A Mid Summer's Snow Ball 6/23/09

Waking to the sounds of a mountain stream instills, for me, a desire to own it..........That's not for us.








Oak Creek Campground was definitely a place we did not want to leave. It was a cool morning and it made my breakfast cereal all the better. Kat washed her hair while I took advantage of the morning sun for some more pics of the site, of yesterday's rock hunt catch and of the kids in some grassy areas. Somehow I had missed a pic of the bridge the day before but I fixed that.

Although leaving was hard, it suited us to do so. When driving the NC coast I often find myself longing for ownership. I'm unwittingly seduced into wanting a little piece of that coastal beauty. It seems to be an automatic desire that I subsequently recoil from; I have seen the result among friends. We know folks back home who have access to family beach houses and, although fortunate, they seem to be wedded to repeating the same vacation year upon year. There is no exploration and little that is new when following that path. But still, I seem to be easily seduced.


After leaving Oak Creek Campground we shared this overlook with a biker....

Then we unexpectedly entered the Escalante Canyons along the spine of this ridge with nearly vertical cliffs dropping hundreds of feet from the road's edges....


We pulled off at this Escalante Canyons' overlook and soaked in our path taken.



Then pulled over by this river bed to kick rocks just shy of Bryce Canyon....



We were teased by hints of Bryce Canyon but turned off by the crass commercialism outside it's entry gate and left; our greatest error in the trip...


We shopped in Panguitch Ut, a town overrun with quadrunners and other larger versions of the same. I fueled up while Kat bought food. A bag boy helped us load the food in the van. Service.



We, by God, did not leave Panguitch by way of HWY 89!



And we saw sights that were not on Hwy 89. Some were green and lush while others were black volcanic glacial deposits....


It seems that a mid summer's snow is also not found on Hwy 89. Apparently Ian is unaffacted by altitude as he ran the entire distance to the snow without stopping at 10,500 ft above the ocean's surface. Simply conversing while lounging sets me to deep sighs. Sigh.
And he's still going! A sprint back to the van.



Nearing sunset we hit our final overlook in Cedar Breaks National Monument.



We found a home for the night at Cedar Breaks Campground and attended a ranger talk on lightning by a rather youthful ranger. His presentation followed by a star party. The night was crisp, moonless and we were at around 10,500'. Star views don't get better.





A day of exploration! Oh, how seductive ownership is! Staking a claim on a piece of beauty. The problem: we want it all; we want to explore it all. It seems that the two are mutually exclusive. And we are glad we left the wonderful Oak Creek Campground.