More Utah National Parks & a Few Small Towns (April 29-May 6, 2021)
“There is a comfortable feeling in small towns. It is salubrious” - Andie MacDowell
As we were leaving our Harvest Host location in Parowan Gap, Utah our host asked where our next stop would be. When we told him Green River Utah he said “Oh, there’s not much in Green River” and he was right. We chose Green River basically for its proximity to Moab and Arches National Park. We definitely wanted to visit Arches but when we were planning this trip, the campgrounds in Arches National Park were first come first served, meaning we weren’t able to make reservations there ahead of time. Showing up at a National Park hoping to get a campsite is not my idea of a good time so we made reservations at Green River State Park, about 45 minutes northwest of Arches.
The town of Green River is a small oasis town best known for its ability to grow watermelons. It’s located on the Green River (surprise surprise) and its State Park is the launching point for many boaters and rafters headed downriver to the Moab area. We were in town too early for the annual watermelon festival and we didn’t bring a boat so unfortunately, there wasn’t a whole lot to keep us occupied while we were in town.
We’d had a handful of National Park visits under our belt at this point so we knew that getting to Arches early on a weekday was our best chance of avoiding the crowds. We arrived at our campsite Thursday afternoon and quickly made a plan to get up early on Friday morning to head to Arches. We entered the gates at Arches at about 7:30 am and it was, at that point relatively quiet. We didn’t set out with a plan to do any hiking there and to be honest, we really just wanted to see some arches. Many were within a short walking distance from the parking areas so we focused on those. They were incredibly beautiful and definitely worth seeing but it didn’t take long for the park to get very busy and for parking to become nearly impossible. We ended up staying only a few hours but were happy with what we were able to see in the amount of time that we were there. As we left the park, there were about 150 cars and RVs waiting to get in (yes, I did a rough count). From Arches, we headed about 4 miles down the road to Moab, UT where we stopped at a little café for a coffee and donut then wandered around town for a bit. Moab appeared to be a cool little town with a lot of off-road vehicles cruising around.
Canyonlands, a lesser-known National Park, is also located just outside Moab and since we hadn’t spent much time at Arches we decided to add another National Park to our list. The drive to Canyonlands was about 22 miles of easy desert driving. We stopped at the visitor’s center just inside the park and after looking at the park map, realized that most points of interest were still several miles away. We decided to walk to the viewpoint across from the visitor’s center, take some pictures, and call it a day. It really was an incredible view and if the rest of the park is anything like that view, I’m not sure why Canyonlands isn’t a more popular place. At the time of our visit, Charley are I were at the point where we were quite frankly “canyoned out”. This was our seventh National Park visit in less than three weeks – all of them somewhat similar – canyons, rocks, etc and they were beginning to lose their wow factor. I’m glad we visited all of the National Parks that we did but I feel like we shouldn’t have done them all back to back or maybe not as quickly as we did. We spent the rest of our time in Green River relaxing, walking around town, and doing some maintenance on the camper. I caulked the shower stall (again! for some reason it continues to leak) and Charley replaced the trailer wiring connector. We discovered, when leaving the Grand Canyon, that not all of the points of contact on the brake controller were making contact so it was good to get the wiring connector fixed.
Our next stop after Green River was about an hour north in another small town called Helper, Utah. We had a three-night gap in our schedule before a planned week’s stay in the Salt Lake City area and we chose Helper because it was on the way. The campground we stayed at Castle Gate RV Park was brand new, built in 2018, and was an absolutely fabulous place to hang our hats for a few days! The staff was super friendly, the laundry facilities were beautiful and the private bathrooms were the nicest we’d seen yet. After National Park hopping for several weeks, we were really glad to settle in a small town for a few days. The campground was located within two blocks of Helper’s Main St so we were able to walk everywhere we needed to go. Helper is an old coal mining and railroad town being brought back to life by some dedicated residents. We spent the better part of a day touring the Western Mining and Railroad Museum which encompassed way more than the mining and railroad history of the area. It was actually a really comprehensive local history museum. On each end of Main St, a local businessman has fully restored two old service stations. This same businessman also owns a vintage motorcycle museum in town and we got a personal tour (at no cost!) by his brother. Charley was of course in his glory! We enjoyed a cup of coffee at the beautiful little coffee shop in town and walked the two-mile riverwalk along the Price River. We absolutely loved everything about our stay in Helper. We hope to visit again one day to see all of the additional progress made in revitalizing the town.
Here’s a link to an article about the restorations taking place in Helper.
