Utaventure

Beginning of April, Geert's mom aka oma, mams or Ingrid, arrived for a 2 week visit.  The first week, the kids were in school, so the perfect time to check out things close by and at the same time adjust to the 8 hours of time difference ánd the altitude (we live at 4357 feet or 1328 meters).  Her first evening we already dragged her up the mountains in our 'backyard' for our favourite evening walk, the Bonneville shoreline . The next day we did another of our favourites ... I guess you already know by now which State park we visited ... Antelope Island, yes indeed! As I said before, nobody escapes from this when visiting us! 😏 Besides the usual stops with the car at Buffalo point and the ranch, we also hiked the 4km  Dool y Knob trail  where you have nice views on both the Wasatch front (mountains on the main land) and the Great Salt Lake.                          ...

In April 2017 Geert's mom visited us for 2 weeks. As it was her first time in Utah, we had to at least show her some of the beautiful nature in the South, like Grand Staircase National Monument. We made a little detour via Route 12 when returning from Bryce Canyon National Park (ref. second part of Bryce NP  post) which leads you straight trough this National Monument.  Until December 2017 it encompassed nearly 1,9 million acres of spectacular protected wilderness, which now has been reduced to just over 1 million acres after the reduction ordered by Donald Trump's presidential proclamation 😔. But you can imagine how many hike possibilities there are in this area, even if only 1 million acres remain 😏. Just driving through the area is a real treat! We did the  ' Lower Calf Creek Falls ' trail, a well known  9 km long   hike with little elevation gain, which follows Calf Creek to a 126 feet (38 meters) falls.  I can imagine th...

April 2017 - Visit with Ingrid aka 'oma' or 'mams'  In April 2017 Geert's mom visited us for 2 weeks. As it was her first time in Utah, we had to at least show her some of the National Parks (NPs) in the South, and Zion NP was one of them. We left friday after school, and after a 5 hr drive straight south on the I15 (a highway we take close to our home and which goes all the way to San Diego ... 771mile or 1234km away from us ... travelling in the US is just so easy!), we slept in La Verkin before continuing to Zion NP the next morning.  La Verkin is located half an hour from the park and the hotels here are much cheaper than in Springdale, the town at the entrance of the park.  The weather was perfect and we were all looking forward to this day as none of us had already visited this park. During busy periods (which spring break is), you cannot enter the park with your own car as the parking spaces at the different view points/trail heads are limi...