Exped Utah

24/05/2024

Making our way through our pictures and videos. Disney World’s Fantasmic show was an excellent finish to what started as a stressful day. Also had a win with Disney, they refunded us our Genie+ fee as I raised my serious concerns they fail to properly inform ‘new’ guests on their complicated ‘up-sell’ to buy your way to the head of their unacceptably long queues.

Anyway, enjoy these highlights from the 45 min show that ends the day at Disney. This show is a Mickey Dream, it covered every character and groups all the Princesses, the evil characters inc how they come to their demise. I absolutely loved that they ended with the ‘Showboat’ - a trip back to the very beginning of Mickey Mouse - 1928 Showboat Willie …

23/05/2024

You may recall that we were enchanted by Fort Bluff, and I pointed out that the gardens are sewn with plants from that era of expedition. Well Michael from Fort Bluff sent me these pics last night as the Holley Hocks have started to bloom. Take a look, what a showing.

21/05/2024

How far we have come since then. I’m now excited for Artemis. Why did they name it Artemis you ask? Artemis is the twin sister of Apollo in Greek mythology and is associated with the Moon.

55 years ago today, the Apollo 11 rocket crawled its way along the three-and-a-half-mile journey to Launch Pad 39A from the Vehicle Assembly Building.

The 363-foot-high space vehicle later launched Apollo 11 astronauts Neil A. Armstrong, Michael Collins and Edwin E. Aldrin Jr. on the first crewed lunar landing mission.

20/05/2024

So today, after a sleep in and final pack, we checked out of our hotel, and took the free bus back to Universal Studios. We’ve always been at the theme parks before 7:30am. Today, arriving after 9:30am was a huge shock. Huge queue to get through security. Thousands of kids in school groups, schools started breaking us for their 3mth summer vacation from last Friday (as I understand it, differs by State). Josh built himself up to go ride the Gringots 3D Roller Coaster again, queue was only an hour, he did well. Checked out Diagon Alley again (dark cold alleyway), took other respite from the Florida heat in shops…. more money fell out of our wallets, common problem with these shops 🤣… lined up early and enjoyed the Bourne Stunt Spectacular again ( mixing fusion of 3D large screen, stage actors, and real water spray and fires, a 4D experience, lots of action, to the viewers eye, it’s seamless between what is screen projected and the real life props and actors.

Lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe, before returning to our hotel to collect our bags and get here early to the airport. Took an hour to checkin bags, and get through security…. 65 million travelers a year through this airport.

Enroute for the night near LAX, before flying home tomorrow night.

20/05/2024

So we have come to the end of our “Study of theme park humans” segment of our Expedition.

We felt like Jane Goodall in those Mountains, engaged in a face to face experience, but in the wilds of the theme park.

The result of our study has identified that if the ‘theme park human’ is a representative sample of the greater herd, then humanity is in desperate need of re-calibration and repair or we are doomed.

Key Findings:

In a 50min- 75min queue (sampling avoided queues over 75mins as an unacceptable risk) affords a 360 degree immersion of either excited or bad behaving kids, a cacophony of high pitched squeals, yelling, and boasting.

One needs to beware of the weapons, a theme park child up in their parent’s arm will take an unwitting eye out with their Harry Potter Wand, bored youth will use their swinging legs to take out the back of your knees, or that one super high pitched scream in a confined concrete room, will make your ears bleed.

Beware the queue swarm. Where one of the species joins the queue, then some time later, uses secret codes to tell the rest of the swarm where they are, and suddenly that area is over-run with them.

One must also maintain a constant vigil for the many theme park humans engaged in the Park App on their mobile devices. Requiring such intent concentration to navigate the App while in quick pursuit of the next theme park ride is a very hazardous environment.

Here are some sampling data….. 🤣

20/05/2024

An amazing opportunity presented itself today while enjoying the Launch Pad Tour. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves today …..

Here’s just a couple of highlights, starting with the biggest surprise and I left the last words to a man that needs no introduction….

