THINGS WE WILL DO FOR A PARTY

On the weekend we took a quick but long road trip up to Teasdale, Utah. Rob had recently got in touch with a old Uni friend. 14 years between drinks but who is counting?. He invited us to his and his girlfriend's housewarming party. Having no idea where this place was we consulted the all knowing oracle...
According the Google Earth the most direct way was via dirt roads but would take us 9 hours. Yahoo said 6 hours. We scoffed..9 hours on a dirt road ahhhhaaaaa...how bad could it be?
The way nOrmAl people take is a the highway which has to divert around all the canyons and cliffs, which seem to stretch out all along that part of the state.
Southern Utah has way more than enough landscape and geography. Its everywhere. No wonder Australia is so flat, Utah stole its share and totally flaunts it.

UTAH- Geography napper

We got to Lake Powell Dam, which is a huge flooded canyon and looks like something out of Ray Bradbury's Chronicles Of Mars.

Coz on Mars

The short cut was through the Glen Canyon Recreation area. We followed the signs and the road was good. Then we got to a fork. One way was a 16 mile divert which met up with the main road and was 4WD only, very rugged 'Abandon All Hope'.
The main stretch recommended high clearance 4wd but sounded easier.
We meant to go that way.

The road started out ok then became a river bed. Parts of it were nice and flat and easy. Parts of it weren't. Rob's elite driving skillz got us through some pretty rough patches. Our car is AWD, and it did great but it's not designed for that kind of terrain.

The road riverbed towhothehellknows

It was a very pretty and totally isolated. It the end we turned back despite trying to build sections of the road. Its amazing what you can talk yourself into...'it might get better around the bend', ' it looks clear up there', 'just one more mile'.
We finally turned around deciding that breaking the car and getting stuck out there probably wasn't the best idea. We did have a day or two supply of meat, beer, snacks, dog food but no phone coverage.

We shall never speak of the shortcut again

Poor Darwin was so patient and good. She only threw up once and never tried to eat our face for putting her through all that.
We got back to the sign and realised we took the Doom Road not the Less Than Doom Road....sigh.

That little side trip put 3 hours onto the time and we motored up the highway getting to the house about 9pm.
They fed, beered us and offered us the spare room. It was freezing and I'm so very glad we didn't have to pitch the tent.
I'm glad after driving 11 hours they were very nice and welcoming, and didn't try to offer Rob a few extra wives.
Everyone was friendly and all seem to work for the various National Parks in the area.

Idyllic Utah

The next morning was a relaxing sunny pancake eating time and then had to drive all the way back via a hike down to a waterfall, and lunch on a canyon rim.

Cooling Down

A 850 mile or 1370km jaunt to the rest of the world metric users.
Do it again?...hell yeah!
Though next time maybe in three days.