This article is under development and it may take a few days before I have the entire trip documented!

Planning Essentials 

On all my trips I make sure we have a solid plan on what we are going to do along with ideas for backups.   I aim to maximize the amount of time we can spend exploring when visiting destinations 1,500 miles away from home!

This was my third time at Bryce Canyon and it never ceases to disappoint!   This trip combined with the trip from two years ago together gave us a great tour of the park.  It would be possible to do both days in one but only if you were staying in the area both the night before and the following night.   Two years ago we wanted to arrive at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon and this year we wanted to end up near Capitol Reef National Park.

Many people do not realize this but Zion National Park can be divided into four sections Zion Canyon (the main hub), The Narrows, Kolob Canyons, and the Kolob Terrace/East Zion.   We started our second day of Zion visiting the main hub (Zion Canyon) entering from the East side via the town of Springdale.  Zion National park is the second most visited US National Park with approximately 4.9 million visits per year and we happened to visit on an extremely busy day.

Many people do not realize this but Zion National Park can be divided into four sections Zion Canyon (the main hub), The Narrows, Kolob Canyons, and the Kolob Terrace/East Zion.   We started with Kolob Canyon as we were coming from the North with the intent to start working our way east.   Most people visit the main part of the park which was definitely noticeable as Kolob Canyons was quite peaceful whereas the main part of the park was quite crowded!  

Cedar Breaks National Monument sits an elevation of  over 10,000 feet, according to a web search the highest point is 10,662 feet, and we had a photo of a sign when we were at 10,460 feet!  Quite the ascent from Central Minnesota!   Cedar Breaks is often referred to as a mini Bryce Canyon has it does have similar rock formations and colorations.   It does have the advantage of much smaller crowds but be aware that, like Bryce, the elevation can be disconcerting for those who are not used to it!

Timpanogos Cave National Monument is actually three caves and you do need to hike a mile and a half with an elevation gain of  1,092 ft with the cave entrance being 6,730 feet above sea level.    The caves are all connected via a human made tunnel so you will be able to hike them all in one tour.  Reservations are strongly encouraged and make sure you bring a copy with you printed on paper.    We took one of the first tours, 8:30 am, so that we could do the hike before it became too hot!

The boys first learned of this museum years ago when watching Dinosaur Train, I promised that we would visit some day and this was an opportunity to deliver on that promise.  The advantage of visiting the Natural History Museum of Utah was we were able to get a bit more history on the dinosaur bones we viewed the day before along with exhibits pertaining to Utah's geology.   Helpful information with all the parks, monuments, and landscapes we would be viewing over the next few days.

Another quick stop where we only visited the visitor center and the Quarry Exhibit Hall.  This exhibit is a building that is built around a cliff that has over 1,500 dinosaur fossils!   It gives visitors an opportunity to see dinosaur fossils, in the cliff, as they are normally found by scientists!   This hall is just a small part of the park as the entire park encompasses 210,844 acres!   We all hope to visit the monument again someday to see more of what it has to offer.    It served as a nice place to stop at before we checked into our hotel.

Devils Tower National Monument is situated just west of Rapid City/Mount Rushmore in Wyoming, visit the NPS page for full details on this unique structure.   It was formed by magma being pushed up into sedimentary rock, which cooled, and formed hard igneous rock.   Overtime the surrounding sedimentary rock eroded away leaving this tower!

A.I. is like the bar know-it-all, usually a string of semi related facts smashed together to give a seemingly accurate but false answer.

I was able to procure a large number of bales last year which will be used in this years bale garden!   Getting things in motion as it always takes a couple weeks to get the gardens set up and then another couple weeks to condition the bales!  

This years plan is first a layer of cardboard, then a layer of wood chips, and then the bales.  Between the bales I will be putting a layer of hay.  Also in the back bale garden the space between the rows is larger because I will be planting potatoes in loose hay as I have been doing for the last 10 years! 

It took awhile before the sap really started flowing but the weather warmed up for a week and collected approximately 46 gallons of sap in a weeks time.  I also had 10 gallons from before that which I was able to keep from spoiling as the weather was cold enough that the sap mostly stayed frozen.  Frozen sap will keep indefinitely, as long as it does not pickup odors, roughly two weeks if temps are fluctuating around freezing, at refrigeration temperatures only 5-7 days, and only 72 hours at temps above 50 degrees.

This year we tapped the trees on February 8, 2026 which was a bit early.  However, it has been my experience that there is no harm in doing it early and it also guarantees that we will get some of the first sap.  It seems that early flow is higher in sugar content also there is always a risk, that if it warms up early, the trees will bud and then the sap won't be usable for syrup production.   The sap becomes bitter, cloudy and/or yellow and therefore is known as buddy sap.

As time allows I will be adding to this equipment list, but thought it helpful to start documenting for those who are curious.

Happy Holidays, wishing everyone a safe an joyous season!

The first "artificially" created element was technetium which was in 1937 by Carlo Perrier and Emilio Segrè.  Strictly speaking "artificial" may not be entirely accurate as under certain circumstances one would expect the element to be created in nature.   However, technetium, has no stable isotopes and therefore decays over time.   Some purists would argue that technetium is not artificial because it has been found in trace amounts on Earth.

A nightlight Lithophane created to celebrate Teacher Appreciation Week!   Created using a photo depictingthe solar system and the message "teachers help us imagine".

A nightlight Lithophane created to celebrate Teacher Appreciation Week!   Created using a photo of the earth and the message that teachers make the world a better place.

A nightlight Lithophane created to celebrate Teacher Appreciation Week!   Created using a photo depicting an apple with the message that teachers are an awesome source of knowledge.