19/05/2024

Guess where we are today 🤔- all will be revealed later ….. 😊

18/05/2024

Quick update, survived an 18 hr day yesterday, Josh put in a huge effort, at Disney World. Woke at 6am, Uber got lost, was at Disney by 8am, in queue then in park 8:45am, didn’t leave until after the Fantasmic Show which finished at 9:30pm, but took 20min for the huge crowd to depart, home at 10:30pm, then to find dinner.

Started at Animal Kingdom, were in the first batch to enter, but when we immediately queued for the Avatar Flight of Passage, we were past the 3hr queue wait time… 😱😡. Struggled to work out their Genie App (pay for) to get a ‘Lightning Pass’, earliest Lightning Pass we got was for 5:20pm. That sealed out date for the day. Scored a Lightning Pass for Star Wars - Rise of the Resistence, for 7:20pm which is over in Disney Hollywood Studios… so after more research, discovered our best option was to stay in Animal Kingdom all day, then head over asap to Hollywood and finish there, with the Fantasmic Show…. We ended up seizing victory out of the frustrating hands of defeat.

You need to fully understand their way of doing things, which is complicated using the only mechanism which is their App.

So our first actual attraction to enjoy was The Lyon King Show at 10am….

17/05/2024

Well a big day today, after yesterday having flown across to Orlando, we walked our feet off at Universal Studios. More to come, but here’s a taste…. (quite a challenge to be around so many humans after Utah….. felt like sheep being herded….

17/05/2024

So, we went back to the Hill Aerospace Museum which is attached to the Hill USAF base, because they opened a new huge exhibit since we were there last, the Alexander Hall and the L.S. Skaggs Gallery. For us there were two stars of the show, the Raptor - Lockheed Martin F22A and stealth combat aircraft currently still in active service & the Blackbird - Lockheed Martin SR-71C which was in service until 1989 as a supersonic photo-surveillance aircraft - with cruising speeds of over 2,000 miles/hr. There was also an inspiring exhibit of Senator Brigadier General Jake Garn, pilot and astronaut. Also President Johnson’s Airforce 1, plus lots more. Come take a look…

15/05/2024

Went back to the Hill Aerospace Museum today as they’ve opened a whole new hanger exhibit since we were there last and this one was awesome. More to come when we have WiFi.

Then, there I am just now, enjoying starting tonight’s (last) campfire, when …… (7 paces away)..,,.

14/05/2024

What a night. 2am, woke to metal scraping ….. looked out the window and there was a HUGE Bison having a scratch on the picnic table under the shelter, then it walked right up beside the RV munching grass. Then I saw there were others around our RV. Didn’t want to spook them incase they kicked or horned / nudged the RV, or broke the mirror. Too dark for any decent pics (best one below)- very intimidating, imagine the insurance claim…. “Well there was this Bison ….. “, until we woke this morning and we were surrounded by Bison, right at our RV. Josh wants to use the Camp toilet but he can’t go outside … 😱

14/05/2024

Wow, check out this Sunset, right now…. 8:42pm

14/05/2024

Couple of slower paced days here at Antelope Island. Enjoyed a couple of shorter walks yesterday, one to the summit of Bison Point, we then enjoyed a Bison Burger.

Early Oct, the Bison herd is 500, the first weekend in Oct is a big round up, for vet checks and select those over the 500 to be auctioned off the tribe. So if you want a Bison to keep your grass down at home or you want to fill your freezer, make a bid. There’s a cafe here that grabs a couple of those Bison and makes them into burger patties.

After lunch we hiked up to the site of the first farm here, nice story boards, of course a grave (lost a young child), before they moved back to the mainland, hardship.

Today was trip planning for the next leg, and a walk out into the Great Salt Lake.

Enjoying camp fires and relaxing, warmer weather here. Last night - no Northern Lights, twas up till 11pm looking, then 1, 3, & 5am, but nup.

12/05/2024

Well we scored lucky. We’ve had about 30min of Northern Lights show here. First time I’ve got to enjoy Reds. While both Nanuk and Alaska were better shows, in particular to the naked eye, and considering the light pollution here, even to the naked eye, we got to watch them dance. I’ve sort of captured them dancing in the video. I’ve also included our Sunset. Magic afternoon and evening.

