What might have been...

I just got back from a week-long road trip through Utah.  I know..  Utah?  But apparently they have quite a collection of astounding National Parks, and I took my son to see them over spring break.

It was very fun.  My sister and her husband were with us, and they borrowed a trailer we could all share, and we hit the road.  It was my first time camping since I was a kid, and I was excited to show my son, now that he's old enough to appreciate it, some of the beauty of this country.  I also was looking forward to getting him outside for extended lengths of time.

We live in the suburbs, which means the houses on our street are lined up like boxes on a shelf, with tiny backyards, and postage stamp sized lawns.  There is nothing for him to do outside, except ride his bike on the street.  I really wanted him to see what a pleasure it is to be outdoors.

We drove for a 15-16 hours to get to Zion National Park, in south-western Utah.  We set up the trailer, made dinner, and went to bed.  He discovered a playground and a bunch of kids in this campground, so he was out and playing the whole time.  The next morning, while we were getting ready to head into the park was the same.  We jumped on the incredibly awesome shuttle system to go into the park, and then hiked 3 trails, a total of around 10 miles, which took all day!  When we got back to the campground, he still had energy to go out and run around the campground with the kids, while I prepared dinner!

The next morning we got up, closed up camp, and drove to Bryce National Park.  This was a relatively short drive, and we had time to stop on the way at Escalante State Park and check out the largest collection of petrified wood that I've ever seen.  This only required a hike of almost 2 miles!  My son, who is an avid rock collector, was quite taken with the myriad of "rocks" with so many beautiful colors.  He was disappointed not to be able to bring any home.

Bryce was as impressive, although much smaller and higher in elevation, as Zion.  It was over 9100 feet at the topmost viewing area, and still had quite a bit of snow on the ground.  The park was set up to be able to see most of what the park offered from viewing spots along the road, and we did all of that on the first day, planning to hike the following morning.  Only one trail was open, due to snow and mud, and that took barely any time.  We spent some time in the visitor's center, and then drove to the next.

Capital Reef was an equally small park, with one long hike through towering rocks which was a wash for flash flooding during the rains, and a shorter hike to see some petroglyphs.  This was easily done in a day, and we drove on to the final camping grounds near Arches National Park.

Arches was just that.  A myriad of interesting arches carved out of the sandstone in various shapes and sizes.  We hiked for 5 miles here, but got to see all of the famous arches that this park boasted.

We had originally planned another day in this area to see Canyonlands National Park, but work schedules and a week-long Jeep convention in Moab restricted our ability to stay another night.   We could have seen some of it after Arches, since we had seen all we could by mid-afternoon, but I was gritty from sandstorms, tired, and desperately wanted a shower.  We ended up visiting Moab, then heading back for dinner and showers.

The next morning we broke camp again to drive across the state of Utah.  We had basically gone diagonally from the bottom left, to the top right (under the L) of the state, so now needed to drive the entire length to get back to Nevada and our final stop.

We arrived at Great Basin National Park, just past the state line in Nevada, mid-afternoon... just in time to set up the trailer and head down for the cave tour being offered at 3:30.  This is what the park is known for, apparently, and the only thing open due to snow.  The caves were quite impressive, and unlike any others that I've visited.  This was my son's first cave experience, and he loved it as much as I did.

This was definitely the most primitive of the campsites we had visited.  There were no hook-ups, so we had no water, except what was in our tanks, or electricity.  There was no free wi-fi and no cell service!  This was definitely as out of touch as you could possibly get.  It was very weird, and I was glad to be leaving in the morning!

But next morning, we woke up to almost 3" of snow on the trailer, and still falling!  It was beautiful for sure, and luckily I had expected rain at some point in our trip, so had all of my rain gear to keep me dry, but I was definitely interested in getting out there and clearing off the snow so we could get off the mountain before we got snowed in.

Getting the snow off involved climbing up a picnic table that we turned on it's side longwise so I could climb onto the top of the trailer in order to sweep the snow off of the pull-out so we could retract it.  I was very thankful for the gore-tex rain pants!  We got the snow off and the trailer hooked up without incident and were on the road by 9am.  Thankfully, the snow was only at the higher elevations and the roads were clear.

We drove all the way across Nevada on Highway 50.  What a long, desolate road!  We got into Reno around 5 pm, with plenty of time to stop for dinner and shop in Cabela's for all the outdoor wear we could possibly never need. 

Passing through Reno was very nostalgic for me.  It has changed a lot in the almost 20 years since I left it.  I lived there for a year when I moved there with the company I worked for out of high school.  I couldn't help but wonder what my life would be like had I stayed there and hadn't been in such a hurry to get back to California.

Granted, I hated it there.  Reno was a definite pit, and we spent every weekend in California with family.  But I had a really good job, that I enjoyed and where I was respected.  I wonder where I could have gone with my career had I stayed.  The University of Reno is a very good school, and I went there for a semester during my short stint in Nevada.

I'm not usually given to what if's... and I would definitely have been miserable for a long time.  But I wonder if I would have had more success in my career if I had stayed with that company.  You never can tell, but it's hard not to wonder.