A visual to tantalize your imagination

This first one is a great shot of Cottonwood Canyon. I found this one on the web so I'm not sure where it is exactly, but I have it labeled as being from Hole in the Rock, which is on the West side. So I think we're looking up the canyon towards the Little Hole in the Rock in the middle and off to the right, which would be our first campsite. The color in this photo is true to life.



The second photo was taken by JoAnn on our last trek in 2007 as we were approaching the top of Little Hole in the Rock from the East. I have spied the Hole in the Rock (West side) for the first time and you can barely see it in the background, or maybe not at all on this smaller version.

Joy's Day Pack List For Hikers

OUR PRIORITIES HERE ARE:

SMALL --ESSENTIAL --DOUBLE DUTY--FIT INTO A DAY PACK

• 1 Day Pack – any size you are comfortable with & prepared to carry for 4 days. A regular size day pack should be big enough to hold these essentials.

• 1 Water Bottle – to be refilled as needed from the big water barrels on the trucks.

• Sunglasses

• Prescriptions or over-the-counter meds. you rely on

• Skin Care Items – Essentials for me are chap stick & aloe vera in the hot dry SW environment. Others to consider are sunscreen, lotion in small bottles. Everyone doesn’t need their own. Share within a family.

• 2 Large Safety Pins – At the beginning of a hike up Mt. St. Helens, the shoulder strap on my heavy ski pack broke. I had no safety pins (which wouldn’t have been strong enough anyway) but I did have twine in my pack. So I tied the shoulder strap to my pack somehow & it held all the way to the top and back down for one of the best ski runs I’ve ever had. Safety pins, short pieces of cord, tape – all very, very handy when your resources are limited. There will be duct tape on the trucks.

• Hat – for sun protection and storms.

• 2 kerchiefs – 5 quarts of water will be provided per person per day for drinking, food prep, cleanup, which only allows about one teacup per day for bathing. This makes a bath towel a bit out of scale. Think small – handkerchief, washcloth size towel. Kerchiefs dry quicker than wash cloths, take less space, & have multiple uses: sweat band, bandage, cooling wet neckerchief, hat (both of my kerchiefs were put to use by Kent & Adriana in the cold storms we encountered on the 2007 trip).

• Toothbrush & Toothpaste – small tube, shared by a family.

• Hairbrush – could be shared by a family.

• Soap or Individually Wrapped Wipes – Although water is scarce, soap is still important. One small bar of soap could be shared by a family.

• 4-6 Clean Undies

• Several Pairs of Socks

• 1 Change of Clothes – maybe shorts if you are wearing pants or vice versa. Consider a long sleeve shirt for sun protection. Especially important for sunburn cover after the burn.

• 1 Flashlight per family

• 1 Whistle per child – on a cord to wear around the neck. This is to find lost children quickly. Parents need one too.

• Boot Pads OR whatever YOU need for the needy area of YOUR body. For me, it’s my feet. Maybe it’s your knees or back. Bring your knee thing, or your favorite sore muscle rub or eye-wash if your eyes are sensitive.

• Small Individual First Aid Kit that contains just the basics such as band aids, antiseptic cream, aspirin etc. INCLUDE MOLE SKIN or other blister care. Blisters are likely to be our most common injury. This kit could be shared by a family. A large first aid kit will be in a truck. It will contain stuff for the trained first aiders to treat broken bones, shock, dehydration, etc.

• Snacks – Whatever you want. For example – eight high energy bars equals two per day OR whenever you run out of calories, especially for the kids.

• 1 Brown Bag Lunch for the first day. Prepare it in Blanding and take it with you on the boat ride. Take enough food to last you through the first day’s activities of boat ride, climbing & exploring the actual hole-in-the-rock AND hiking 3-4 miles up Cottonwood Canyon to the support trucks for dinner.

ESSENTIAL BUT TOO LARGE FOR YOUR PACK

• Coat – fleece type would be adequate for those cold morning or storms. Double duty as a pillow. Throw it on the support truck. Stuff the pockets with a warm hat and maybe gloves too.

• Sleeping Bag & Pad – Use your coat for a pillow if your health will allow. Throw these on the support truck. Mark or flag your gear. They all tend to look alike.

OPTIONAL

• Extra Glasses for the contact wearers. Remember – sand gets into everything.

