May 10, 2021
But first, a quick catch up for yesterday, May 9. We slept late and picked up a few geocaches, one of which gave us an overlook of Loa, Utah where we are staying this week. Loa is a town of about 500 and was settled in 1876. It was named by a Mormon missionary who had served in Hawaii. Loa means large and powerful in Hawaiian. It is one of a series of small towns along State Route 24 near Capitol Reef National Park.
Torrey to Escalante
This section of Scenic Byway 12 is 65 of the route’s 124 miles. We were driving it on a cool and cloudy day (we dealt with a few snow flurries at one point), but it was beautiful.
Anasazi State Park Museum
This park is in Boulder, Utah where Native Americans lived 900 years ago for about 50 years. They left no written record so we don’t know what they called themselves. They are Anasazi to the Navajo, Hisatsinom to the Pueblo, Mokuche to the Utes, and Ancestral Pueblo to archaeologists. The 400-acre site hosted up to 200 people in 100 rooms. Some rooms have been excavated and some reconstructed. Artifacts were excavated on-site.
Several types of structures have been found at the site.
Continuing the Drive
After leaving the Museum, we continued on Scenic Byway 12 to Escalante which was settled in 1876. It was named for the river which was in turn named for the explorer Silvestre Velez de Escalante. Not being able to resist a scenic gravel road, we then took the 44-mile Hell’s Backbone road which was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1933.
2 Comments
Joette Giorgis · May 14, 2021 at 4:17 pm
Beautiful photography!
susan · May 27, 2021 at 3:52 pm
When we stayed in Loa I think there was one motel, which we stayed at. I forgot all the beautiful scenery as I was of course anxious to see Chris, I drove from Salt Lake City to Loa several times. The little town looks the same. He was in a school up the road and around the bend in the mountain from the view you posted. If the kids did what they were expected to do they got to go to Loa. He also went to some cattle ranches around there to help with the bulls. I will make sure he looks at the post. He was asking me about it a few days ago.