After my lovely stop north of Salt Lake City, I headed out fairly early on Sunday morning and headed south, then east, then west.  Yeah I know but hang in there with me.   I will here and now say that the 100 miles from Willard Bay sucked!   Even with no horrible traffic it was stressful hauling the trailer through the city, but we made it without too much trouble.  I did start scouting for gas stations as I got out of the big traffic areas so I knew where I could fill before heading back into the city in a week or so.   I spotted the most lovely, easy access, HUGE parking lot station in Mona, on the exit for Young Living (they make lovely essential oils there at the farms AND host a massive draft horse show each Fall).

I had planned my route to head east at Scipio and then to Selena and a pop back west to catch the Highway 12 Scenic Byway.   Yeah, I should have researched more!   First off, that scenic byway is WAY better going west to east (but I knew going home I didn't want to take the time and effort to do that - when I'm headed home am like a horse headed to the barn).   The other thing I didn't realize (although it wasn't an issue for us) is that there are like 3-4 major mountains you "get to" climb over and not a one of them that you could get a run at.  I thanked God it was cool out!   NOT recommended for large motorhomes or big trailers for sure.    Because I was going the wrong direction AND because I had the trailer I didn't get to pull off and get photos of many of the scenic pull outs that I wanted to.  Oh well.    It was gorgeous but it is a very slow (I knew that going in) drive on curvy mountain roads with speed limits around 30-35.   My recommend, camp at Kodachrome or around Escalante somewhere and then plan a really long day to head over towards Torrey and back with just a car.  It is totally worth it!  I'd also highly recommend getting the pamphlet on the US 12 Scenic Byway and Backways at whatever end you start at (check with the Visitor Centers or online).   

I will say it is a bit hair raising (and I'm used to the mountain driving) driving the backbone of part of Grand Escalante Staircase but there were some nice pulloffs (luckily not much traffic) to get some photos.   So I am going to start the masses of red rock pictures with these couple!  I couldn't stop for long as I needed to keep pulling uphill mostly and didn't want the truck to overheat and didn't want to pull into camp at dark (was meeting my family there).  Tally Ho!