• Small Journal

• Small Camera – On the 2007 trip dust & sand clogged our cameras. Some were permanently ruined. Got an old one? If you bring a charger, bring a DC adaptor to plug into a cigarette lighter, or better yet coordinate with your support truck--some already have adapters and plugs and things.

• Compass, Small Binoculars – These are small and add so much to any outdoor experience but are not essential.

• Tent – to be carried by the truck.

OTHER RECOMMENDATIONS

• Hiking Boots – We’ll be hiking through rough, rocky, slanted terrain, so ankle support would be good. However, if your ankles are strong, running shoes are good enough. Traction is never a problem on sandstone if you have rubber soles.

• Hiking Stick – We’ll check with the boat company to see if they can be carried on the boat so you will have them on your first hike. Consider a retractable model as it will take up less space.

WHAT NOT TO BRING
• Alarm Clock/Electronic games
• Brand new boots. Hiking boots are recommended but they should be broken in.

HITR 2009 Itinerary

Here is Ed's rough itinerary. Open the Google Earth map with the route carefully labeled. Download Google Earth for free if you haven't already.

Boaters/Hikers (Main Party):

• Before you leave home, hikers connect with an advanced party driver to transfer everything that the hiker can't carry on the HITR trail: sleeping bag, tent (for sharing), sleeping pad. Refer to Joy's packing list. Keep it as light as possible.
  

• Day 1, Monday
  
  • Main body departs from Hall's Crossing by boat for HITR and Cotton Wood Creek.
    
  • Main body boat meets advanced party and explores Hole in the Rock on the west side together. Boat takes us back and forth across the river.
    
  • Main body and advanced party hikes up Cotton Wood Creek to Little HITR. (3.34 miles) See map.
    
• Day 2, Tuesday - Company departs Little HITR for West edge of Grey Mesa (5.2 miles)
• Day 3, Wednesday - Company departs West edge of Grey Mesa using vehicles to cross Grey Mesa (5.18 Miles) with a stop to view the Great Bend of the San Juan River, and continuing on to slick rock camp site (4.74 Miles)
• Day 4, Thursday
  
  • Company departs slick rock site for Spanish Fort (4.63 miles)
  • Advance party takes select drivers from Main Body to Hall's Crossing to bring Vehicles back to Spanish Fort for Main Body.

Hole in the Rock 2009 Trek

Now you can see why it's called Comb Ridge

10 Washout again

[This is a small, low-res, work in progress. We plan to do some narration and more editing after that. The finished product will be saved to DVD for finer viewing. If you wish to receive a copy when it's ready, let me know.]

We ran into a large party on ATVs during the thickest of the snow storm. They seemed unfazed by the weather. They were on their way in for a week stay. I don't think they were planning to go all the way, but it seemed brazen of them in lieu of the snow falling. They must have been locals, and they knew nothing stays wet for long on the slick rock.

Back in camp this morning I noticed that Kent's truck seemed to have a new ticking sound in the engine. He decided that the water pump bearings were wearing thin. Normally, nothing to worry about, but out here, far from the auto parts store, it was something to notice. When we got back to Blanding he ordered one up and replaced it the next day.

After lunch we found ourselves at Lake Canyon so early we couldn't bear to go straight back to Blanding. We pulled out all the maps and looked for something fun for the afternoon.
We decided to visit Comb Wash and San Juan Hill: the pioneers last heroic push. I think after that they decided enough was enough and that this (Bluff) was a fine spot. Later, they decided it wasn't as nice a spot, in the flood plain of the San Juan River, and moved to Blanding.

9 Heading Out

[This is a small, low-res, work in progress. We plan to do some narration and more editing after that. The finished product will be saved to DVD for finer viewing. If you wish to receive a copy when it's ready, let me know.]

It was inevitable. We had to start for civilization sooner than later and the weather was starting to make it look like the sooner the better.

We fussed around with the first obstacle, which was right out of camp, filling in with rock to soften the approach. The short wheel base of the Jeep definitely had its advantages in these spots, although we never had any trouble with our pickups.

We bumped along and so did the weather. It would be sunny one minute, hailing the next, snowing the next, raining the next and sunny the next. None of the things that were hard coming in were hard going out. There were different things. A steep slick rock with a little precipitation on it turned out to be actually slick. By the second try the tires were dry enough to make it up.

