Another Summer, Another Epic road trip in the books.
As I continued to work with through posting this vacation I can't believe that it's almost over. We had the same feeling I'm pretty much this day of the vacation. We knew we had two more days of fun activities followed by mostly two full days of driving like mad Men across the country. Well we tried to have a fun last day it was still not going to be anything like this. While we always look forward to getting home to sleep now in bed, have more space to spread out, and eat the food that we normally eat it's always sad the end of vacation.
- Pre Drive Friday Night to Altoona IA
- Day 1 Drive to Denver Co - Red Rocks Amphitheatre
- Day 2 Part 1 Drive to MOAB, Hike Corona Arch!!
- Day 2 Continued - Jet Boat Tour and Sunset at Dead Horse State Park
- Day 3 - Sunrise at Delicate Arch in Arches National Park, Part 1
- Day 4 - Star Gazing at Arches National Park then an afternoon at Capital Reef National Park
- Day 5 - Day 4 Sunset and Day 5 Sunrise at Bryce Canyon National Park
- Day 5 - Evening Drive to Zion National Park - The Road of Tunnels
- Day 6 - Zion N'tl Park The Narrows and Scouts Overlookd
- Day 7 - Emerald Pools, Pa'rus Trail, Cathedral Overlook, Drive to St George
- Day 8 - Mystic Hot Springs and Lots of Driving!!!
Pre Dawn Driving to Mystic Hot Sprints
It's not really a day of the senseless family vacation if we don't get up before the sun's up and start hitting the road. There's nothing like taking down miles before the sun comes up to let you know that you're going to have a full day. Who's a nice shot is what drove into the sunrise though and as you can tell from the traffic on the road it's the right time to be driving.
More Miles 158 miles before the day starts. There will be so many miles the next 3 days.
We had to drive 158 mi just over 2 hours before we could start our first activity for the day. We booked the very first soaking sessions at mystic hot springs and had to get there by 9:00 a.m. there was no cancellations, changing, or anything else so we had to be there or we didn't get to use it. We left plenty really to leave ourselves sometime to stop for gas stations or breakfast if need be and still get there. It was a pretty uneventful drive other than the fact that no one could get comfortable in the truck anymore.
Mystic Hot Springs - An Amazing Place
I found mystic Hot springs by watching some YouTube videos of some people who traveled around the area who suggested that it was a place that you must visit if you could. It looked quite unique and relaxing and we figured it would be something different that the kids had not done the rest of the week, and we're unlikely to do many other places. I know that 
We booked the first soaking session of the day. We figured it would likely to be the least busy at 9:00 a.m., and it would also likely be the cleanest since the pools would have had all night to overflow and clean themselves out with a fresh exchange of water. Not knowing how busy it got I could see how people getting in and out of the tubs could make the water kind of dirty and Grimy by the end of the day if even just from the surrounding dirt.
geothermal heated water running wild!!
It's fed from Hot springs it just bubble up. The water is clearly marked dangerous in multiple areas that is above the point where it will cause significant burns on your skin. The owner send you a really nice job of directing it and piping it down to the soaking tubs in pools to allow you a chance to soak into the hot water before it runs off and continues down.
Main Soaking Area
This is one of the two main soaking areas when you first walk in. It's the largest and you can easily fit 10 to 12 people in there before it even starts to get crowded. It's a really nice converted swimming pool with that beautiful added archway. I'm not sure what they built it with initially but you can see that it has calcified with minerals and deposits from the hot springs over the years. It makes it really pretty and provides a gentle rainfall of the water into the pool.
Lobster Tank
There's a smaller but deeper pool that has a nickname The lobster tank. It is the hottest pool on site by far and was probably the busiest. Everyone seemed to cycle in and out of the lobster tank until they would get too hot and then go off and try one of the other ones. I didn't take a picture because I didn't feel like posting random people on the internet while they were trying to relax in a hot spring.
Tripple tub
This was really cool and was used a lot by my wife and two kids. They could all have their own tub and yet sit next to each other and chat while relaxing. It really brought out the social aspect of the hot springs. Well we didn't use them next to anyone else, it did allow our group a chance to relax together and quietly talk about what their favorite activities had been so far on that trip.
Semi Private Tubs
The semi private tubs were highlight for me. There were two tubs that were built on opposite signs of a big rock. You could not see or really hear the other tub from where you were soaking. The water was running in and gave some nice ambient sounds, something to watch, and was really impressive. I tried out both the tubs with the kids trying out the other one at the same time. I could easily spend a large portion of my time in these two, especially if I was alone, or if it was at night or in cold weather. These two felt like a solo hot tub that you could just sit and relax for long periods of time.
