nature – Travel Plan Mom

National Forest Fun

October 11, 2017 by TravelPlanMom, posted in Travel, Virginia, West Virginia

“To travel is to live” – Hans Christian Andersen

There is so much lovely terrain right in our backyard, in the state of Virginia. So my better half and I decided not to waste our beautiful Saturday on boring things like house work or yard work or household projects, and instead ventured out to enjoy the beginnings of the autumn colors in our region. If you are ever visiting southwest Virginia, this day trip is a wonderful way to spend a day.

First I am going to tell you how to get there. And make sure you eat before you go, because it is a bit of a drive. On a previous trip to the area, I was starving, and the drive over two mountains made me a little car sick, so this time I made sure we ate breakfast right before leaving. But I digress. If you are in the Roanoke, Virginia area, leave Interstate 81 by Exit 141 and go west until you reach a traffic signal. Turn right at the light onto 311. This will take you over the first mountain pretty quickly. After the first mountain, you will pass the Homeplace Restaurant on the left. Sidebar – if you’ve never visited the Homeplace, you are missing out on a fantastic family-style meal. Do yourself a favor and try it out!

Back to the directions – after passing the Homeplace, you will drive for 12 or 13 miles and then drive through the small town of New Castle, Virginia. Keep on driving. After an additional 16 miles of curvy roads while crossing over another mountain, you will reach the little crossroad known as Paint Bank. Currently Paint Bank offers up a general store/restaurant combination, a lodge, and a gas pump. There’s not much to see right at the crossroad, but what is there is very quaint.

Two story red brick building with two story porches on front and waving American flag with hanging flower baskets — Paint Bank General Store and Swinging Bridge Restaurant

The Paint Bank General Store, pictured above, also hosts the Swinging Bridge Restaurant in the rear of the building. But we will come back to that later.

old train depo turned into a lodge that is two story grey building with metal roof and bikes in front — Paint Bank Depot Lodge

I’ve never stayed at the Depot Lodge, but this building is not the only accommodation available in the area. In addition to the lodge, there is an amazing caboose, two “glamping” tents, two cabins, an airstream trailer, a house, a cottage, and “coming soon” the Lemon Hotel. You can check out all of the lodging available at The Depot Lodge. Seems like it would be a great place to host an extended family get-together.

The picture above is what you will see immediately after the General Store. Make a left here onto 600, or Waiteville Road. As you drive along, you will probably see buffalo grazing in one of several pastures along the left hand side of the road.

Drive about 10 – 11 miles, and you will see a small sign on the left that says Hanging Rock.

Turn right here onto Limestone Hill Road. It is a lovely drive up this winding, curvy road. We saw some beautiful leaves along the way.

Stay on this very narrow, paved road for almost 4 miles and you will come to the parking area on the left. You’ve arrived!

One of the great things about this trail is that the small parking area is never crowded, at least not when we have been here. We had passed by the trail heads of several other well-known hikes in southwest Virginia and they were packed out, but not here. And it was a beautiful October day.

Okay, so now that we are here, it’s time to secure our valuables in the trunk, grab the backpack with water bottles and light snacks, and hit the trail! The trail is probably rated as moderate, at least that’s what I think. It is short and has some steeper areas, but also some flat places.

Follow the yellow marks on the trees! One of the steepest parts of the trail is right at the beginning, but it’s not bad.

We’re headed for the hanging rock lookout. I think the sign says it is .6 miles. So, 1.2 miles round-trip. Not very long!

There are some rocky stretches along the trail, and in a couple of areas we will need to do some scrambling over rocks. We keep walking until we get to this sign:

If we stay to the right we will join the Allegheny Trail, and if we go left, we will reach the fire tower. Just a little farther and we will be there!

When we reach the top, there’s a fire tower to the right and the hanging rock to the left. In the past, we’ve only been up in the tower, so I wanted to try to take a selfie from the rock. It would have been so nice to have a selfie stick in this situation! None of our selfie pictures worked out. Oh well! But I did get a couple of shots from the rock, including this one:

Blue sky with puffy white clouds, wooden building with windows, and angled rock slabs with autumn trees — The Hanging Rock and the Fire Tower Observatory

Next, it’s on to the fire tower. The views are amazing from up here. You can see mountain ridges for miles and miles.