Cozy places to lean out of the wind were key for choosing a lunch spot. Kent was good at spotting them. We found one in a relatively sandy area against some smaller sandstone bumps.

8 Hiking to Grey Mesa

[This is a small, low-res, work in progress. We plan to do some narration and more editing after that. The finished product will be saved to DVD for finer viewing. If you wish to receive a copy when it's ready, let me know.]

We were sad to be leaving, but Ana and I had a plane to catch on Saturday and we didn't want to miss it. The weather was getting progressively worse and it seemed prudent to start back. This morning the wind was so strong that we all had to put on some sort of protective head gear. I had on both my hats and even Kent put on a bandanna to protect his ears. I have never experienced wind like that except at the beach and at the top of a mountain.

Getting up the chute was no problem. I don't even remember getting up the bank at the top, so that wasn't much of a to do either. We all paused at the top of the Chute to take a group photo with a timer. (It's on film and I have yet to scan that one in and add it to the video.)

We zoomed back across Grey Mesa, stopping again to ogle the beautiful view of the San Juan River. So irresistible. We had lunch just off the top of Grey Mesa, coming down toward Marble Camp. We named it Lunch Bowl, for its shape. We sought the bowl's shelter from the wind. Ana enjoyed climbing around on the slick rock in her socks.

We got back to Marble Camp so early that we decided to explore the pioneer road up to Grey Mesa. The road we used was built by miner's around the turn of the century. We had read about the descent off of Grey Mesa, so we wanted to see it first hand.

Not to be caught at dusk without any roofs and beds, we set up camp before we went. Paul's cache was undisturbed.

We started at the interpretive sign and followed the cuts. Obviously this road had not been used in many years and was in no shape for wagons. They must have filled in certain holes with debris and built up edges for a little extra width. These cuts rivaled the class 5 rapid that broke Kent's tailgate. I was having an even harder time imagining the wagons coming down these crazy "roads" without careening out of control and busting up. But they didn't, according to the accounts.

We had a hard time following the trail over the slick rock where there were no cuts or tracks. We just kept exploring and searching for clues and finally found it all the way to the top of the mesa. We didn't find the abandoned wagon box that was reported to be at the top of the mesa, but we did finally connect back to the road we had used. The weather finally blew in and it started to snow on us. We were well prepared this time, except for the teenagers, who were impervious to weather.

We had a wonderful dinner of campfire stew and orange cakes. Joy is an excellent camp cook. We didn't get to play music for very long before the rain sent us to bed early.

7 Hiking to Cottonwood

[This is a small, low-res, work in progress. We plan to do some narration and more editing after that. The finished product will be saved to DVD for finer viewing. If you wish to receive a copy when it's ready, let me know.]

We weren't sure what to do next, so as usual, we scouted around. We didn't see a good road from there. The most obvious one was straight up and had this large crack to straddle. It looked like a good place to get a wheel stuck. While the scouting party was out, Ed drove the Jeep up it. The suction cups had no trouble with the crack.

We were all out scouting and pretty far away from the vehicles. We decided we must be close enough that we could just hike out to the top of Cottonwood Canyon. We weren't sure, but we thought we could make it to Little Hole in the Rock in the time we had. We decided we would hike as far as we could in half the daylight left and then turn around and come back. We had 2 water bottles, some trail mix, JoAnn's goodies and various coats and sweatshirts. Not exactly prepared, but we thought it was okay for a few hours of hiking.

The road was great on the other side of the big steep hill with the major crack in it. We could've driven all the way to Cheese Camp if we had known. We found the easier road around the big steep hill on the way back.

Well, it was further than we thought, but we made it all the way down to the bottom of Sand Hill. We peered down at the road at the bottom of Cottonwood Canyon. It was spectacular to see the whole canyon with the Hole in the Rock in the background. I was thrilled to see that this canyon was similar to the large canyon I had been longing to look at, Iceberg. The red rock walls were huge and they had all kinds of beautiful formations and side canyons. We saw the most beautiful amphitheater up high in one side canyon; it had a spring in it! That was where the Native Americans would have started a village.

The Little Hole in the Rock was unimaginable for the wagons, but it was the cut at the top of Sand Hill that was most amazing to me. Sheer rock with a sheer drop off on one side. The pioneers had built all these cuts for the road. We knew from family history that people had had accidents there, and had lived to tell about it. I still couldn't imagine.

