At the recommendation of our friend Stephen Carter, we decided to get up for the sunrise at the Mesa Arch overlook in the Canyonlands National Park. Aaron offered to drive the 20 minutes from our campground, so Dad and I could get a few extra minutes of sleep. However, the dirt campground access road and the speed bumps at the park entrance kept us from really sleeping. We arrived at the parking area just before 6:00 am, and Aaron ran ahead to catch the first rays of sunlight while Dad and I got up and ready.
As we left the RV, we saw two tour buses next to us in the parking lot. This was our first hint that our expectations of a quiet and solemn vigil at the arch would be unrealistic. At the end of the half-mile walk to the arch, I saw about 80 Chinese tourists squeezed together in front of the arch, all trying to get pictures of the partially risen sun shining through the arch. However, I also noticed a few of them scattered elsewhere. These folks helped curb any thoughts of prejudice as I realized that some of them were just as interested in quiet reflection as I was. Getting closer, I also noticed that the assembly of tourists was relatively quiet for its size. This helped us better enjoy the gradually changing colors and shapes and shadows in the canyons below.
After 30-40 minutes, the crowd began to disperse, enabling us to get some unobstructed photos, as well as to notice that most of the non-Chinese tourists with us were actually German. Despite some enjoyable conversations, our hunger began to overtake us, so we headed back to the camper, and drove about 10 miles towards Dead Horse Point State Park, where we intended to pull over for breakfast. Dead Horse Point overlooks the same canyon system as Canyonlands, formed by the Colorado River, and offered a view that was Aaron’s favorite.
Aaron suggested that we have breakfast picnic style since we had pulled over at another dramatic overlook. While this took a little extra work, and delayed the taming of our appetites, it was very much worth it, as we sat 8 feet away from the edge of a curving 600-foot cliff, admiring the cascading rock formations in the early morning sun. Although tempted to stay longer, we succumbed to the pressure of time and our travel plans for the day. We still wanted to visit Arches National Park and a train station stop in Helper, UT, as well as to drive the several hundred miles to Salt Lake City.
Arches N.P. lived up to our expectations as we drove by a succession of massive and natural rock sculptures and arches rising out of a gently rolling plateau of dirt and sage brush. It was not hard to imagine this area as having once been underwater, as geologists suggest. It was also not hard to imagine where the Flintstones animators got their inspiration for the size and shapes of the buildings in their town of “Bedrock.”
After a couple of short hikes to some of the better vantage points, we headed into the main tourist town of Moab, to fill up, mail some letters and where I uploaded my first blog entry for day 1 and 2. Our days have been so full, it has been hard to find time to write, let alone find wireless access to do the uploads.
Next, we headed out for Helper, Utah, where we had left off with my grandfather’s diary:
June 5th, 1922:
When we hit Helper, we had dropped about 8,000 feet. Reached Helper at 7.30 A.M. Got something to eat in a Greek restaurant. You see we had a little left of our 15 bucks which we started out with but very little. Every chance we got we hit up a back door. Took a bath at the Railroad YMCA. They were very nice about it. After riding their trains then letting us take a bath!
As we pulled our RV into downtown Helper, we were disappointed that we arrived too late to visit the Utah Railroad and Mining Museum, but grateful to be able to find the train station and other landmarks very easily. An internet search had shown us a picture of the “Athens Restaurant” in the 1930s, which we assumed was the same Greek restaurant where Pop Pop and Ray got their breakfast 89 years ago. The building in the photo had distinctive roof architecture, which we could immediately identify on a building directly across the street from the railroad. It has long since ceased being a restaurant, and is now a partly vacant Greek gymnastics studio, with an old “Piggly Wiggly” ad painted on the side.