Man in blue shirt standing in shadow at deck railing looking over colorful trees and mountains in the distance with blue skies and white clouds — Looking Over Miles of Mountains

Here’s a panoramic:

If you are a bird-watcher, this is the place to be. The tower is right along the flight path of predatory birds. Unfortunately, we forgot our binoculars this time but we’ve seen several bald eagles in the past without binoculars. Red-tailed hawks and other large birds are known to pass by. The tower is at an elevation of 3812 feet.

I failed to mention earlier, that not long after leaving Paint Bank, we crossed into West Virginia. Most of the area we are looking over is West Virginia. It sure is scenic!

By this time, despite the little snack we brought with us, I was getting really hungry! After filling our eyes with wonder, it was time to think about filling our bellies with delicious food! So we grabbed our pack and headed back down the trail. The return trip was a lot easier, with the exception of a little bit of knee strain. We passed some young families with several young children who were heading up. This trail can be trekked by just about anybody, as long as they have no mobility issues.

We got in our car and drove back to Paint Bank, arriving at around 3 p.m. We were relieved to be able to walk right in to the Swinging Bridge restaurant and get a table. The last time we had visited, there was a two hour wait! Wow! The restaurant does not take reservations unless your party has 8 or more people, and I think that sometimes large tour buses come with huge groups, but that’s not what we encountered this day.

In the picture below you can see the bridge crossing over the dining room:

Inside of open two story building with bridge across the middle of room, a christmas tree, taxidermy animals, old Texaco signs, people sitting at tables, log walls — Inside the Swinging Bridge Restaurant

The restaurant had a steady flow of customers but it wasn’t crowded. The Swinging Bridge offers a varied menu, with buffalo options. We decided on the ribs. We saw them cooking outside on the smoker earlier and they smelled so good! We also had baked potatoes and side salads and they brought a basket of rolls and cheesy cornbread to the table. Every time I have eaten here the food has been very good. We split the apple crumb pie with a generous scoop of ice cream for dessert. We both had drinks (non-alcoholic) and our tab came to around $42 (we had plenty of left-overs to take home).

After our late lunch, we explored around the gift shop upstairs, the general store, and outside for a bit.

Then it was time for the long-ish drive home. It was a fun and scenic adventure and we were glad that we put off the things we needed to do at home to enjoy a warm October day in the mountains. It was time well spent.

Until next time, happy traveling!

Bryce is Nice!

June 28, 2017 by TravelPlanMom, posted in Planning, Travel, Utah, Vacation

“Travel is the only thing you buy that makes you richer” – Anonymous

In a previous post, Beautiful Utah, I mentioned different places in southern Utah that my family and I visited in May of 2017. Part of our epic journey included a day trip from our rental house near Alton, Utah to Bryce Canyon National Park.

But first, after a much needed morning of rest and relaxation, we stopped for lunch along the way to Bryce at a restaurant called Bryce Canyon Pines. We, of course, picked this restaurant after reading all the restaurant reviews on TripAdvisor. There are slim pickin’s around Bryce, and we wanted to pause for a somewhat quick and basic meal that wouldn’t break the bank. I had also read that Bryce Canyon Pines was supposed to have really good soup and pies! The food was much as we expected – pretty basic but good, not too expensive, and we split meals so we could all eat pie! The chocolate pie was my favorite, by the way.

When we got to the gate of Bryce Canyon National Park, we stopped to pay the entrance fee of $30 for our vehicle. The entrance fee here is the same as it was for Zion National Park, even though Zion was much bigger and had so much more to see and so many more trails. Another note on the differences – Zion’s bathrooms were kept up very nicely and there were quite a few of them. I noticed that the bathrooms in Bryce were not in very good shape. There were overflowing trash cans and there was toilet paper all over the floor. I was surprised.

So back to the trip. I had seen pictures of the park and its hoodoos, and I had done some research about what trails were best for a relatively short and pleasant hike. My daughter-in-law also had Bryce Canyon high on her list and we pretty much had the same ideas for which paths to tackle.

There are several hikes to choose from in the park, but since we didn’t want to hike for the entire day and wanted to see as much of the hoodoos and beautiful scenery as possible, we settled on the Navajo Loop/Queen’s Garden combo. The two trails together are just short of 3 miles and are supposed to take around 2 to 3 hours, depending on how many times you stop to enjoy the view, take pictures, or just stop to catch your breath!

