Day 2.0: What We’ve Been Up To

Greetings, readers and apologies for the long absence! Last we updated this blog, we were celebrating the wedding of Lisa and Michael in Los Angeles on Labor Day Weekend. Aside from a quick trip up to Northern California to meet our new niece, we haven’t actually been doing what we’d call a road trip since then. We spent some of September celebrating the Jewish holidays with Arielle’s family, and then flew back to New York to spend Sukkot with Abe’s family. Abe covered a few films at the New York Film Festival, including Roma and The Favourite, before we drove to Boston for a few days, the highlight of which was the beautiful wedding of Julia, Abe’s high school friend, and Frank.

We returned to the West Coast briefly before flying back to New York for Arielle to facilitate two events, participate on two panels, and attend many more incredible programs at Reimagine End of Life, a community-wide effort to explore life and death. The culmination of that trip was yet another fabulous wedding, that of Lori, Abe’s friend from USY, and Jason.

We flew back to Los Angeles in mid-November, and mostly camped out there through the middle of January. Abe went to as many movie screenings as possible while Arielle developed her workshops about end-of-life conversations and reached out to communities for us to visit on this trip. Brief detours to Northern California for Thanksgiving and to Hawaii for Christmas week were delightful. In early January, Abe’s parents came to visit for a few days, which was great, and we spent the weekend together in San Diego. We enjoyed our first wedding of 2019, where Arielle was a bridesmaid for Alexi, her friend from USY, and Benjie.

Just a few days later, we flew to Utah to cover the Sundance Film Festival (Abe) and Slamdance Film Festival (Arielle). Abe saw 46 movies, and Arielle saw 18. Check out our reviews at www.MoviesWithAbe.com.

After a brief stop in Northern California on the way home, we returned to Los Angeles to finish packing up our car and leave less than eighteen hours later for our big trip!

Day 23: Brian Head, UT to Los Angeles, CA

We woke up at 6:45am and cleaned up the condo before we hit the road to make it all the way to Los Angeles. We wanted to make it as far as possible without stopping, and ended up crossing briefly through Arizona and then Nevada before entering California, three states we had both been to before.

We chose a gas station that would get us far enough - more than halfway - so that we wouldn’t have to refill gas another time on this leg. Fortunately, they had local date milkshakes available and Abe got a banana one, which Arielle ended up liking more even though she doesn’t usually like dates. Unfortunately, our horror at the $4.79 per gallon price tag was made even more horrific upon realizing that this one station was not emblematic of California gas prices quite that high but instead a full dollar more per gallon than every subsequent station we passed. Our misery subsided when we got to Barstow, CA and picked up a meal that Arielle had been craving the whole trip - a grilled cheese animal-style from In and Out. Abe got black pepper chicken and mushroom chicken from Panda Express, which was right next door.

We drove another hour or so to Monrovia, CA, where Abe got what he had been craving the whole trip - an ice blended chai latte from Coffee Bean.

Our welcome back to California didn’t include nearly as much traffic as we had expected, which was great, and we pulled in to Arielle’s parents’ home before 5pm, making the whole trip, including stops, about nine hours. We promptly unloaded every item from our trunk and backseat into a bedroom in the house, rendering it completely unusable due to the large volume of items now on the floor. We enjoyed a lovely and delicious dinner of beef ribs prepared by Arielle’s mom for dinner, and Arielle was thrilled to have kosher meat for only the third time in three weeks. Though we hadn’t planned to stay up late and adjust to Pacific Time, we did end up chatting for a while with Arielle’s parents and her sister Cindy, getting to bed after midnight.

Approximate number of miles covered: 487

Day 22: Brian Head, UT to Zion National Park

We woke up at 6:45am and set out for Zion National Park. This drive, which took about an hour and forty minutes, took us a completely different direction, allowing us to see some new mountain views and some puzzling signs for the Grand Canyon, which we confirmed via some quick phone research was still a good four hours away.

Upon arrival into the town of Springdale, Utah, we saw notices that indicated parking in Zion was full but decided to ignore them, which proved to be a good decision when we found a perfectly decent spot in the Visitor Center parking lot, which was both huge and, admittedly, mostly full. We spoke to a ranger who highlighted the three most popular sites, the Riverside Walk, Weeping Rock Trail, and Lower Emerald Pool Trail. Though she said that all three could take us six hours due to congestion and the speed of the free park shuttle, we asked for a more moderate hike to consider also. We started immediately on the Watchman Trail, a 3.3-mile trek that took us up to see sweeping views of the Towers of the Virgin, lower Zion Canyon, and Springdale. We had the trail mostly to ourselves for a while and then met more and more people on their way down as we experienced our first day of true heat in the 90s. When we reached the top we opted to take the short loop trail to see a bit more before descending. When we reached the bottom, we accidentally veered off the trail and ended up walking for about five minutes in a dried-up creek filled with sand. We eventually reunited with the trail and headed straight onto the bus when we arrived back at the Visitor Center.

