Arizona, Utah, & Idaho

June 3-9, 2024: Sedona, Kanab, Salt Lake City, and Craters of the Moon

This blog is the fourth of a 7-part series describing our 8-week, 7,368 mile epic journey through the middle of the United States, in which we visited 10 national parks and many other state parks. 

June 3: Finally clean and off the river, but still in Flagstaff, we reorganized the van and did laundry. Conveniently, there was a laundromat, Walmart, and grocery store right across from our hotel. We restocked the van, washed clothes, and took the short drive to Sedona, arriving at the Rancho Sedona RV Park around 1PM. Being close to town, we walked to the Tlaquepaque section of Sedona which has a lot of art galleries. We enjoyed walking around that area of Sedona. Returning to the campground, we took showers, had dinner, and watched some television. 

June 4: In the morning, we took a short hike from the RV park on the Margs Draw Trail in Coconino National Forest. We only hiked one way and then walked the road back to see the area a bit. We had lunch at the van and then walked into the Uptown area of Sedona which looks like Disneyland on psychic steroids. The surrounding area is beautiful but the town reminded us of St. Augustine, FL in terms of being a tourist trap. We returned to the arts area, then had chips, guacamole, beer, and salsa at Javelina Cantina in hopes of seeing some javelina (which we did not). We headed back to the van, showered, and hung out at the campsite. We realized later that when people say they love Sedona, really they are saying that they love the area, not the town. We missed out on some wonderful hiking. However, having just come off the 2-week rafting trip, we felt more of a need to be in town. 

June 5: To see the Grand Canyon from the top instead of from the river, we decided to visit the North Rim. This meant a much longer driving day, but was well worth the time. It took about 5 hours to drive to the North Rim, with a stop at the Cliff Dwellings along the Vermillion Cliffs Scenic Drive, which were really interesting. The North Rim is beautiful, even if you can’t see the river. We took a short hike on the Bright Angel Point trail from the Visitor’s Center and then hiked part of the Transept Trail. We then drove up to Point Imperial for a wonderful view of the canyon. On the way, we saw a herd of bison which was very fun. Then we drove to Kanab, arriving around 7PM (really 6PM, but we lost an hour crossing the timeline into Utah). It was super hot, over 100 degrees, so we set up camp, took a shower, and turned on the air conditioner in the van. Thank goodness for climate controlled insides! 

June 6: After spending some time on a Zoom call and making a wonderful lentil vegetable soup for lunch in the pressure cooker, we walked around Kanab, going to the Little Hollywood  Movie Museum, eating Dole Whip ice cream, and going in and out of shops. We figured out a hike to do early tomorrow morning before we leave for Salt Lake City. We showered, ate dinner (a stir-fry), and then watched some TV. 

June 7: Waking up at 6 AM to take an early morning hike, we took K-Hill Trail to Toms Canyon Trail. At the end of the trail was a beautiful canyon with weeping rocks. We ate breakfast there (granola bars) and then hiked back, cleaned up, showered, and headed off to Salt Lake City. We took the scenic route up 89 instead of driving up I-15. We passed by Butch Cassidy’s childhood home near Hatch, Utah. We also stopped in Provo to see Brigham Young University, try to drop off our compost at a community garden (which we never found) and go to Walmart to pick up a few items, including a foam mattress for our bed. The traffic between Provo and Salt Lake City was awful and we arrived at our Harvest Host at Saltfire Brewery around 6:20 PM, parked on the side, made a kale and Just Eggs for dinner, and met a friend who lives in Salt Lake City around 7:20. We drank some good beer, ate fries from the food truck, saw a real rainbow right below the rainbow flags (for Pride Month), and hung out for a few hours. The joy of boondocking at a brewery is that you get to drink and then roll into bed. 

June 8: After eating breakfast, we packed up and drove to the farmers market at Pioneer Park. We bought cherries, some vegan dip, and a wonderful bread from Volkers. This was a great farmers market with very reasonable prices. Then we drove to the Capital City Antique Mall, which was fun to walk around. We then drove to the KOA where we were spending our second night in town, did our laundry, ate lunch, and then took the Green TRAX train into downtown. We walked around the main area, had vegan mud pie ice cream at Monkey Wrench, an all dairy-free ice cream shop, and then went to Temple Square. The temple was under construction but we walked around the grounds and were able to enter the Tabernacle, which was spectacular. A total treat, the choir was practicing and we were able to listen. We were suprised to see lots of pride flags all around town for pride month! We then went back to the KOA, took showers, ate dinner, and planned our trip for tomorrow. We decided to try to stay in Craters of the Moon if possible, so we needed to cancel our Harvest Host stay at the Idaho Potato Museum. While we thought it would be fun to stay at a potato museum in Idaho, we figured staying at Craters of the moon would be more of a treat. 

June 9 - Having cancelled our Harvest Host stay, we headed to Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve, arriving around 12:30 PM. There were plenty of sites available at the Lava Flow Campground so we took Site 10 and headed off to drive the scenic drive and hike. We stopped at the Visitor’s Center to get a cave permit, then hiked to the top of the Inferno Cone, walked to the caves, and did a few other small hikes around in the park. Arriving back at the campsite, we took bucket baths. Having caught a cold from the someone on the rafting trip, we went to bed and slept in a bit the next morning. We were really glad we stayed overnight at Craters of the Moon as this is a really worthwhile place to visit, with a unique moon-like landscape and incredible history.