 and a light supper at Denny's, followed by Yankees vs. Rays on TV!

Tomorrow we had south toward Cedar City, with stops at IKEA and Thanksgiving Point.

Wednesday Oct 7 IKEA, Ashton Gardens to Cedar City

 After dealing with some emails, getting coffee from Starbucks, we left SLC about 9:30. Very smoky today. After the obligatory stop at IKEA we continued down to Ashton Gardens at Thanksgiving Point. Before heading out into the gardens, we had nice lunch at their cafe.

Its a warm sunny day, albeit smoky. We spent about 1.5 hours hiking around the gardens. As pretty as it is, this is not the right time of year to be here. There's an army of busy bee workers tearing out this year's annuals and planting pansies and English Daisies by the millions and bulbs, bulbs and more bulbs! 

From the gardens we drove about 3 hours down to Cedar City. There is so much commercial development in the Salt Lake Valley. The activity and traffic doesn't thin out until you get down to about Spanish Fork. (Brigham City to Spanish Fork is 130 miles of heavy traffic and constant construction).  After that, its all "high desert" at 80 mph.

We arrived at our Comfort Inn, got a Subway for dinner, and watched the VP debate, followed by baseball playoffs. Tomorrow Cedar Breaks N.M. and Bryce Canyon.

Thursday Oct 8 Cedar Breaks N.M. Bryce Canyon N.P.

Sunny day, smoke is gone! We left Cedar City and headed up into the mountains to Cedar Breaks National Monument. A lot like Bryce Canyon but not as big. Elevation at the top is about 10,400. We are way past the time for fall foliage! (Some at lower elevations) Best time to come up here would be late June/early July for wildflowers and early/mid September for foliage. We hiked a ways on the Alpine Pond loop trail. Made our picnic lunch in the parking lot!

We proceeded in a northerly direction to the valley town of Panguich, then south to Bryce Canyon National Park. We have been here several times over the years but it always impresses! Sam walked the rim trail while I did the Navajo Loop, a popular 1.5 miles difficult hike down into the canyon and back up! Tough on the knees but worth it! Lots of casual hikers about!

From Bryce we drove south on a very pretty rt 89 to Kanab. We checked into our Quality Inn where we will be for three nights. Excellent dinner tonight at the Iron Horse Saloon.