12/05/2024

So we made our way north, checked out Bridal Falls, hoped to camp at Nunn Campground but there were none available 🤣😡, so Josh decided we should return to Antelope Island as our RV leg draws toward an end. Everywhere is plagued by humans, just too many and not enough camp spots.

So we took a hike up the hill behind us, before relaxing by the fire making s’mores, and look who came to visit, they’re about 40m from us, right now. Here for a few days….. The bird sing here is wonderful, turn your sound up, I’ve got a short clip

11/05/2024

Good morning from Huntington State Park, down the road from Price. Pleasant outlook but on the highway. Fresh snow up on the mountains yesterday arvo as a wild storm blew thru. Bugging out early 😉

10/05/2024

Camped at Swaseys Beach on the Green River. A very relaxing day. Lots of people rafting and kayaking down the river. Spoke with one group that pulling in for lunch, they were on a rafting guide training trip, been 5 days and they pulled out at the launch ramp only 100m further on 🤣. Most tourism trips start here and head down to Moab. We camped right on the rapids.

On our way out of camp this morning we dropped into the John Powell Museum, he lead expeditions to explore and map the Green River down into and along the Colorado River. The museum also acknowledged the development of guided rafting on the river and local dinosaur finds.

10/05/2024

Visited Canyonlands National Park, just outside Moab, Utah. Again, a long delay entering the park, only has one ranger booth, bad systems. However, after 45min in queue the views were fantastic as it’s the junction where the Green River runs into the Colorado River.

This area is popular for remote 4x4 , amazing all the activities the US provide in their National Parks.

As the campground was full we headed out of the park to camp at Horsethief Camp. Tomorrow we’ll follow the Green River upstream tomorrow.

10/05/2024

Camped right beside rapids at Swaseys Beach, Green River, Utah (Google Earth/Map it). Lots of folks rafting /kayak out of Desolation Canyon. 👍

09/05/2024

At Horsethief Camp, near Canyonlands NP- confluence Green & Colorado Rivers. Amazing area. We are All good, 0 deg tonight, enjoying campfire.

08/05/2024

08/05/2024

07/05/2024

Today, having considered we’d enjoyed the key areas of Arches National Park, and just how busy it is with humans, we decided not to get an “entry time” and to explore this adventurous town of Moab. Moab sits on the Colorado River, settled in 1878. Moab is a biblical name, for an area that sits on the eastern side of the Jordan River. The towns history includes uranium mining (as has been all along our route, signs up for Navajo People to have ongoing radiation health checks) and it has a railroad through it. It’s also renowned for its dinosaur archeology.

Josh discovered there was a Dinosaur Centre, so we spent quite a few hours here, there’s a long history trail with life size models and detailed info boards which respectfully name the scientists that discovered the dinosaur findings. There’s a museum and we were invited for a personal tour of the laboratory which was great. They also have a 3D cinema on a film of the history of the universe thru to Earth. Here’s some highlights and fun.

We also checked out the off-road cars you can hire, either as self explored or tag-a-long tour, the desert around Moab is a playground for off-roading. These are legal on the roads here, as are extreme / modified 4x4’s. There’s also a NZ Style (yep that’s the advert) Jet Boat ride on the Colorado, and he’ll-flights.

It’s $450-500USD for a 1/2 day self explore hire (plus damage waived of $59 or have your own USA car insurance) or $139USD for a self-drive tag-along 3hr tour ($119USD to sit beside the guide).
You can also rent Jeeps, Trail motorbikes, lots of these vendors here, up and down the main road. There’s also lots of push bike hires, mountain, e-bikes, etc.

Here’s some highlights. Enjoy the clip, see Josh star in this version of Walking with Dinosaurs 🤣. Also check out our neighbours in the park we are staying in 😊.

07/05/2024

Not many flowers in this desert landscape at Arches National Park. Perhaps they’ve all been picked/damaged as most of the humans visiting here don’t show any respect for the environment…. It’s a very touristy National Park.