We rode about forty minutes all the way to the ninth and last stop, which was the Temple of Sinawava. The Riverside Walk was 2.2 miles roundtrip and listed as a 1.5-hour easy hike with mostly paved (and mostly accessible) trail. It did feel a bit longer than we expected, given how quickly we had done our earlier, certainly more strenuous hike, and it’s possible the crowds also made it feel longer. When we reached the water at the end, we got a peek at what hiking The Narrows would have been like, though we would have required waterproof hiking shoes, walking sticks, and considerably more time to confront this more arduous adventure. There’s always next time! We got back on the shuttle and rode two stops to Weeping Rock, where the 0.4-mile hike was described as short but steep. While it did look intense and formidable, we only had a bit of uphill climbing to do before we reached our destination in about ten minutes. Arielle enjoyed looking at the water falling from this rock and standing under it to get a bit of a shower. The view of the mountains was mesmerizing from behind where the water was falling, and it was difficult to pry Arielle away. We made the next bus and rode to Zion Lodge, where the 1.2-mile hike to the Emerald Pool again proved to be slightly more involved than we had expected for such a crowded and popular hike. The views weren’t quite as worthwhile on this one but it was still decent as our final hike on this trip. Returning to the bus, we rode back to the Visitor Center and departed the park, having checked off everything we were equipped to do that day.

We drove about five minutes to Zion Park Gift and Deli, where we recognized the same ice cream flavors we had seen the last two days in Bryce Canyon City, discovering that their brand was the same as the other despite having a different name. We shared a double scoop of Brownies on the Moon and Mint Chip, which were both delicious.

We got on the road towards Brian Head and stopped at a Smith’s supermarket, where we purchased some canned soup and frozen mac and cheese and fish sticks to heat up for dinner, as well as some quality plums. We stopped in Parowan, right outside Brian Head, for gas, and then returned to the condo to eat and pack, a task that proved difficult for Abe since, somehow, three weeks into the trip, his suitcase was just as full as at the start. Next time you see us, ask us if you’d like to see a hilarious video that we opted not to post here but are happy to share privately. We eventually got everything together and went to bed in preparation for the fateful day when we would finally cross into California.

Approximate number of miles covered: 150

Day 21: Brian Head, UT to Bryce Canyon National Park

We were off to a productive start waking up at 6:45am, bringing oatmeal in the car with us and pulling in to Bryce Canyon National Park at 9am on the dot. We were concerned that we were going to be held up by the giant herd of sheep crossing the road about 10 minutes from where we were staying, but luckily it only caused a minimal delay.

We parked at the Visitor Center in the park, got our recommendations from the ranger, and took the free park shuttle to one of the top lookouts, Bryce Point. We took a few pictures and then opted to add on to the itinerary we had been given, hiking 1.5 miles along the Rim Trail to the next lookout, Inspiration Point. We made quick time and continued along 0.7 miles to Sunset Point, and then another 0.5 miles to Sunrise Point. There, we descended the Queen’s Garden Trail, which took us into the hoodoos (spire-looking rock formations) that we had seen from above. This was a really cool route to take, and the views only got more spectacular as we traveled more of the 2.4 miles and connected with the Navajo Loop Trail. We couldn’t have imagined how intricate and wondrous the inside of those structures were from above, and it was truly breathtaking to get to experience it from below, even if the final hike up back to Sunset Point was pretty strenuous. The entire hike was supposed to be a 600 foot climb, but it seemed like 550 of those feet came in the last 0.2 miles of the Navajo Loop.

Feeling thoroughly accomplished, we took the shuttle bus out to Ruby’s Inn, where we ate burgers (garden for Arielle) and fries at the diner. This was hardly our most exciting meal of the trip, but we were hungry and needed some fuel. The only thing we hadn’t done yet that was recommended by the ranger was drive the length of the 17-mile scenic road to Rainbow Point, stopping at Natural Bridge, which is actually an arch, along the way. The view was impressive, but didn’t compare to actually being down in the canyons and hoodoos.

The same was true for the Natural Bridge on the way back, which is actually an arch. We drove out of the park and stopped at the same ice cream place we had the day before, this time opting to split a single giant scoop of the Orange Cremo flavor.

We bought a few groceries from Ruby’s Inn, watching with amazement as one man purchasing beer screamed at the cashier who tried to put his case in a plastic bag because he hated plastic. He wasn’t getting that the cashier was simply trying to follow Utah law that alcohol can’t be carried openly, and his dramatic reaction was a bit much. We got on the road to make the hour and twenty minute trip back to Brian Head, which was similarly slowed briefly when we ran into that same herd of sheep again grazing in the same spot and taking ownership over the road. We stopped just a few miles from the condo to look at Cedar Breaks National Monument, which was just off the main road and provided similarly magnificent views to what we had been seeing throughout our time in Utah.

We had a low-key evening, cooking frozen cod fillets and carrots for dinner and getting to bed early again for our final National Park of this leg of the trip the next morning.

Approximate number of miles covered: 159