Celebrating a Birthday on the Road

We have found that it is hard to find special things to do to celebrate special occasions.  Because we are blessed to get to hike in some of this country's most beautiful places on a daily basis, it's hard to top that.  Years ago, we decided that it was up to the person celebrating a birthday to plan their special day.  So Denisa's plan started with eating coconut cream pie for breakfast. Once that was accomplished, we headed to town for church.  Then her next birthday stop was visiting Cedar Breaks National Monument.  We didn't have much of a phone signal inside the park, so it was surprising that Denisa got a phone call at one of the viewpoints in the park.  It was fun to get birthday greetings looking over the beautiful canyon!

Speaking of birthdays and old things, Cedar Breaks National Monument is home to many bristle cone pines--which are the oldest living things on earth.  They can live for 5,000 years and thrive in the harshest conditions where few other things can survive.  This big old tree looks dead, but had a couple branches in the back that were still alive.


Bristlecone pines have a unique-shaped foliage.  They could also be named "baby bottle brush pines" because they are shaped just like the brushes we used to clean those bottles.  We think that might also show Denisa's age.

Speaking of tree-fun, along the four-mile Ramparts trail that we were hiking we found a tree that was just begging for a photo.  It had a perfectly shaped and placed face hole.  Since it was Denisa's birthday, Mark obliged with posing for the picture.









We decided that looking into Cedar Breaks national monument was much like looking into a miniature Bryce Canyon.  It's a beautiful place to be on a birthday!

Denisa had planned this trip to Cedar Breaks, but she got an unexpected gift.  Driving into the mountains to the national monument took us to over 10,000 feet in elevation.  At this elevation, the leaves have turned into their glorious fall shades.  We hiked among the aspens, marveling at their color.

Since we have never lived in aspen country during the fall, we have never seen them turn their characteristic gold color before.  So we were surprised to see aspen that also had touches of orange to them.

We continued up highway 143 to Brian's Head, another Utah ski resort town.  Here we found the most beautiful fall foliage we have ever seen in our lives.  Check out the gold and orange aspen trees!

The mountain tops were beautifully golden against the blue sky today.

Next stop on this birthday trip is Cedar City for a yummy meal.  Then to work off those calories, we headed to the campus of Southern Utah University.  Having retired after working on a college campus for almost 30 years, we love visiting universities all over the country now.  With mature trees shading the entire campus, there are also hanging baskets planted with shade plants.

Famous for a Shakespeare Festival that offers live productions all summer, they even have an open-air Shakespearean Theater on campus.

We also had a map of the sculptures on campus, so we got some more exercise hunting them down.  Denisa is again getting more birthday phone calls while checking out the massive sculpture on the founding of the university.

Meanwhile, Mark is spending some quality time with Albert Einstein in the campus sculpture garden.  Two great minds think alike, and Mark let Albert borrow his cap to keep the sun out of his eyes.

It was a great birthday, and proof that we didn't have to break the bank to have a special time.  Hiking through Cedar Breaks--free (with our annual national park pass); walking through the SUU campus--free; being surprised with amazing fall foliage--priceless!

We were impressed with this area of Utah, and we really liked Cedar City.  We have a special place in our hearts for a nice college town.  On another day, we visited the Cedar City farmer's market and changed our fruit strategy from peaches to apples.  We'll enjoy this box of Utah apples on down the road.  We see an apple crisp in our future, and there's plenty to share with our RV neighbors!

Another day we used our Utah state park pass to visit the Frontier Homestead Museum.  We don't often visit museums, but having that state pass has enticed us to go to several in Utah.  This was a fun place with lots of activities for children (or adults that like to do child-like things).  There was a large collection of horse-drawn vehicles that included original wagons, surreys, and carriages.  Mark's Dad would be glad their collection even included a Clarence carriage--the Rolls Royce of horse-drawn vehicles.  They also had a reproduction stagecoach for photo opportunities.

There were log cabins, a school house, and a sawmill.  Just in case any of the museum visitors were naughty, there was also the original Cedar City jail.  Denisa thought Mark made a very good-looking inmate.

Out front, there was a retired steam shovel.  New in 1936, it is capable of lifting 12,000 pounds of rock per scoop.  That would even be enough to lift Denisa sitting in the scoop.

But our favorite part of the museum was this building.  Any ideas what it might be?

If you guessed a sheep shearing barn, you would be correct.  There were videos inside that explained the process and showed that a sheep could be completely sheared in just two minutes.  These mountain sides are home to large herds of sheep during the summer.  
They are also home to a bike path that stretches from one end of Cedar Ridge to the other.  It goes by the soccer fields on the north side . . .

and up to the mountains in the south.  The key word here is "up."  After stopping to walk her bike up too many inclines, Denisa thought it was time to turn around and coast back to the car.  We like a bike path that ends in a no-pedaling ride home, and we liked Cedar City a lot!