August 16, 2016
Beaver KOA
Beaver, UT

Today we packed up and headed out of Salt Lake around 9am. The traffic going south on I-15 out of town was a little crazy, be we survived. We traveled south on I-15 for 196 miles. Our original plans were to stop in Nephi, UT for an overnight stay on the way to Beaver. We wanted to break up the 200 mile trip into shorter segments (because we're wimps)... but we decided to go ahead and make the run to Beaver. Since it was all interstate driving with a speed limit of 80 mph it went pretty fast. After stopping for lunch, we arrived in Beaver at around 12:30 pm.

The Beaver KOA is fairly nice. It is all gravel but the pull through sites are very big with plenty of room for both vehicles, with room to spare. There are nice shade trees and we even got a site with the back of the RV pointing away from the sun ( a big pet peeve of Marilyn's). Even with the trees we are able to get satellite TV...hooray (now we can watch the rest of the Olympics).

A view up the road..... you can see we're not very crowded here.

plenty of room for both vehicles...

Here is the typical  A frame KOA office... with the pool in the background.

...and our patio area with picnic table....

The plan is to be here for 8 days and go see Capital Reef National Park and then move 74 miles southeast to Panguitch, UT for a week and go see Bryce Canyon National Park. Capital Reef is 144 miles from here and Bryce is 70 miles. So we may decide to stay here  2 weeks and see them both from here. We have a pretty good setup here so it may be in our best interest to sit tight.... never expected to become more flexible the older I got ;>)

August 11 - 14, 2016
Salt Lake City

My brother Chuck and I took 3 days to do some fly fishing. On Thursday we went up to the Provo River. When we got there the river flow was very high making fishing very difficult, if not dangerous. We drove to 3 or 4 different spots above and below the dam and all of them were not suitable for fly fishing. So we went over to the Weber River and it looked to be a much better choice.

We tried a couple for different spots but had no luck....we didn't even see a fish, but we had a great time anyway.

On Friday we decided to break out the watercraft and do some mountain lake fly fishing. This was the first time I was able to try out my inflatable kayak and Chuck was using his float tube. We were in the mountains southeast of Salt Lake about an hour east of Park City. We first went to Moosehorn Lake.

Chuck took a short video of the inaugural launch....hopefully it will load correctly.

The wind was blowing pretty good for most of the day making it difficult for me to fish in one spot but still the kayak worked great, was easy to maneuver, and was very comfortable. Next time I'll bring a small anchor...

We finished the day by doing some shore fishing at another nearby lake.

Chuck caught a few nice ones...

...and I caught a monster :>)

On Saturday we felt energetic and decided to hike into Marjorie Lake. It was about a 3 mile hike climbing 1,500 feet in elevation (11,520 feet at the summit). We decided it was 3 miles because we passed 3 trail signs saying the lake was always just 1 mile ahead......

When we got there we ran into a small herd of grazing cattle..... it was kind of deflating to find out cows can make the same hike.

There were fish jumping everywhere but we couldn't get them to bite. Here's a shot of Chuck (sitting behind a small pine) going through his fly inventory trying to figure out what might work.

 It was a beautiful small mountain lake, and aside from the cows we practically had the lake to ourselves.

Here is Chuck making his typical, great cast.... mine usually land in the tree behind me ;>)

We had a great time fishing, laughing, and just getting to spend some fun time together.

On Sunday Marilyn and I spent the day with Chuck and Sue at their house. Chuck helped me wash the kayak and my waders, we watched some of the Olympic coverage on TV, drank a few beers, and Susie made a fantastic meal for us. I can't tell you how much Marilyn and I enjoyed our time with Chuck and Sue. Their hospitality is amazing and we can't thank them enough. We will never forget the great time we've had here with them (love you guys!!!!).

Tomorrow we prep for our next trip. We will be heading south down I-15 to Beaver, UT. Our plan is to visit 3 National Parks over the next 3 weeks while working our way to Vegas.

August 10, 2016
Salt Lake City

Today we took a trip into downtown Salt Lake. Our goal was to see the various Mormon museums, temples, and other buildings.

We started off going to the Family History Museum, also called the Genealogical Society of Utah.

This is the location where "The Church" keeps all their records and people are allowed to come research their ancestry....for free. We walked in and had that deer in the headlights look and a very nice Sister came over and explained the facility to us and then spent 15-20 minutes showing us how to access family records.

Marilyn found a high school yearbook picture of her Dad when he was 14.

The research area is just a large room with 30 - 40 computer terminals

They also have a Church (Mormon) History Museum...

Then we walked over to the Temple grounds. This building had some beautiful gardens.

Here is the temple up close. They were actually having a wedding at the time and they were taking pictures of the bride and groom from in front of these doorways.

This is a picture from inside the Tabernacle. They had a viewing box for people to see inside without actually going inside. They had a seating area and a large glass window. When we were there they were having an organ practice session.

This is the Visitor Center.

...
 and they had some beautiful wall paintings.

Here is a shot of the Temple....

and the Tabernacle from the outside...

It was a very beautiful and interesting place. Apparently in the winter the trees and garden areas are filled with Christmas lighting.

August 7, 2016
Utah Olympic Park
Park City, UT

Today Chuck drove us 34 miles east of Salt Lake City to the town of Park City. Park City was one of the Olympic venues for the 2002 winter Olympics held in Salt Lake. The Park City venue was used for events such as luge, bobsled, and Nordic ski jumping. Today it is used as an Olympic training facility and a sports park.

They have a nice museum showing items from the 2002 Olympics as well as Utah Olympic athletic history. They even have  costumes and props from the opening and closing ceremonies. Here is a picture of Chuck and I inside the museum, in front of one of the displays that made us look like the Blue Man Group.......

We signed up for a guided bus tour which took us to each of the event areas. The first stop was at the ski jumping training pool. This first shot shows a skier at the top of the ramp on the right.

here is the shot as he starts a flip at the base of the ramp.....

And here he is swimming to the ladder.

Here is the starting gate for the Luge/Skeleton track....

 Here is a shot down the track...

Here is a shot of the starting gate for the bobsled track....

This is a shot from the top of the long ski jump....

And another shot showing the view in the distance....

After Olympic Park we went into Park City and it just happened to be the same day they were running the Tour of Utah annual bike race starting and ending in Park City. The following are shots up and down Main Street....

Park City is a beautiful ski town with unique shops and restaurants. Of course the barricades for the bike race detracted a little from the ambiance....

For lunch we dropped into the No Name Saloon..... its an adult only establishment serving good food and beer.....

 We had a great time and saw some really cool and interesting things as well as enjoying the beautiful mountain scenery.