Crossing the street, we walked behind the train station to the tracks, where we could hear a freight train engine releasing the pressure from its air brakes. As we rounded the station, we saw three railroad workers who had just come off of their shift. It turns out that the timing of our arrival was just right, for, as we described our journey, and my grandpas’s diary, they happily began to tell us all about the history of the town, and some of what they knew of hobo life. One of them in particular, David, became very enthusiastic and took us on a tour of the closed train station, and shared some of his own recollections about getting to know his grandfather later in life. David was the kind of guy we would have liked to get to know better, but in the end we succumbed to our schedule, and left Helper on our way towards Provo, UT, following Pop Pop’s itinerary:
June 5th, 1922 (cont.):
We were now getting very tough. This day and the next, we got no sleep at all. A freight loaded with copper and gold ore pulled out of Helper. We took this and climbed right in with the gold. We rode this to Provo, Utah. We again started to climb and by 6.00P.M. we had reached Soldier Summit the second highest spot in the Rockies {for the train}. Here we got something to eat in a bakery while the freight was shifting. Scenery was wonderful. At Soldier Summit, we began to drop again. Well the freight pulled into Provo at about three {am}. We were met by the sheriff who locked us up. We got four hours sleep. Four hours sleep in three days isn’t very much. We were all in. {exhausted}
Our 2011 descent from Soldier Summit passed by a modern windmill-power farm, and we wondered what Pop Pop would have thought of such a futuristic array. We arrived in Provo around dusk, and after a fruitless search for the sheriff’s office, we drove a little further to Orem, UT, we we again found a WalMart parking to park our RV.
June 5th, 1922:
When we hit Helper, we had dropped about 8,000 feet. Reached Helper at 7.30 A.M. Got something to eat in a Greek restaurant. You see we had a little left of our 15 bucks which we started out with but very little. Every chance we got we hit up a back door. Took a bath at the Railroad YMCA. They were very nice about it. After riding their trains then letting us take a bath!
As we pulled our RV into downtown Helper, we were disappointed that we arrived too late to visit the Utah Railroad and Mining Museum, but grateful to be able to find the train station and other landmarks very easily. An internet search had shown us a picture of the “Athens Restaurant” in the 1930s, which we assumed was the same Greek restaurant where Pop Pop and Ray got their breakfast 89 years ago. The building in the photo had distinctive roof architecture, which we could immediately identify on a building directly across the street from the railroad. It has long since ceased being a restaurant, and is now a partly vacant Greek gymnastics studio, with an old “Piggly Wiggly” ad painted on the side.
Crossing the street, we walked behind the train station to the tracks, where we could hear a freight train engine releasing the pressure from its air brakes. As we rounded the station, we saw three railroad workers who had just come off of their shift. It turns out that the timing of our arrival was just right, for, as we described our journey, and my grandpas’s diary, they happily began to tell us all about the history of the town, and some of what they knew of hobo life. One of them in particular, David, became very enthusiastic and took us on a tour of the closed train station, and shared some of his own recollections about getting to know his grandfather later in life. David was the kind of guy we would have liked to get to know better, but in the end we succumbed to our schedule, and left Helper on our way towards Provo, UT, following Pop Pop’s itinerary:
June 5th, 1922 (cont.):
We were now getting very tough. This day and the next, we got no sleep at all. A freight loaded with copper and gold ore pulled out of Helper. We took this and climbed right in with the gold. We rode this to Provo, Utah. We again started to climb and by 6.00P.M. we had reached Soldier Summit the second highest spot in the Rockies {for the train}. Here we got something to eat in a bakery while the freight was shifting. Scenery was wonderful. At Soldier Summit, we began to drop again. Well the freight pulled into Provo at about three {am}. We were met by the sheriff who locked us up. We got four hours sleep. Four hours sleep in three days isn’t very much. We were all in. {exhausted}
Our 2011 descent from Soldier Summit passed by a modern windmill-power farm, and we wondered what Pop Pop would have thought of such a futuristic array. We arrived in Provo around dusk, and after a fruitless search for the sheriff’s office, we drove a little further to Orem, UT, we we again found a WalMart parking to park our RV.
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