Giggles & Getaways

Trip Overview

Duration: 10 days

Timing: Mid-April, 2022

We had been super-excited about going to Yellowstone for weeks for our babymoon but ended up going to Utah. We only realized that Yellowstone was still very cold and icy in April the day before going to Yellowstone. In the 4th month of the pregnancy, I did not want to stress myself too much from the long drive and snow weather in Yellowstone. Better safe than sorry, we switched to Utah. However, Utah turned out to be a perfect destination for babymoon in April, mom-to-bes! As we already explored Bryce and Zion, we decided to visit the rest of Utah’s Might Five: Capital Reef, Arches, and Canyonlands.

Itinerary:

We have a super flexible, wing-it plan with a lot of down time to accommodate the pregnancy:

Day 1: Orange County, CA – Las Vegas, NV. Rest.

Day 2: Las Vegas – Loa, UT. Rest.

Day 3: Visit the Capital Reef (Half Day)

Day 4: Visit Capital Reef (Full Day)

Day 5: Swing Arm City (Half Day)

Day 6: Moonscape, Factory Butte & Arches

Day 7: Rest (Full Day)

Day 8: Canyonlands (Half Day)

Day 9: Loa, UT – Sedona, AZ.

Day 10: Sedona, AZ – Orange County, CA.

Capital Reef National Park: An Adventurous Day

With no prior pregnancy experience and the new energy of the 2nd trimester, we had a full day 10am – 12am adventure at the Capital Reef National Park. As usual, we did some quick research the night before for recommendations of great scenic views and planned out what we would do using the park map.

As we checked out the Scenic Drive, visited Fruita Historic District on day 2, our Day 3 was as below:

• 10am-12pm: Hiked Hickman Bridge Trail, : A medium 1.7 mile out-and-back trail – Highly recommend if your health allows. That was all hiking I could do in one day.
• 12:30-2:30pm: Drove to checkout Cedar Mesa. Wasted 2 hrs on this tedious and super dusty road. Nothing impressive to see. Don’t waste your time!
• 3pm – midnight: Began our adventure – Drove off road on Middle Dessert and Catheral Valley, then went through the forest back to Loa, UT.

What’s so adventurous about the day? The off road driving, of course.

We experienced the most amazing road with surprisingly wonderful outlooks in Capital Reef National Park. The road has the most breath-taking views we have seen in Capital Reef with many picturesque outlooks. We were able to check out almost all outlooks. The best views are Temple of the Sun, Temple of the Moon, Catheral Valley. As we arrived at Fishlake National Forest, snow suddenly fell. That was one of the most magical moments of our trip. We felt in love with the romantic scenery as we drove through the forest.

However, the road was then closed because it snowed. The road now became wet and dangerous. And Google Maps did not update the path fast enough. The plan was to go home by 8pm based on original map, but now the only way home was to go back, via the Harnet, an offroad route when it was already very dark and rainy. The drive took another 4-5 hours.

The drive back was so dark, quiet, and scary that the big full moon scared us when it appeared so suddenly behind the mountain. We were all alone on this long road, always feeling so afraid we might fall off the cliff as we drove around the mountain. We also couldn’t spot a single car after passing the camping ground and started to worry that we might get lost in the moutain with no signal. We only had a paper park map and an offline google map.

“Damn, are we lost? We could not possibly go back through another route as it was like 10pm already. The bumpy road would take forever. It was so dark that it was dangerous to go back via the Catheral now that we were tired and the gas were low”.

We were stopped by small river with a lot of water.

After checking our offline maps like a hundred of times to confirm that we see a path in the map, I got out of the car to check out the river. I saw no clear cross path. Then my husband went out to check out the surroundings. We saw a flame among the trees nearby. Someone was camping here or that was ghost!

What should we do now?

I reasoned that we should come back to the mountain top camping site and ask for a sleep over if we cannot cross the river. We can come back via the Catheral in daylight tomorrow.

My husband thought we could also sleep in the car there or dirve back via the Catheral again and get home by early morning.

