Parks and Trekreation - Day 4
(Original post date - April 26, 2017)
#parksandtrekreation
#katieandkristagowest
Day 4 - March 27, 2016
Happy Easter!
Although the tent was on level ground, I still slept fitfully and woke up fully at 8:00am. It was pretty darn cold out, too, once we got out of the sleeping bags. We made oatmeal for breakfast, plus a peanut butter sandwich and an apple. Krista made instant coffee, and I had green tea and one stick of parking lot honey (see Day 1). Both of these hot beverages tasted like nothing. Maybe it’s the altitude’s fault on this front too? But more likely the brands we chose were not the best.
Gradually we packed up our things, and witnessed BLM coming through to clean up the other vacated campsites. Man, they really know how to do a job well.
Once we were ready for the day, we walked over to the Lower Calf Creek Falls Trail, signed the register, à la Cheryl Strayed, and began one the of most beautiful journeys in existence. For the life of me, I don’t know why more people don’t know about this place. Every time I mention it to someone they give me a blank stare.
Note: There was a sign at the start of the trail stating that there was a recent mountain lion sighting. What you’re supposed to do is talk and walk in large groups so that they won’t come near you. But if you do see one, make yourself look large, and slowly back away giving the animal time to also leave in peace. If it does not want to leave in peace and attacks you instead you gotta fight back. I’m not gonna lie. This terrified me a little.
Even so, we took our time, taking pictures along the way and marveling at the beauty.
We also met some new friendly friends, Tom and Barbara and their dog Cooper (aka Lewis! when he’s not listening well enough). We dubbed them our trail godparents. They offered to share their binoculars with us (an item I declared I would never need or want to have but admittedly turned out to be a little bit cool) to see granaries high up along the rock walls and pictographs painted by the ancient Fremont people.
Lower Calf Creek Falls Trail is easy to follow but at one point we did get slightly turned around after Tom, Barbara and Cooper forged on ahead of us, and we lingered behind to take more pictures. I did some scrambling up a big rock in case that was the right way, but Krista managed to find the trail again, and we marched onward. It started to get quite hot under the blazing sun so we delayered and applied some super thick sunscreen and kept going. We made sure to stop and drink a lot of water, but even so we never came close to running out.
As we approached the waterfall, we noticed everyone on the return trip was wearing sweatshirts and long sleeves. We couldn’t fathom it. Once we made it to the waterfall at the end (a 3 mile hike), we realized why. It was extremely misty and chilly at the falls. After we put our layers back on to avoid freezing (I even put on earmuffs), we found a log to rest on, and snacked on an Epic bar and some trail mix while we took in the view.
After we got too cold, we headed back the way we came, still in awe of our surroundings.
We continued to greet the passersby, and even passed something a bit surreal and reminiscent of a horror film. A teenaged boy with a younger boy on his shoulders walking in silence except for the creepy ice-cream-truck-like music emanating from their persons. Did that really happen? Or was it ghosts? Probably ghosts.
When we finished hiking the 3 miles back to the car, we high-fived and hugged each other as if we had just done something victorious. But if you think about how inexperienced we were at the start of this trip, we really were victorious if I do say so myself.
We hopped in the car and drove to Kiva Koffeehouse a few miles away to see if we could get directions to our next destination. We still didn’t have any service and due to the Escalante Visitor’s Center being closed, we were at a loss as to the next portion of the trip. The Koffeehouse was a rustic lodge type place nestled into the side of the rock and overlooking the epic landscape. The earthy barista who manned the counter gave us some directions and served us a drip coffee and a vanilla latte which we drank on the patio with the wind in our hair and a view to kill for. I just couldn’t believe we were actually sitting there experiencing this. They also have what they call the Kiva Kottage. I wouldn’t mind shelling out a few bucks to revisit and stay there in comfort in the future.
As we entered the place or town or whatever where we had planned to eat dinner that night (Hell’s Backbone Grill and Farm), our phones started getting a signal again and the messages came pouring in. My poor mom was worried since she hadn’t heard from me in over 24 hours (and I was told before the start of this trip to text her “every 5 minutes”). So we reconnected with our families and the social media world, and then sat like zombies inside a “trading post” after doing a little browsing for souvenirs.
The restaurant finally opened at 5:00 and we managed to get a table even though we did not have a reservation. It was heavenly to eat real food at a real (Zagat rated) restaurant. It was also quite romantic. Too bad our boyfriends weren’t there with us. Krista’s Mike and my non-existent one. But we had a bit of leftovers which we took with us when we left.
Next stop: Ruby’s Inn and RV Park near Bryce Canyon. We had to drive along more palm-sweat inducing roads, but we arrived safe and sound. We checked in and got a map of the grounds, indicating where the bathrooms and showers and laundry room were. Inside rustic cabin #3, the heat was on full blast and I thought I might throw up. We had to open the windows and door to air it out, but then we drove to the nearest bathroom to brush our teeth and do our business. Unfortunately this bathroom looked like the perfect location for a murder, so we high tailed it out of there as quickly as we could. We then drove to the shower area, which is where we should have brushed our teeth in the first place. Next time.
Krista forgot the soap in the cabin so we washed up with coconut shampoo instead. It felt weird, but so good to be all the way naked under hot running water. Then we went to sleep in our cabin bunk beds like we were kids at sleep away camp.