It was a major push getting back before dark. I taried too much taking pictures. My camera battery was almost gone, so I was being very discerning. But then it was just hurry, hurry, hurry, as it was getting dark and threatening to storm. My feet were starting to go numb. They felt like beef jerky.

By the time we arrived at the vehicles, it was starting to rain and the wind had increased. It was getting dark and someone suggested we just sleep in the trucks. I wasn't going to sleep in the truck without a fight. We decided to make the best of where we were since it was too dark to drive the vehicles anywhere. The wind was so fierce that Ana and I had to have help from Joy in putting up our little tent. (Joy and Kent's tarp on the back of their truck was much better in this situation. Kent managed it on his own while Joy was helping us.) We finally got our tent in a tent shape, with the wind twisting it this way and that and pelting us with huge drops of rain. I made Ana get in the tent to keep it from blowing over the hills because we were set up on slick rock and there was nothing to stake to. Still the wind was threatening to take them both from me, so Joy got a cooler full of food, while I put the rain fly on. I got in with the cooler and we didn't get out until morning. We snuggled in our warm sleeping bags, listened to the wind whistle and the rain smack, snacked from our cooler and told each other stories.

This was the most exciting part of our whole trip. There is no photo documentation because it all happened in the dark. The next morning we heard from the other half of our party. They had managed to get the larger of their two tents up and had staked it down creatively with a truck, a Jeep, a hi-lift jack, a hammer and other heavy items. I knew those things would come in handy but I didn't imagine for that use. They had also had a snacky dinner and gone straight to bed.

6 The Chute

[This is a small, low-res, work in progress. We plan to do some narration and more editing after that. The finished product will be saved to DVD for finer viewing. If you wish to receive a copy when it's ready, let me know.]


The Chute didn't look hard, but it had a sharp approach. We had to drop into it off a 6-7 foot bank at an odd angle. We couldn't possibly entertain thoughts of how we going to get out of that coming back.

But The Chute itself was easy. Just a narrow, smooth canyon. Nowhere to go but down. It had been extremely hard for the pioneers because the animals couldn't get traction. They were going up.

A bit of tricky spot on the bottom, negotiating between two water holes.

5 Grey Mesa

[This is a small, low-res, work in progress. We plan to do some narration and more editing after that. The finished product will be saved to DVD for finer viewing. If you wish to receive a copy when it's ready, let me know.]

The morning was beautiful. The sun did not make it into our side of the mesa until almost 10, but it was worth the show.

Paul, JoAnn and Ed decided to downsize the load in Paul's truck, so they made a cache at Marble Camp. They left behind such luxuries as a 3-burner gas stove, extra water, extra gas, camp chairs, and who knows what else.

Someone, Ed I think, had walked up and discovered the other party in the next camp spot. They had had some trouble on the road between us and them. A narrow tippy spot that drops off to the bottom of the canyon. No room for error.

A motorcyclist came by as we were packing up and running around. Kent talked to him briefly. He scurried on.

We took the warning to heart about the tippy spot and spent much time doing road building magic with extra rocks on the low side. Everyone got through fine, except for Joy and I couldn't watch, so there is no video of it. Kent was losing gas out of his spout. After he made it over the tippy spot he discovered his cap was on crooked.

Right after the horrible tippy spot that hardly gave us any trouble there was a class 5 rapids going uphill, of course. Huge stair steps. I could hardly hike it myself, although my legs are exceedingly short. It was so hard to imagine the wagons and animals going over these rough roads. Kent's tailgate bounced off and so did much of the load--his was much smaller than Paul's, thankfully, or we would have been there all day picking it up off the road. Only the tailgate itself was broken and Kent fixed it with a piece of firewood. He reloaded and roped everything down, including the tailgate and didn't have any trouble after that. I think that was our roughest spot, though.

Grey Mesa was incredible. Flat, incredibly flat, in this land of never ending bumps. Sand and sagebrush. The road was so smooth. Wind graded, we decided. We buzzed right along, until the view stopped us. To the south the San Juan River come right up the mesa in a goose neck. We felt like birds looking in. So expansive....Navajo Mountain in the distant west. Colorado River to the north, although not visible because we were on the southern side of the mesa. We could see this incredible huge canyon over there to the north, by the Rincon, that we finally identified as Iceberg Canyon. It's beautiful, but only accessible by water, as far as I can tell. You can see pictures people have posted on Google Earth.