Luckily, destiny saved us. We met two other travelers who then became our life savers. They are the father and son who camped here and crossed this river many times before. They got stuck because their car broke down and had no water left. We gave them some of our water bottles and also became their life savers. The son hugged my husband so tight as he handed him the water bottles. They then guided us to cross the river. Only then, we felt that we were saved. We got home near midnight.

Now, that was the trip we would never forget – the most adventurous trip we had together. We laughed so hard driving back to the Airbnb home from the national park. We would definitely tell this story to our baby later.

Finding Moonscape Overlook & A Flat Tire

Moonscape Overlook and Factory Butte are highly recommended by many travel bloggers, so my husband set his mind on getting us there. The direction was not really straightforward on Google Maps so we had to try twice.

First Attempt, Found Swing Arms City and Got a Flat Tire

We took High Way 24 in the afternoon and found very out-of-the-earth views which later we could identify as Swing Arm City where many motorcyclists gathered and enjoyed dirt biking. All the black curves you could see in the pictures were created by motorcyclists.

It was wonderful driving around this park. I would highly recommend you visit it – super cool! Be careful, however, as we got a flat tire on our way out and spent the rest of the afternoon changing the tire.

Second Attempt, Tiring Tears and Like-On-The-Moon Views

After the almost-not-get-home day and the flat-tire-day, the pregnant woman (me) got tired and a bit on edge already. I did not want to venture back to the off road route leading to Moonscape Overlook and Factory Butte because we haven’t got a new spare tire yet. All auto shops near us closed during the weekend if you asked why. I just wanted an easy, relaxing ride and sightseeing. The why-not-try man (my husband) tried to convenience me so hard while kept driving us there. We finally got to our destination.

Moonscape Overlook is wonderful. All was still good if my husband did not try to get the below picture. I felt super worried about him going to such a far tiny place for only one picture. He asked me to take picture for him. I took the picture and then cried – too much stress. I didn’t want anything anymore. I got scared and stopped talking to my husband. We quickly got out, and from that day on, he realized that he should not push the mom-to-be’s boundaries – there was only so much I could handle.

I could not enjoy the great view of Factory Butt on the way back!

Arches National Park: A must-see in Utah

After Moonscape Overlook, our trip was all about scenic drives and short walks that even kids can do. Luckily, Arches National Park can definitely offer these. Park map. We visited the Windows Section:

• North Window & South Window are big. They can be crowded as families love this site. You will need to wait for great pictures although the areas are big enough for social distancing.
• Double Arches is my favorite of all arches we visited. Easy to check out and you can have great photo.
• Garden of Eden: Wonderful place to view sunset.

Canyonlands National Park: Our final destination

A beautiful Sedona and wonderful restaurants

On our way home, we stayed in Village of Oak Creek, Sedona, AZ and got many surprises. We took Highway 89, crossing Vermilion Cliffs National Monument, then had to detour to Grand Canyon North Rim because of a fire. If we are not tired, we could visit these places more 🙂

The detour directed us through 89A, a fairy tale route. You’ll see mountains, springs, and restaurants along the route. As my craving for beef / red meat kicked in, we enjoyed our last two days exploring great restaurants in town.

Babymoon Road Trip Tips:

• Get out of the car every 2-3 hours to stretch and bathrooms
• Pace the trip by how moms could take it
• Avoid bumpy road. We learned that they are not very good for the baby
• Have plenty of healthy snacks and always stay hydrated
• Bring “home foods” – might not work for everyone but we love our Vietnamese foods, so we brought the cooker, rice, some veggies and meat. Also, the privilege of living in Orange County is that we have awesome ready to go Vietnamese food – Chả ốc, bánh lọc, chả huế…
• Full-house Airbnb: Our accommodation choice as we wanted to avoid meeting strangers. Our places usually are in a separate area with separate kitchen, bathroom, etc…
• Always have an extra tire. We got a flat tire!
• Always have full gas tank before going in the park – you will never know what adventures await