We were up bright and early this morning to begin our true vacation. Our plan was to drive through Utah and spend the night in Grand Junction, Colorado to get closer to Colorado Springs - our first real stop.
One we hit St. George, we decided to get off the interstate, Interstate 15 that is, and go on a more scenic route - Rte. 89. We missed the road that we were told to take and ended up on Rte. 9. The scenery was breathtaking so we just took it all in as we passed several little towns. Before we knew it, we were at the entrance to Zion National Park. This wasn't on our itinerary and we didn't think we wanted to go through it but it was the only way to get to the 89 so we decided to pay our money and drive through the park.
I can't tell you how glad I am that we made this trip. It is a gross understatement to say that it was almost a religious experience. I had never seen views like this. Each time we made a turn, we saw a different type of rock formation or group of trees or magnificent vista. It truly took my breath away. Since we are not hikers, we just drove through 16 miles of the park and soaked it all in. I took tons of pictures as well but I'm sure they won't do it justice. Some things just can't be captured in a picture. At the eastern end of the park, we drove through a town called Mt. Carmel Junction. On a corner was a sign that caught our eye. It was for the Thunderbird Lodge and Restaurant and it's "ho" made pies. Well, we knew we had to give that a try.
This restaurant is really a gem. Vanessa, our waitress, was so friendly (as was everyone else we met today). I had a delicious bowl of vegetable soup and we took a piece of their thunderberry pie to go. Apparently it's a mixture of blackberries, blueberries, raspberries and strawberries. We are saving it for a late night snack so we haven't tasted it yet but you can see by the picture that it looks yummy.
We drove on for several more hours through beautiful scenery and more small towns. It soon became obvious to us that there was no way we would make it all the way to Grand Junction. In fact, we decided to spend the night in the town of Salina, Utah. We were wiped by the time we got here so we decided to go for a quick dinner. There are only a couple of places to eat in town and we were told that the best is a diner called Mom's. Now, I had always heard that you should never eat at a place called Mom's so I was skeptical but we had another wonderful meal and met more lovely people. They serve something they call scones which is really more like an Indian frybread. If you are ever near this area, Mom's is a place not to be missed.
Now we're off to sleep because it's over seven hours to Colorado Springs tomorrow. Who knows what we might see on the way? And we will be up bright and early on Thursday morning to take a narrow gauge railway to the top of Pike's Peak. That's sure to be an incredible experience.
Good night all. Looking forward to what tomorrow has in store.
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