We had lunch on a nice flat spot after descending Grey Mesa. Just after lunch we ran into the party ahead of us, as they were coming out. They had been as far as the Chute. They said it didn't look hard, but they had to get back. They were impressed with the roughness of the road in general and were enjoying their 4x4 trip.

We had lunch and mosied on to the Chute, confident now, after the latest report. The lone motorcyclist passed us on his way out. I guess he didn't stop for much.

4 Where's the Road?

[This is a small, low-res, work in progress. We plan to do some narration and more editing after that. The finished product will be saved to DVD for finer viewing. If you wish to receive a copy when it's ready, let me know.]

It is a bit hard to tell where the road is sometimes, when there is only solid rock and no tracks.

As happens whenever you get a little confident, we had a little stumble. There was a bit of a glitch which is not properly documented on film. We got off the road somewhere. Jed had even warned us about this too. The road goes up a cut instead of off on the smooth inviting slick rock. Well, we missed it the first time and went several hundred feet before wondering where the road was. That's where Paul was studying the map. No amount of maps and GPS could guide us like seeing eye dogs through the "elephant butts" of slick rock. (Paul's term) We had to use good common sense and tracking skills to find the road. It wasn't that hard, but we had to be patient and look hard until we were sure. I even came home and traced our whole route on Google Earth. Once you get the idea, you know what to look for.

We knew we were getting close to Grey Mesa because it kept looming at the top of the skyline. At the base of it, right before the only interpretive sign, we encountered another tricky spot in the road. It was a steep step up in a narrow canyon--no way to go around this one. We piled rocks against the step to lessen the angle. Kent got some uncharacteristic air. Paul had to try several times and put up with coaching from Kent. The Jeep went everywhere like it had suction cups.

The step down out of the little narrow canyon was also quite steep and the pickups scraped their rear bumpers going down. We fussed a little about how we were going to get back out that way, but decided not to worry about that until we needed to.

It was getting to be late afternoon, so we decided to make camp at a nice flattish spot, before the grade up to Grey Mesa. This turned out to be a wise choice, as we learned there was a party just ahead of us that was using the next camp spot. We had a hunch we were following someone because the tracks looked fresh.

This area is known as Marble Camp for the little sandstone marbles that grow out of the round sandstone hills. It looks like a fungus attacking the slick rock. You can see them forming in some spots and, at some point, they detach themselves and go rolling around. It made for very bad traction for the pioneers, I'm sure.

Ana and Katy had a wonderful time playing in the little canyons around camp. They came in for dinner half soaked, so I guess it hadn't been too long since it had rained.

We had a little trouble finding sufficient "soil" to stake the tents in. The sand is really only a byproduct of the sandstone and the wind, so it is not usually very deep. I suppose there must be a modern fix for this lack of staking medium.

We celebrated Joy's birthday with soggy graham crackers and marshmallow with a candle stuck in. Joy was having the best birthday, having finally gotten to go on a Hole in the Rock trip. She had been made to stay home on the last opportunity because she was nursing a baby. Her younger brothers Paul and Ed had gone with Grandpa Lyman.

After dinner, Kent and I played some fiddle tunes. The instruments were traveling well in their cozy, snugly-packed box.

3 Old Pros Now

[This is a small, low-res, work in progress. We plan to do some narration and more editing after that. The finished product will be saved to DVD for finer viewing. If you wish to receive a copy when it's ready, let me know.]

Okay, so we made it through the big washout. Like I said, Jed had made it sound like a pretty big deal. We had set our expectations pretty low so as not to be disappointed if we didn't make it all the way to the Little Hole in the Rock. But we made it past the washout. What was around the next corner?

We felt like we could make it as far as we hoped now.

You'll have to pardon the section on the video where I'm walking along looking at the ground and talking. I didn't know the camera was on, but I like the audio, so I've left it in for now. Don't watch if it makes you dizzy.

2 First Challenge - The Washout

[This is a small, low-res, work in progress. We plan to do some narration and more editing after that. The finished product will be saved to DVD for finer viewing. If you wish to receive a copy when it's ready, let me know.]

We were on the lookout for the washout. Jed had given us great detail of he and his wife trying to ascend it on their ATVs and it didn't sound good.

