Bonus Chapter 1: Making a Clean Getaway
There comes a time in every parent’s life when he or she looks in the mirror and exclaims, “Holy crap. I’m exhausted.” That time is 9:37 p.m., daily.
Julie and I have been parents for over 16 years now, and so we know the value of getting a break. A long weekend together or even a night out—just a few hours with no responsibilities is a wonderful lifeline for our marriage. So we always look for excuses to have some time alone.
This summer, we celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary, so naturally that was a wonderful excuse to do something by ourselves. Given our love of travel, it seemed natural to try and plan a spectacular 20th anniversary getaway. We dreamed big—at least until budgetary concerns got in the way.
We considered a
Disney Cruise—they had just introduced new cruises out of New York to Bermuda. That sounded great! But the cost became a concern. We considered Costa Rica—and again, cost became a concern. We looked hard at a tropical getaway to the island of St. John. Hurricane Irma ended up removing that idea from the board.
We strongly considered a trip to Southern California. We’ve heard great things about San Diego but have never visited, so it would be new to us. And it was awfully tempting to catch up with Alison and Fran at
Disneyland again (and, of course, finally ride the Indiana Jones ride). I’d spent a good amount of time researching that idea. But then another monkey wrench was thrown into the plans—we were also planning Drew’s first trip to Disney World for the summer. My parents and my brother and sister-in-law and their family were coming along as well, and the date we agreed upon was July 21. This was just a mere three weeks after the timeframe we were looking at for the anniversary getaway. Julie decided she didn’t want to do two Disney parks back-to-back, given how we typically exhaust ourselves on Disney property. She wanted some variety, and I don’t think she was wrong.
So, we needed something relatively affordable and not related to Disney. We finally hit upon the idea of seeing some sites we’d missed on our first trip out west.
We’d traveled to the American Southwest in summer of 2014. At the time, Drew was only 5 months old. We were still able to cover a good bit of ground, but we had to make some sacrifices so we didn’t spend too long in the car with a newborn. We couldn’t do as much hiking as we would have liked. And so, even though we’d seen some wonderful sites such as Zion, Bryce Canyon, and Grand Canyon National Parks, we still had some unfinished business in Utah and Arizona. I did some research, found some availability for lodging, got everything arranged under budget, and just like that, the 20th Anniversary Spectacular became the Unfinished Business Vacation.
My parents graciously agreed to take care of the kids for the week. Suckers!
I mean, uh, thanks Mom and Dad!
Julie and I flew out of Baltimore. Philadelphia airport is closer and an easier drive for us, but for some reason flights out of Baltimore are always cheaper. Also, the Philly airport is a dump, while BWI is much nicer. So it’s usually worth the extra 45 minutes on the road.
We flew non-stop to Las Vegas and had no issues with our travel. I’d used our Costco membership to rent a car, and once again, it saved us a lot of money. I made the reservation early on and then kept checking prices, and it seemed like every time I checked, the price had dropped. So I kept cancelling and re-booking again and again. Thank goodness they don’t charge for that. I’m guessing the rental companies had a lot of unreserved inventory.
As always, the goal when flying into Vegas was to get out of Vegas as quickly as possible. Now, I know some of you greatly enjoy Vegas and I’m not here to rain on your parade. Vegas just isn’t my thing. I’m not a drinker, I’m not a gambler, and I’m not a womanizer. I’m sure many of the shows and entertainment are excellent, but I feel like if I want to see world-class man-made entertainment, I can stick with Disney or Broadway and not have to put up with the less-savory aspects of Vegas.
We got in our rental, sped onto the freeway, and promptly got stuck in construction traffic. Stupid highway engineers.
We made exactly one stop in Las Vegas: we went to the drive-through at a McDonald’s, because a 5-hour flight is a long haul when you’re only given peanuts to snack on. Of course we regretted eating McDonald’s later, but as Jim Gaffigan says, those 7 minutes after getting a box of McDonald’s French fries straight out of the fryer are pretty heavenly.
Temperatures were in the 100’s so we were grateful that the air-conditioner in the car was working. Yes, it’s a “dry” heat. So is an oven.
Within a couple of hours, we’d crossed into Arizona and then Utah, headed northeast on I-15. Just north of the town of St. George, we spotted a wildfire burning on top of a mountain. We’d actually seen the smoke during our flight.
That had us worried. Wildfires can create smoke clouds that extend for miles and miles. If the wind shifted, it would head right over our destinations, where it could obscure our views, darken the skies, and make for poor air quality. That leads to less-than-memorable vacation photos and memories.
Fires can also kill people and wildlife and destroy homes, so I’m sure we were worried about that, too. Anyway, it was something to keep an eye on.
We’d planned for our first stop to be at the
Kolob Canyons section of Zion National Park. This was not new—we’d stopped here in 2014 on our way to Cedar City. But we knew it was a beautiful view and it was a nice spot to break up the drive, so why not? We’ll just take the exit and look for the entrance sign. Ah, there it is.
And now we’ll just turn onto the access road, and…
Welp. So much for that idea. Moving on.
We stopped in Cedar City to get some bottled water and snacks (note: NO peanut butter or jelly!) at a Walmart. It’s always reassuring to know that no matter where you are in the country, no one at a Walmart is willing to walk 20 extra feet to a cart return bay when they can just leave the shopping cart occupying the parking space you’d like to turn into.
We also stopped for dinner at a place called
The Pizza Cart. At one time, this business was just what its name implies: it was a food cart, stationed in a hardware store parking lot. They had an actual honest-to-goodness wood-fired oven on the cart and would serve fresh pizzas to patrons looking for a quick meal in the parking lot. Evidently their business did so well, they were able to open their own brick-and-mortar location in a shopping center in southern Cedar City. It was a neat little place, and it’s hard to beat a wood-fired oven for quality pizza.
It’s also a lot cheaper when you only have to feed two people instead of six. And the pizza was very good!
The wildfire smoke had extended to the north all the way up past Cedar City. At some points, it obscured the sun and made it feel like twilight, which was an eerie feeling. It made for an interesting sky:
Thankfully, the winds kept it blowing to the north, so when we turned east, we had clear skies. We just hoped that would continue the rest of the week.
We drove another three hours to the small town of Torrey, Utah. As you might expect, there aren’t many hotel chains to choose from in Torrey, Utah. We ended up staying in a little mom-and-pop motel called the
Broken Spur Inn. There were two options for rooms here: you could stay in a regular hotel room, which was the cheapest option and therefore the one I chose, or you could stay in one of these babies:
I have to admit, Julie and I were both tempted. It was referred to on the website as “glamping”. Look closely and you can see that the wagons were even air-conditioned. But we didn’t really need that—temps dropped into the 50’s in the evenings. And the wagons were arranged in a tight circle without much space in between. With only canvas walls, I’d be a little concerned about privacy. In any case, we took the cheaper, more boring option and stayed in a regular room. Sorry to disappoint, but hey, that’s what I do.
With that, we were all set up to take care of our first piece of unfinished business in the morning.
Coming Up Next: The only major National Park in Utah we hadn’t visited. Yet.
But a lot of great food along the way.
Pretty funny quotes, though. I imagine the crowd gets lively for that game every year.
Major consideration when booking a room!