When we got to the viewing area over the main “canyon” we suddenly didn’t know which way to go. We had two choices – we could go to the left, to Sunrise Point and head down the Queen’s Garden trail and come up the Wall Street side of the Navajo Loop, or we could do it in reverse and start at Sunset Point to our right. I remembered that I had previously read that one way was supposed to be a better option, but could not, for the life of me, remember what to do!

As we were pondering and looking at a map, a fellow traveler told us that Wall Street was closed, and it was much prettier to the left, so we should enjoy the view going down. She said that when they were walking up, all they could think about was catching their breath and they didn’t enjoy looking around as much. So we took their advice and set off.

And she was right! The view as we walked down the Queen’s Garden trail was magnificent. Absolutely stunning. What strange figures these hoodoos were – unlike anything I had ever seen. And so many of them! And so many variations!

While we are on the subject of hoodoos – let’s talk a little bit about them. Where does the name hoodoo come from? Well, I remember from our trip that someone said the word is similar to a Native American word that evolved into hoodoo. But, going back and searching the internet isn’t turning up that same answer, so . . . . I’m not sure but I’ll stick with my vague memory here.

How are hoodoos formed? This I remember for sure – they are formed from the freeze/thaw cycle. Snow melts and gets into the cracks, then the water freezes again which causes it to expand and cracks get bigger and bits of rock fall away. Eventually bigger parts of the rocks topple over. In fact, this very thing had happened at Bryce before we got there, and unfortunately was the reason that Wall Street was closed. Sad face.

So let’s get back to the trail. As we were descending the Queen’s Garden trail, we were merrily hiking and looking around at the beauty and stopping to take lots of pictures along the way. The people hiking up, on the other hand, were stopping to catch their breath. And then they would look at us like, “Yeah, you just wait!” They looked harried and red-of-face, with their tousled hair and lack of oxygen. But we were determined. We will not be dissuaded, we thought, as we marched down, our ankles creaking along the way.

Speaking of lack of oxygen – at this altitude you must not push yourself too hard or you can get altitude sickness. Thankfully, we had been experiencing the higher altitude for a few days before tackling Bryce, so none of us got sick. But we could definitely feel the reduced oxygen as we eventually hiked back up.

When we reached the lower part of the trail, the topography began to change a bit – we started to see some trees along with the hoodoos.

After a little while hiking through the bottom of the trail, it began to gradually slope upwards. Then we came to a crossroads. If we went one way, it led to Wall Street, part of Navajo Loop that would eventually be blocked. If we went to the right, we would follow the other part of Navajo Loop back up to the same end point. Since we didn’t want to tack on a dead end meander, we went to the right.

As we began our steep ascent, I came to understand the harried looks of the hikers we had come across earlier. Now we were those people. We were the ones that had to stop and catch our breath (especially me). This part of the trail consisted of multiple steep switchbacks and an elevation gain of 580 feet. When I look at the number 580, it doesn’t seem that bad. But when I experienced 580, it was bad. Now, I am not the most fit person in the world. I am probably a pretty average 48 year old, needing to lose some weight, but I walk for exercise regularly. But not 580 feet upwards in an hour or less, or in a day even. Phew!

Every few minutes, I had to stop to catch my breath and give my pounding heart a chance to slow down. Our kids had gone way ahead of us, so it was just us “old fogies” dragging up the trail. But eventually we made it.

I will say that despite the challenge of the upward part of the trail, it was an experience that was definitely worth the effort. The sights that are seen in Bryce National Park are unlike anything else that can be viewed anywhere else in the world. The hoodoos are fascinating and pictures are not the same as the experience.

If you’ve never considered putting Bryce Canyon on your vacation, reconsider! It’s a sight to see!

Until next time – happy traveling!

Riverside Walk at Zion National Park

June 14, 2017June 14, 2017 by TravelPlanMom, posted in Travel, Utah, Vacation

“Traveling tends to magnify all human emotions” — Peter Hoeg

Hey again! Let’s talk about an absolutely easy and delightful hike in Zion – the Riverside Walk. When we visited Zion, we, of course, didn’t get to explore every hike in the park. There is a very strenuous, thrilling and nausea-inducing (if you are afraid of heights) hike with magnificent views that we intentionally skipped, known as Angel’s Landing.

Another one, known as the Narrows, which is about 8 miles round-trip through the Virgin River, is supposed to be stunning, although somewhat challenging. We couldn’t do that one because the river was running too high and the park service had it closed. However, we were able to do the Riverside Walk, which is the very beginning of the Narrows hike.

