OK, tourist season is over

I know I’m repeating myself, but Sunday’s scenery once again exceeded our expectations – Bryce Canyon National Park, and Red Canyon just outside its borders, are both stunning! It’s so incredible to imagine God breathing those spectacular rock formations into existence! It seems quite appropriate to have a breathtaking place like Bryce Canyon be our last national park visit for the foreseeable future.

Unfortunately, Deron came down with a cold on Saturday; that, combined with Sunday’s long drive around Bryce, meant he wasn’t feeling up for our planned hike to the Kanab Sand Caves on Monday. Instead, we spent the day relaxing, and then after dinner headed to Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park to view the dunes in the light of sunset. They were very pretty – but seemed so small compared to the Great Sand Dunes in Colorado and White Sands in New Mexico!

We said goodbye to Kanab on Tuesday, and after a brief one-night stop outside Provo (where we stocked up at Trader Joe’s and Costco), we landed at Riverside Resort, a Harvest Hosts location in Burley, Idaho. At this point the resort is simply a large lot with a boat dock and two restaurants, The Boathouse and the newly-opened Portside Pizza, but word has it that it’s being transformed into a KOA campground opening summer of 2023. We enjoyed a yummy pizza dinner on Portside’s patio overlooking the Snake River and then a peaceful night boondocked in their lot.

Thursday, we arrived in Garden City, Idaho, a suburb of Boise, for five nights in a lovely RV park called Hi Valley. We took a brief drive along the Payette River scenic byway yesterday in search of fall colors, and were delighted by the pretty views. Last night we enjoyed a delicious dinner at the lovely home of some fellow ex-East San Diego County-ians, Kristen and Chris (Tori and Savanah’s aunt and uncle), who recently relocated to Emmett, a cute rural area outside Boise.

It’s obvious from all the new construction and crazy traffic that the Boise area is exploding with new transplants. It is definitely a beautiful area, but at this point neither one of us feel led to call this our new home. Of course that might change as we continue seek God’s leading, but for now we’re content to continue to Washington and see what happens. I’m sure we’ll run into some wonderful views along the way, but as of now, we’re officially closing out our tourist season and looking forward to settling down in the near future.

A rainstorm arrived last night, bringing some colder daytime weather along with it, so we’re spending most of today hanging around the warm RV, looking forward to church and breakfast with Kevin and Sylvia tomorrow.

for the foodies…

restaurant fare

praise & prayer

As we head to Washington, we’ll be traveling through some mountain passes with unpredictable weather – we’d appreciate your prayers for a safe journey.

last but not least, some random facts/observations/ side notes:

• We rarely eat donuts, but when a random craving hit in Utah, we suddenly realized we hadn’t seen a donut shop in quite a while. What makes Texas have donut shops on every corner, but not Utah?
• Though Utah may not love donuts, they do love road signs. They really like to make sure drivers know ALL the things, and they’re especially concerned about sleepy drivers. So many signs telling you not to drive drowsy! Maybe this dozing off issue would be solved by more donuts and less road signs?
• 
• I decided to do my best to count up the national and state parks we’ve visited on this trip, just to see what our stats look like. Here’s the grand total (not including national forests and other scenic stops along the way): 19 trips into 13 different national parks, and 3 stops at state parks. Whew!