After days of cold, windy weather with nothing to look at but flat sagebrush, we finally left the southern area of Casper Wyoming and headed to Utah. We no sooner crossed the state line and within a half hour began to see beautiful fall foliage color all along the hillsides. What a wonderful site! One of my friends had posted some pictures on Facebook of it, but she lives higher up in the mountains of Utah, so I hadn't expected to see any on our trip into the state. I am so used to just seeing the state's wonderful red rock forms, that coming in from Wyoming, I guess I've never caught the mountains and canyons filled with trees...and at this time of year, now filled with color.
Once we settled in, we decided that since the weather was so glorious, we would look into where we could go see the trees even better. After doing some research I found that there was an Alpine Loop Scenic Drive through the American Fork Canyon that took you up into the mountains and canyons that was supposed to be a great place for "fall color viewing" as well as various picnicking and hiking. We decided that Sunday was the perfect day to do it, the weather was ideal at about 85 degrees, slight breeze and a clear blue sky, so off we went!
Wow, New England doesn't have anything over Utah, and for us "westerners", it's a whole lot closer! The road was an easy drive, not to many curves, traffic not to bad, lots of places to pull over so I could pull out my camera and snap away at leisure, as well as a number of picnic areas and even some campgrounds. A number of hikers and climbers were out having a great time too. You could tell that this was "early fall" and in another week or three, it will be even more spectacular, but it was mighty great for me. I love the swath of Aspen groves in amongst the hills, that bright yellow is so eye catching against the reds, oranges and greens. I will admit, Aspens have always been my favorites, and to see them outside of Colorado is an extra treat. Of course I took way to many pictures, but here's a small sample (the rest are in my flickr account if you have an interest).
Another fun "eye candy" was across the street from our campground. We always stay at the Lakeside RV Campground in Provo (one of our favorite campgrounds) and just across the street and down about a half a block is the Lakeside Storage (once owned by the same family). The owner is a "collector" of gas station signs, pumps, some old cars, a couple of small planes, kids rides, and a few various other things he may have found "interesting". Hundreds of them...enough to make you go "wow!" We first noticed it (you can't miss them) when we started coming to the campground back in 2012, and each time we came, we noticed the amount seem to get larger. This time (it's been a few years since our last visit), it seems much larger, so we decided to venture over and see if we could actually visit inside and meet" and learn about this strange collection.
We had a delightful chat with the on-site manager who shared with us that the owner now lives in Hawaii while she and her husband live on site. He owns this while his daughter owned the campground down the street, but she sold the campground a while back. He still comes into the storage company and is planning on turning the property across the street (his place is on both sides of the street - one for garages and across the street is open space for RV/Boat storage) into an special event area. He just keeps adding pieces all the time, she said. He certainly has the space! What an incredible collection, we'd never seen anything like it. It was really fun strolling all through his collection.
For such a short visit, we sure had a lot of fun there, and actually hated to leave! We are off to Kanab for another quick stay before heading on to Arizona. Hopefully the sunshine will continue to follow us!
...on the road in Utah, Marie
If you would like to see the rest of my photos, you can on my Flickr at https:/https://flickr.com/photos/74905158@N04/albums
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