The trail begins at the Temple of Sinawava shuttle stop, is 2 miles round-trip, and takes about 1.5 hours, give or take. The trail is a very easy walk and is paved and wide, so just about anybody, including those in wheelchairs, can enjoy it. It’s so pleasant because it is alongside the Virgin River, and shady, so it’s a rather cool, refreshing walk.

Along the way, you can enjoy hanging gardens, a peaceful river, and some of God’s creatures.

While you are walking along the river, there’s such a feeling of peace and tranquility. I wish I could bottle that up, along with the sounds of the river, and the feel of the small breeze from the running water. So delightful.

I’ve had to break out the thesaurus to figure out a bunch of different ways to say the word beautiful. Because I want to keep saying beautiful. Because it is so beautiful.

It has been fun re-living my hike from a couple weeks ago with you! I hope I’ve been able to share how alluring, appealing, charming, dazzling, gorgeous, grand, marvelous, and superb this experience can be, and that you get a chance to see it for yourself.

Until next time – happy traveling!

Zealous for Zion

June 14, 2017 by TravelPlanMom, posted in Planning, Travel, Utah, Vacation

“Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before” – Anonymous

Hey y’all! Can you tell that I had to break out the dictionary for that title? I needed something that started with Z that would adequately convey my emotion for Zion National Park. Oh, there are plenty of adjectives to describe the appeal of that bewitching, resplendent locale, but how many start with Z?

Anyhow, on our recent jaunt to southern Utah, Zion National Park was at the top of my list. As I mentioned in a previous post, even though I didn’t really know exactly what to expect, I knew by reputation that it is supposed to be beautiful. As I prepared for our trip, I started searching Google images for some ideas of what we would be seeing and I was amazed. I called my husband over to the computer while he was watching a basketball game or something, and I was actually able to grab his attention away from the tube while we oohed and ahhed at all of the lovely pictures.

But, let me tell you, pictures never do a place as majestic as Zion any justice. And, even though I just said that, I am compelled to share pictures with you. Below are a few pictures from the Canyon Overlook Trail.

By the way, there are hanging gardens in quite a few places in the park. They are formed when water drips down through the rock and creates a wet environment for plants to grow. You can see some of that in the picture above, left.

My favorite views in Zion National Park were seen as we departed the long tunnel and entered the canyon in the eastern part of the park. The cliffs were massive and soared above our heads in beautiful hues of red and cream with the contrasting green of the vegetation.

I found it interesting that the views east of the long tunnel were somewhat different from the main canyon.

And, part of those views were big horn sheep! We were all so excited to see them, although they only showed themselves to us once. Tip – look around the east side of the long tunnel close to dusk.

And while I will be sharing more pictures of individual hikes inside Zion in future posts, the last thing I would like to highlight today is the amazing petroglyphs that we found inside Zion National Park. It’s actually really amazing that we found these ancient creations at all. There’s no sign on the road letting you know that they exist (that I could see, anyway), and no parking area for them. The tour guide from Mild to Wild Rhino Tours is the one who told us about them and how to see them. Even with his directions, we were pretty unsure as we picked our way through a wash and under a road.

Seeing the petroglyphs was one of the items on my own personal “bucket list” for our vacation, and even though we were at the end of a long day that had been full of activity, and even though it was starting to get a little dark, my family humored me and went along for the journey. I am so thankful!

While I am talking about Zion, I would like to point out that May is a fabulous month to visit the park. Unless, that is, you want to hike the Narrows. Usually, during the month of May, the Virgin River runs too high due to snow melt, and the park closes the Narrows hike. But the temperatures are really nice for hiking most of the month – not too cold, not too hot, and you don’t have to worry much about flash flooding in the slot canyons because it is not the rainy season. Of course, you always have to watch the weather, because with mother nature, anything can happen, but the odds are in your favor in May. We were there May 20^th – 27^th and had absolutely gorgeous weather, although it was getting pretty warm at the end of our trip. Also, the kids aren’t out of school yet, so it’s less crowded than the summer months. If you can get there in May, it’s a great time to go!

So, if Zion National Park isn’t on your list, then get your pencil out right now and write it down! Make plans to visit. You won’t regret it!

Until next time – happy traveling!

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Tag: nature

National Forest Fun

Bryce is Nice!

Riverside Walk at Zion National Park

Zealous for Zion

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