travel – Page 2 – RVing With a Purpose

Kodachrome Basin State Park, Utah

Tuesday, June 2, 2026

We arrived at Kodachrome Basin State Park Saturday afternoon, May 30. We were tired from the day’s drive and activities, so we settled in on our site, had some dinner, walked around the campground a little and got some great sleep. It was a very quiet and peaceful night.

Sunday morning we watched Lester Memorial’s 8:30 am service – 7:30 am for us since we are now on Mountain Daylight Time. After an excellent service, we had breakfast and then headed out for a hike on the Panorama Trail at about 10:30. The information on the hike advised that this was a 3 mile hike that winds its way across the western side of the park. You can view several sedimentary pipes and explore interesting geological features such as Secret Passage, Ballerina Spire and Mammoth Spire Overlook. Difficulty was rated as easy to moderate. This was a great hike even though we started a little too late and it turned into a 4 mile hike for us because we started at the campground instead of the trail head. Gorgeous scenery!

Watching our home church service in the beauty God created

The sandstone features look bigger in the pictures. 🙂

One panorama

Wide variety of sandstone features along the trail

Looking down at Mammoth Spire (off in the distance)

Panorama Trail hike stats

After returning to the campground, we met a couple that has a Beyond RV that is the same year as BB with a slightly different floorplan. They followed us into the park on Saturday afternoon but we didn’t meet until Sunday afternoon. They have had their RV for less than a year and had lots of questions. We enjoyed getting to make some new friends and being able to answer some of their questions. The rest of the day we recovered from the morning hike.

Monday morning we wanted to hike one more trail, Angel’s Palace Trail. This trail was tagged as an excellent trail for photographers, and it did not disappoint. It was a little over 1.5 miles depending on how many of the side ventures you took. We of course took them all. The trail has magnificent views of Kodachrome Basin, Bryce Canyon and all the surrounding areas.

This trail started a little differently …

On top of the mesa as sign advises that the trail diverges and to find your way back to this spire to start back down.

Another strange gray spire in the red rocks.

Angel’s Palace hike stats

After the hike and another visit with our new Beyond friends we left the park around 11:30 for the short drive to our next destination.

A Day of Three Short Hikes

Monday, June 1, 2026

We awoke to a very quiet Walmart in Page, Arizona on Saturday morning May 30. We had done our shopping Friday night so after a restful night, we were ready for some adventures. We stopped to top off our propane and then went to the back of the Shell station for our first hike. The actual name of this location is Biidi “The Arch”, according to the sign we found. But when looking it up online all the YouTuber channels refer to it as the Cave behind the Shell station or the hidden gem behind the Shell station or something similar. I guess it’s because most of us don’t know the correct pronunciation of the actual site.

You can trudge through the sand for a way and climb a hill and end up in a beautiful cave. It’s a great place for pictures. For most who make this stop that’s the end of the visit. For those who are a little more inquisitive there is much more to see when you start walking around the base of some of the boulders, as you can see from the pictures below. Such a great place to start the day.

By moving around we could catch several sunrises in one day

After leaving Biidi “The Arch” but while still in Page, we drove to the Hanging Garden Trail about ten minutes away. This was a short one-mile hike but certainly worth the effort to see. The payoff is an alcove full of maidenhair ferns. The temperature drops as you approach the alcove. Along with the maidenhair ferns there were also orchids. We didn’t see it but there has to be a spring feeding the garden because the plants are thriving.

We saw many of the stream orchids among the ferns.

After we left the garden, we drove to Kanab, Utah, about 1.5 hours, for our big hike of the day – the Sand Caves. This was a super fun and unique hike, 1.2 miles round trip. It is an easy .5 mile walk in the sand and then there is a steep climb up “slickrock” to reach the caves. Twice Anne needed some assistance due to having legs that were just a little bit too short, but the payoff was worth the effort. The interconnected chambers feature large window-like openings carved right into the Navajo sandstone cliffs. BTW, shoes with good traction are highly recommended. We discovered after our hike that the caves are totally man-made. They are the remains of a 20^th century mining operation excavated to harvest high-quality silica sand for glass production.

The trail was marked by painted paw prints on the rocks.

In case anyone is wondering, all three of these hikes were absolutely free.

Leaving our fun time at the sand caves, we drove an additional 1 ½ – 2 hours to the beautiful Kodachrome Basin State Park where we will stay for the next two nights.

This was a great day!!

NOMADS – Mingus Mountain, AZ 2026 – Week 3

Saturday, May 30, 2026

Week 3 of the NOMADS project at Mingus Mountain Camp and Retreat was a push to the end for everyone. Those working to repair and improve the men’s bathroom completed that task Wednesday afternoon.

LuAnn cutting baseboard for the bathroom

It was everyone working on the Camp Store on Thursday. Wednesday had been an extremely windy day and high winds were predicted for Friday. We really needed to get the tin roofing installed but Wednesday we couldn’t safely manage the tin in the 40mph winds. We decided to give it a try first thing Thursday morning and God answered our prayers. The winds remained manageable and we safely completed the roofing about 10:00 am Thursday. After that, we painted the store, installed shelving and cleaned up the construction debris. We didn’t quite complete the painting on Thursday but two of our members were staying until the first of the week and they completed the second coat of paint on Saturday.

One of the attendees at this week’s program even helped install the rafters during his break.

The full team plus the camp director helped put the metal roofing on.

… and LuAnn began painting as soon as the roof was finished.

The outside was finished by the end of the day

Suzanne and Steve finished painting the inside on Saturday

Below is a list of all the projects completed by NOMADS the past three weeks. It was another successful project and the Camp Director seemed very pleased.

NOMADS – Mingus Mountain, AZ 2026 – Week 2

May 25, 2026

Week 2 of our NOMADS project at Mingus Mountain Camp and Retreat started on May 18th and was much like Week 1. We continued all our projects with our Nomads friends, finished some and started some new ones.

On Monday we discovered a railing on one of the camp buildings was very loose, so the team stabilized it.

The team continued in one of the men’s bathrooms by installing the new vinyl plank flooring.

LuAnn and Steve working on the gaga ball pit

Another big project we started this week was tearing down the old wood shed to build a new camp store.

Taking down the old wood shed piece by piece

The rest of the team helped with raising the first wall.

The weather has been the same as last week. Lows in the low 50’s overnight (didn’t bring enough warm clothes) and climbing into the low to mid 70’s during the day with a few days in the low 80’s. There has still been NO rain! No threats of rain. The only clouds are the white puffy ones, otherwise it’s just beautiful blue sky. There is no dew on the ground in the mornings. No change in the forecast for this week. Very different from what we are accustomed to in Alabama. Also, we have friends in Alabama that have had tornadoes this week and are now experiencing flash flooding. Please say a prayer for them! Don’t think we told you about the elevation. We are at 7,600 feet so that explains the cool evenings. Friday when we were in Prescott Valley doing laundry the temperature was 84 and it was 74 when we arrived back at our campsite on Mingus Mountain.