View from Solo Tub
The views from the solo tabs were perfect. Allowed you to get completely in have running water down in the rock wall next to you, water slowly overflowing and trickling to the ground providing a fresh flow of water at all times. And you got the lookout over a beautiful barren landscape and enjoy the peace and quiet. You really couldn't hear anybody else when we are there since it was so quiet, and it was a pretty view to look out over all the hills and the surrounding areas.
Constant Water Flow over the rocks - Always refilling the tubs.
I tried to take some videos and gifts of the water flowing over these rocks. You can sit there and watch it Cascade over and slowly roll down while you were soaking and it was very relaxing and tranquil. None of them loaded very well to Hive and it wasn't going to try to load a 5 second video to YouTube just to show you.
Drive to Fort Morgan 9 Hours - 556 Miles
After soaking there are two hours and showering off in the shower rooms provided we had to hit the road to drive on. Unfortunately for us it was a 9-hour drive starting at about 11:00 a.m. . We had 556 miles to cover to fort Morgan we were going to spend the night. This meant it was a long day for everyone in the truck, although I will say I think almost everyone in a truck got a nap except for the driver. It's pretty easy driving but still it was just a long time to sit.
I think it was harder to make this drive considering I hadn't been driving for the prior few days beforehand and this one really seemed to hit a little bit harder after being so relaxed in the hot tubs soaking with that hot spring water.
Favorite New Gas Stations - Stinker!!
Has he pulled into fort Morgan I found my favorite new gas station. Okay not really since I didn't even go inside but as it was late at night and I was filling up the truck I noticed the name of the gas station and the logo was hilarious. I had to pull up my phone and take a picture because I think we could use more gas stations like this with big advertisements. I think it's brilliant.
Vacation Stats
No updates to the stats since the count of the drive in the last post, and I'm not counting and driving this post.
Pre Drive Friday Night
Day -1 -Drive to Altoona
- 271 Miles
- 4 Hrs
Day 1 - Drive to Red Rocks & Hike - Drive to Look out Mountain and Eldorado Springs
- 694 Miles Red Rocks
- 10 Hours to Red Rocks
- 65 Miles Round Trip
- 2 Hours Round Trip
Day 2 Drive to MOAB - Hike, Jet Boat Tour and Dead Horse State Park
- 342 Miles
- 5.5 Hours
- Corona Arch, Pinto and Bow Tie Arch
- Jet Boat Tour
- Dead Horse State Park
Day 3 Arches National Park
- Sunrise at Delicate Arch
- Sand Dune and Broken Arch Trail, Balanced Rock, Windows Trials, Double Arch
- Mesa Arch
- Sunset at Whale Rock
- Driving 80 Miles, 1H 50M
Day 4 Sunrise at Arches, Drive to Capital Reef and Bryce Canyon
- Drive to Capital Reef 156 Miles 2hrs 45m
- Hickman Land Bridge
- Petroglyphs Panels
- Dixie National Forest
- Drive to Bryce Canyon 107 Miles - 2 Hrs
- Sunset at Bryce Canyon
Day 5 Sunrise at Bryce Canyon and Drive the Tunnels to Zion
- Sunrise at Bryce
- 7 Mile Hike on most of the trails.
- Drive 85 Miles (2 Hrs) to Zion
- Hike Emerald Pools
Day 6 Full Day In Zion National Park
- The Narrows Canyon
- Scouts Over Look via West Rim Trail
- Canyon Overlook Trail
Day 7 Hiking Zion and Driving to St George
- Emerald Pools
- Pa'rus Trail
- Cathedral Overlook
- Drive to St George 46 Miles
Day 8 Drive to Mystic Hot Springs for a soak before driving to Fort Morgan!
- Drive to Mystic Hot Springs 158 Miles - 2.3 Hours
- Relax for 2 hours at the Awesome Mystic Hot Springs
- Drive to Fort Morgan 9 Hrs - 556 Miles
Vacation Running Stats
Are running stats or getting up there, with a drive time of at least 28 hours and at least is 1700 miles excluding all the day driving to trailheads and activities and back and forth to be a pretty massive trip so far. It's a good thing my Chevy Silverado is so good on gas at an average of 17.2 miles to the gallon.
Here is the overall view of the drive excluding many of the small excursions
Tracked Totals including excursions
Total Miles - 2,560
Total Time Driving - 42.3 hrs
Total Drive
You can see that we started to double back in the same route that we took out west. We'll have a few deviations on the way back but nothing major. There's going to be a significant number of miles driven in the next two days to get us back home.