It was steep and sandy too. There was much fussing about the road, using the shovel and moving rocks. Those not involved in the engineering were ogling the sites. This is where Uncle Albert built a small cabin which has since deteriorated back to the land. The tin roof is all that remains. Apparently the cabin site was part of the slide and it is now in the bottom of the canyon. Uncle Albert was a historian from early on and carved his name, initials and date in the slick rock bank behind his cabin, which turned out to be alongside the new "road." He went on to write elaborately of the local history.

The Jeep went up no problem (suction cups, I tell ya.). Paul had a bit of trouble getting traction, and after several attempts, finally made it, but not without leaving a souvenir on his front fender. He hit the wall briefly, almost damaging Uncle Albert's graffiti, and left a nice sandstone scrape where his pristine fender had been.

The old tan Toyota workhorse was unfazed.

1 Starting Out

[This is a small, low-res, work in progress. We plan to do some narration and more editing after that. The finished product will be saved to DVD for finer viewing. If you wish to receive a copy when it's ready, let me know.]

We didn't know what to expect. The pioneer account of the Hole-in-the-Rock trek was excruciating. A daily fight with the elements and the geography for man and beast. The winter of 1879-80 turned out to be history-making in terms of harsh weather. What were they thinking?

We planned a "spring" trip to avoid winter's worst bite, but there was some snow in the forecast. March in Utah is a little different than what we're used to. The locals we talked to were excited for us, although none had cleared their schedules to join us. Most thought it was still a pretty hard trip. We had read and gleaned as much information as we could from books and family and we were apprehensive and excited at the same time. Of course, we knew it would pale to giving birth in a snow storm in the middle of winter in the middle of nowhere.

We drove at lightning speed, compared to the pioneers, to our designated turn-off. The only problem was that we couldn't find it. We were so excited and anxious that we kept trying to turn before we got there. We had been told it was by the airport and between such and such mileposts. When the milepost came and went and no airport, we got very nervous. We hadn't even gotten off the highway yet. How silly we felt when it was right there in plain view less than a mile down the road.

Almost immediately the road got rough in a surprising way. It didn't look terribly rough but it felt bumpy. The county had "graded" the slick rock, so it had an evenness to the grooves. They were not smooth to drive over. By the time we came to the first intersection, we were all glad to pile out for a brief respite from the bumpies. We busied ourselves with pictures and geography and maps.

We had to stop again at Spanish Fort and take in the view of Lake Canyon, a beautiful oasis in the middle of an orange desert. We had lunch down in the bottom, underneath the cottonwood trees. We found a large log for a table and stood around debating the species of the trees and other plants foreign to us.

We followed the sandy canyon for what seemed like a long way when we were expecting a lot of slick rock. Sometimes the walls of the canyon were straight and beautifully water-stained. A lot of them had graffiti carvings, mostly recent.

Abruptly the sandy road ended and the slick rock road began. Our first slick rock driving. Paul went first and only lost his maps. His load wobbled from side to side considerably but, other than the maps, he never lost anything. Joy, JoAnn and I always got out when the going looked rough.

JoAnn was never without her belt of goodies: camera, water bottle, GPS and I'm not sure what else. She was well-stocked.

We were amazed at how easy the modern rubber tires ascended the slick rock. (Why was it called slick rock anyway? Oh, yeah. When they named it, they were using steel-rimmed wagon wheels and steel-shod horses.) The jeep had especially good traction. I decided it had suction cups on the tires. Turns out its axles lock together when it feels a wheel slipping, so the wheels never slip. Great idea.

Kent was our expert 4-wheeler, having spent much of his college years toodling around in the mountains outside of Provo in his '41 Dodge Powerwagon. He was the smoothest driver, knowing just how to handle the gas for the best traction and to pick the best route through the bumps. He usually pulled up the rear of our caravan, plodding along like an old work horse, unconcerned and slightly annoyed by the younger set's apprehension over every little nasty bump in the road.

Monday March 27, 2007

Joy's birthday: 63.

We meant to leave at 7 am, but of course, we didn't quite make it off in time. Not suprising, it was Joy and Kent who weren't ready on time. Actually, I was surprised because they are usually good at getting an early start.

We all stopped at the gas station on the way out of town and filled up. We snagged an employee to take the obligatory group photo.

We drove from Blanding on Hwy 95 to Hwy 276. Amazing amounts of geography variation.