It was a little bit warmer yesterday and the wind had settled down so we decided to pack a lunch and take a ride.
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Today’s route. We rode north on 89 turned left on Hancock and then turned left on Sand Dunes Road to ride into the park.
Left on Hancock towards the park and if is just lovely. No traffic and we could putt along at 30mph and enjoy the scenery.
The sand is pink here and the cattle are clustered at the water troughs. That’s a water tanker parked beside them. No fences here.
We rise in elevation and pine trees start to appear.
Coral Pink Sand Dunes park ahead somewhere.
Long lonely road….just the way we like it.
Turn left for the park.
The sand dunes are appearing on our left and we see cattle down below around a water hole.
We drove into the entrance of the park and there were buildings but no one around. Put your $8 in an envelope and put it in the box and you are good to go. There was a cheesy little map that didn’t tell us much and Eric was really grousing about the lack of information.
We got out our lunch and ate at one of the picnic tables and then went to see what there was to look at.
We walked up to the little viewing area and ahead were the sand dunes.
Not sure if you can zoom in to read this.
Sand to the left….sand to the right and more sand.
Most of the sand is rolled here by the wind. Sand that is too light blows away and sand that is too heavy won’t roll so all the sand here is of the same consistency. Interesting.
Pink cliffs in the distance.
The signs explain how the dunes got here and how the plants and animals survive.
Guess what…..sand.
We rode through the campsite where there were RV’s of every description. Riding the dunes is popular here so there are many quads. We left the park and headed back the way we came except we kept going north on what was likely the old highway which joins up with Hwy 89.
Another really quiet pretty stretch of highway. Lots and lots of pink…sand.
All the sagebrush is green and flowering from the recent rains.
More beautiful rock.
The old highway and we are all alone.
Too bad the highway only goes 9 miles because we’d like to ride a highway like that for a few hundred miles.
We left the old highway and rode north to Mt Carmel Junction to get fuel before heading home. A group of guys on bikes and one trike came in to fuel up while we were there. The guy we spoke to said they were from Pennsylvania and they were heading back to Phoenix tomorrow. Maybe the bikes were shipped out or maybe they were rented, I don’t know. He did say that it was really “Beauuutyeefull” here which got me laughing. That is just how our son-in-law Jeff’s grandmother, Gram used to say beautiful. Our daughter Krista is married and lives in Pittsburgh and she and Jeff say that is Pittsburgheese.
We reversed our route back along the quiet roads to return to Kanab.
A good day.
When we returned home we both had a chat with the people in the 5th wheel next to us. Paul and Lois are from northern Oregon and have lived a rural life much similar to ours. We were all quite amazed at what we had in common. Real nice people.
We thought the Coral Pink Sand Dunes were great to see. We could only spent one night there - it was in September and the Bees tried to get in camper every way possible and since dear husband has bad reactions to bee stings it was not a pleasant stay. Even walking they tried to dive bomb us - it was crazy!
ReplyDeleteHello Kathy, I really enjoyed your post and beautiful photos. Thank you so much for sharing this lovely tour.
ReplyDeleteHi Sandy: Eric said to tell you they were probably hornets as a road in the area is called Yellow Jacket road. They were around when we had lunch there as well but not too aggressive.
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