My name is Marion Vermazen. I am a traveler, hiker, avid reader, Sun alumnus, computer geek, Spanish and French language student, knitter, weaver and genealogist.
Tuesday we left Torrey and headed north. We stopped for a short but very different hike in a slot canyon near Moroni, Utah. The hike is called the Maple’s Box Canyon Trail.
Currently we are in Midway visiting family. This morning we had breakfast with friends. Afterwards I did some family history reasearch at the big Family History Library in Salt Lake. This is my last post of this trip. We head home Friday.
This morning after a great breakfast at our B&B we took the scenic drive in Capital Reef National Park. At the end of the paved road we took the two mile dirt road, Capitol Gorge Road and then hiked the Golden Throne Trail.
Both Duke and I were glad to see the end of trail sign.
When we got back to the car we each had a cold drink and then hiked the Capital Gorge Trail. It is relatively short and flat and we enjoyed the narrow canyon and pioneer graffiti.
On the way out of the park we stopped to buy a pie from the friends of Capital Reef and then had a picnic lunch.
Some friends of ours recently hiked across Utah. They mentioned a great restaurant in Boulder, Utah called Hells Backbone Grill. It is about 30 miles from where we were staying and the drive was gorgeous. We had an excellent meal.
Now we are sitting on the front porch watching the sunset.
Today we hiked in Bear Ears National Monument. It one of the new National Monuments that President Obama created at the end of his term. It is expected that Trump will rescind the National Monument Designation. It is so sad because it is a beautiful area.
We hiked the Mule Canyon Trail to House on Fire Ruins. It was a great hike although it was very hot.
We crossed the Colorado River.
Tonight we are in Torrey, Utah very near Capital Reef National Park where we will hike tomorrow.
Today was an easy day. We had a great breakfast at Tia Sophia in Santa Fe. It is so nice to stay someplace where you can walk to all the sites and nice restaurants.
Then we drove north from Santa Fe into Colorado where we are staying at the Sky Ute Casino in Ignacio, Colorado. It was a beautiful drive.
Today we spent the day walking around Santa Fe checking out the sites and the art galleries. We started at the New Mexico State Capital.
Then we visited several art galleries on Canyon Road
We stopped at a French bakery and had a very tasty green chili and cheese crepe. It was the best crepe I have had since Aix en Provence.
Next we toured the Georgia O’Keeffe museum. It was fabulous. More than anyone else O’Keeffe really captures the grandeur of the Southwest landscape.
For dinner we ate at Sazón, a gourmet Mexican restaurant that is rated the number one restaurant in Santa Fe on Trip Advisor. First they brought us mini tortillas to taste each of their molés.
Then the house salad.
For the main course I had beef heart in a wine and jalapeño sauce.
Duke has steak.
And we ended with a avocado, ginger ice cream with piñon nuts and a beet reduction. It sounds strange but it was delicious.
It was a wonderful dinner and we were able to walk to Sazón from our hotel.
This morning we left the ranch we were staying at near Gila and headed to Santa Fe. A bit down the road we saw a sign for a bakery and coffee shop. We couldn’t resist stopping for coffee and cinnamon roles.
Next we did a hike along the Continental Divide Trail.
The highlight of the day was seeing the Very Large Array (VLA). It is 27 giant radio telescopes spread out along three legs of a Y. They work together to ‘see’ and study object in space. They can be moved over a system of railway tracks to get different types of images.
We are staying at the Hotel Santa Fe. The meal we had in their restaurant was fabulous. We started out with the corn vichyssoise.
Then I had the salmon on a blackberry slaw and polenta and Duke had the beef tenderloin.
Today we didn’t get in the car. It was a nice change as we begin the second week of our road trip. We set out to do a hike from the front door of our cabin. First we walked down the creek for quite a ways.
Then we decided to bushwhack our way back around the other side of the big bluff which overlooks the ranch. It was tough going and each of us got scraped a bit by thorns but the challenge was worth it.
It was really good to get back to our cabin, shower and put our feet up!
Tuesday morning we hiked the Catwalk National Recreation Trail. Back in the 1890s miners installed a water pipe through Whitewater Canyon for the nearby mine. A catwalk through the canyon was needed to maintain the pipe. The mines went away but in the 1930s a trail was built on the old catwalk. A recent fire and a big flood seriously damaged the catwalk but it has been rebuilt. We hiked the catwalk and a bit further up the canyon.
After our hike we drove into Silver City. We stopped at the visitor center, had a snack at Dairy Queen, drove around the historic center and toured the museum.
From Silver City we went Back to our cabin on a ranch near Gila. About 4 pm we had a thunderstorm and the power went out. No power just made the evening more of an adventure. We had flashlights and candles. This cabin is a perfect spot to sit on the porch and read. We enjoyed dinner on the front porch too. The power came back on about 8 am this morning.
This morning we left Phoenix and took the Apache Trail up into the Superstition Mountains. First we came to Canyon Lake. The road turned to gravel and the scenery to stunning canyons.
After about 30 miles of gravel we came to Theadore Roosevelt Dam where we had lunch.
The bridge by the dam is the longest steel single span bridge in a the United States.
After getting back to pavement we drove into New Mexico to a cabin near Gila. Right now we are sitting on the porch drinking wine and enjoying the peace and quiet.
The view is lovely.
I wasn’t sure whether I would mention it… but on a remote road near the eastern Arizona border we were pulled over by a very polite Arizona Highway Patrol officer who issued us a citation for flagrantly wasting finite resources!
It was suppose to be over 100 in Phoenix today so we got an early start. We were at the Desert Botanical Garden at 7:30.
About half way through our explorations we ate a great brunch at Gertrude’s the Botanical Garden restaurant.
Next we went to the Arizona State Capital. Duke and I are working on visiting all fifty state capitals. A lot of them look very similar. I liked the Arizona capital. It is pretty and different.
We also wandered around the grounds and looked at many of the monuments in the park in front of the capital. This one is two guns. One gun is from the USS Arizona that was sunk at Pearl Harbor at the beginning of World Ear II. The other gun is from the USS Missouri the ship on which the Japanese surrender was signed.
And this memorial is dedicated to police dogs.
