Utah - Heber City

 

With all the mountains in Utah, the ride is like a roller coaster. Twists and curves and switchbacks, up a mountain and down another and no one does the speed limit! You would think they are on some road course race that they didn’t tell us about. 

There is a big change in the scenery from Moab to Heber City in Wasatch County. Instead of mountains with amazing rock formations, the mountains are lush green with moss and trees and a lot of snow tops. We arrived in Heber City at Mountain Valley RV Resort Thursday, 5/8, our last stop in Utah before we head to Wyoming. Our stop here is to get caught up on a few necessities and a few routine maintenance items like grease the suspension on the 5th wheel, get an oil change and tire rotation on the truck, do some shopping at a major grocery chain (instead of the little mom and pops in the national park towns) regroup and relax. It's been 10,000 miles on the truck and 5,300 miles on the fifth wheel since we left home and one and a half months since leaving Florida, so a little TLC for the equipment and us was in order too. They have 3 pools with hot tubs, which we took advantage of, pickleball and other activities. The weather was sunny and highs in the 80’s for several days which was great, but we also had high winds from Sunday to Tuesday with gusts over 40 mph. We were glad we were secure in the RV park and not on the open roads.

This is considered the "slow season" for tourists here, the time between snow skiing/snowboarding and the summer arts and festival season. Heber City and the surrounding areas are also known for their premier mountain biking trails. On the other hand, construction here is anything but slow, it's booming! We thought all the construction might have to do with Salt Lake City hosting the Olympics in 2034, but we have learned that Utah has been ranked among the fastest-growing states in the US. The locals will tell you that this area especially saw a drastic influx during covid. Californians relocating to Utah to get away from whatever was going on there and have told their friends how wonderful it is here, leading to the population boom and all of the construction going on.

A few other fun facts about Utah:                                                                                                                Utah's name comes from the Native American tribe, the Ute, meaning "people of the mountains".  Utah's nickname is the "Beehive State", not for an abundance of bees, but because the early settlers were known for their industry, hard work and strong community focus. The first Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise opened in Utah in 1952.  

One last observation regarding Utah...we've seen more cattle and people wearing cowboy hats here than we did in Texas. We wouldn't want anyone to think that the people around here are all hat and no cattle. 

On our way to Heber City, we passed through Provo.

Look at the view the students at BYU, Brigham Young University, have.

LaVell Edwards Stadium

All set up with beautiful flowering trees at 

Mountain Valley RV Resort.

This was our view Saturday morning

from our RV.

No wood fires are allowed, but every night

the fire pits are available to sit around (except in high winds).

We went to Park City which is home to 

two world-class ski resorts, Deer Valley

and Park City Mountain.

The Sundance Film Festival is located here in Park City. 

It's a very artsy town, we don't think 

we have ever seen so many art galleries in one town.

Many celebrities are said to own homes here - Taylor Swift,

Lisa Kudrow, Tony Danza and Michael Jordan to name a few.

My new friend in Park City since we didn't

see any celebrities.

We had hoped we could ride a chair lift, but they are

between seasons. Everything opens back up just before

Memorial Day.

Since we couldn't get to the top of the mountain via

the chair lift, we went to the Top of Main for a beer

with altitude.

We wanted to drive the Alpine Loop Scenic Byway and

we checked to see if it was open. Supposedly, it opened

Mother's Day, May 11. When we got to the ranger station

we were told it wouldn't open until the end of May. The

ranger suggested we go to Cascade Springs via a different road, 

as that was already open.

Cascade Springs is located in the Uinta-Wasatch-

Cache National Forest.

Over 7 million gallons of water flow from the 

springs daily.