{"id":1715,"date":"2008-09-09T22:52:56","date_gmt":"2008-09-10T02:52:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/?p=1715"},"modified":"2008-09-09T22:52:56","modified_gmt":"2008-09-10T02:52:56","slug":"utahs-route-12","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/?p=1715","title":{"rendered":"Utah’s Route 12"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"utah-rt-12-near-calf-creek.jpg\"<\/a>Our goal today was to drive 118 miles from Capitol Reef to Bryce Canyon, via Utah’s semi-famous Route 12. \u00a0 This route goes through parts of the Dixie National Forest and the northern edge of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument (BLM). \u00a0 We’d been told it was an eye-popping drive, but unfortunately the weather was uncooperative and a lot of the views from 9000 feet and above were obscured by passing rainshowers and fog.<\/p>\n

Coming down past Boulder, the view improved. \u00a0 We had considered stopping at the Calf Creek BLM campground, but passed it by with a note to perhaps visit it on another trip. \u00a0 It’s located down in an absolutely beautiful canyon, not far from the spot we were overlooking in the photo at left.<\/p>\n

I must be getting used to driving out here on the Colorado Plateau. \u00a0 We rolled up and down grades ranging from 8% to (briefly) 14%, climbed above 9000 feet on curvy roads with no guardrails, in and out of rainshowers, and my reaction to most of it was “ho hum…” \u00a0 Not that it wasn’t beautiful, but the adrenaline rush that usually accompanies towing under such conditions was distinctly muted. \u00a0 Mostly I toodled along, one hand on the wheel, one hand on the transmission stick, thinking about when we should stop for lunch.<\/p>\n

Which eventually we did, at the visitor center in Escalante. \u00a0 While we were parked there, we ran into Rick, another Airstream full-timer traveler who has been out on the road for about three months so far. \u00a0 He’s got a sweet 1976 Airstream 30 footer that he refurbished and customized. \u00a0 We hung out for a couple of hours, swapping travel notes, and may meet up again later this winter. \u00a0 Rick’s blog<\/a> is a bit out of date but he’s planning to get caught up on his latest travels.<\/p>\n

With all the puttering, we didn’t get to Bryce until about 5 p.m. \u00a0 The national park’s campgrounds were mostly full, and the few remaining spaces were either too short or very unlevel. \u00a0 The entire North campground seems to have been built on a hill. \u00a0 Also, the site were entirely shaded, which would give us no useful solar power. \u00a0 We decided to go upscale and pay for Ruby’s campground just outside the park entrance.<\/p>\n

This is a big luxury for us. \u00a0 We’ve been camping without hookups of any type for a week, which has allowed us to stay close to the parks we’ve been visiting. \u00a0 Upgrading to a commercial campground is like splurging on a five-star hotel. We’re getting full hookups, wifi, a laundry, two swimming pools, two restaurants, and my phone works too. \u00a0 We’ll catch up on laundry, work, email, phone messages — all those annoyances of “real life” –and work in a few hikes in Bryce too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our goal today was to drive 118 miles from Capitol Reef to Bryce Canyon, via Utah’s semi-famous Route 12. \u00a0 This route goes through parts of the Dixie National Forest and the northern edge of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument (BLM). \u00a0 We’d been told it was an eye-popping drive, but unfortunately the weather was uncooperative […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1715"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1715\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}