Southern Utah Road Trip - the Road West

Good-bye to Moab: La Sal Mountains (Manti-La Sal National Forest)

Long-term readers may recall that I took a long western USA road trip in 2016. I started in Redlands, California, where I imposed on my daughter and borrowed her station wagon for this trip (over 3,500 miles total). I followed Route 66 eastward as far as Albuquerque and Santa Fe and then joined friends in Moab. I wrote about Arches National Park, Canyonlands National Park, the Syncline Loop in Canyonlands, and the Volkswagen disposal yard/museum. After two weeks of hiking, good food, and fine companionship, I headed west and returned to California. 

This article will continue the road trip back to southern California through Utah and Nevada. 

Southern Utah is a wonderland of geology, spectacular vistas, mountains, and long miles between towns. Signs on I-70 warn you, "No services for the next xxx miles." Be sure you have plenty of fuel in your car as well as emergency supplies. 

Dawn on the Green River, Green River, Utah (2019 Tri-X photograph)

Fremont River, Capitol Reef National Park (2019 Tri-X photograph, Hasselblad camera)

For the first day, I drove west on I-70 and then on Utah 24 to Capitol Reef National Park, a fabulous location. Driving at 90 miles per hour at 7,000+ feet elevation pushed the little engine. After some hiking and a night near Capitol, I said good-bye to my friends and headed south on Utah's Hwy. 12 through the Dixie National Forest.

Dixie National Forest, Utah Rte. 12, approx. 9,000 ft elevation

Utah's Scenic Byway 12 is a fantastic drive. My car's little 5-cylinder engine worked hard at 9,000 ft elevation as I crossed a ridge in the Dixie National Forest. 

Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument

Byway 12 then drops down into the Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument. This is one of the nation's phenomenal visual treats, a remote landscape covering 1,880,000 acres where dinosaurs roamed and Native Americans drew art on rock faces. President Clinton designated this region as a national monument in 1996 to preserve cultural and scenic resources. The Trump administration reduced the area of the monument by over a half in a scummy attempt to spur a mining and coal boom, although the Utah Geological Survey concluded that the prospects of profitable minerals, tar sands, coal, oil, and gas were very limited (essentially non-existent). On October 8, 2021, President Biden restored the original boundaries of the monument.

The little town of Escalante, in the Potato Valley, is a center for recreation. Route 12 passes right through town, and it is one of the few locations to buy some food or gasoline. The Peoples Exchange on 115 North Center Street is an early-20th century general merchandise store. The building may house occasional art exhibits.

Too pooped on Main Street, Cannonville, Utah

Keep driving west on 12 and you reach Cannonville. It's tiny, with not much there. But turn south on Kodachrome Road and head south through a rugged landscape to Kodachrome Basin State Park.

Kodachrome Road, Utah

Near Kodachrome Basin State Park

Kodachrome Basin State Park is a wonderland of rock spires and canyons revealing 180 million years of geological history. In 1948, a National Geographic Society expedition gave the name Kodachrome to this area after the popular color film.

I returned to Rte. 12 and then went south on 63 to Bryce Canyon National Park. What an amazing terrain of rock pinnacles and spires.  Beware, it is crowded during the peak tourist season.

Route 9, the Zion-Mount Carmel Highway

Court of the Patriarchs (sandstone monoliths), Zion National Park

Continuing west, I drove on the historic Zion-Mount Carmel Highway into Zion National Park. CCC workers in the 1930s cut many of the tunnels along this twisty mountain road. The park is another geological wonder, very popular with international tourists. If you want to visit the main canyon, you must park in one of several lots near the entrance and take a shuttle bus. I took the bus up into the canyon and walked much of the way back to the parking lot. I stayed in the nearby town of Springdale in a funny little cabin, like a remnant of an old-fashioned motor court.

"I am a citizen, not of Athens or Greece, but of the desert...." 

The Mad Greek, Baker Blvd., Baker, California

Heading west out of Zion, the next stop is the city of Las Vegas. I had not been there before and was singularly unimpressed. Much of the city is dumpy and dirty but may have some decent urban decay topics. However, I needed a restroom and used a very elegant one at a casino. And they gave me some iced sparkling water. 

Continuing southwest out of Las Vegas on I-15, the terrain is rather dull desert. But stop! Quick, take the exit at Baker. There are Greeks in the desert! And they will serve you Greek coffee and baklava or a giant sandwich. Ahhh...

I have written before about some of the remnants of Route 66 in eastern California (click the links):

• Eastern Mojave Desert
• Central Mojave Desert
• Central California

This ended my 2016 road trip. I can't wait to head out west again.

Return to the Volkswagen Disposal Yard in Moab, Utah

In mid-2018, a friend visited Moab and told me he thought the big Volkswagen disposal yard off Spanish Valley Drive was gone. Was that possible? We had photographed the treasures (i.e., old Volkswagens) in 2016, and I thought it unlikely that someone had bought them and moved them all away. Considering that there were 100 or 200 cars there, moving them would require a fleet of 18-wheelers, a serious expense.

However, I can report good news: as of October 2019, Tom Tom Foreign Car Parts is still at 1809 E. Mill Creek Drive, at the junction with Spanish Valley Drive. It looks like someone maintains the place because I saw fresh cat food and cat water outside. I did not see the watch cats, but possibly they were on rodent patrol. I only had time for a few mobile phone images. The yard has been cleared and neatened a bit, but the overall ambience is intact.

Here are a couple of Type 3 Volkswagens, known as the Squareback in the USA market and the Variant in Europe. These were handy little station wagons with more interior room than the Beetle. I had a 1965 model in college. My dad bought this car in Ankara, Turkey. He drove it to Genoa and had it shipped to Boston. When camping, I could sleep in the back at an angle or straight front and back with the hatch open. You can't do that in most of the pretentious crossover/SUV play trucklets that curse our highways and mall parking lots today. With its rear engine, the Squareback could go up and down snowy mountain roads with no problems at all.

Here is the classic Beetle, the Type 1 Volkswagen. The original is still popular.

This is the classic bus, officially the Volkswagen Type 2. It was also called, depending on body style, the Transporter, Kombi or Microbus. The Westfalia-Werke camper versions are still popular in the US west, and restored examples sell for serious prices now.

Tom was creative in his use of body parts to make the fence at his property. Well done! When you readers travel through Moab, make time to visit the Volkswagen museum. Buy one, take it home, and get it restored. Learn how to use a real transmission (i.e., with a clutch pedal) and have fun in your Beetle.

These are all digital images from a Moto G5 mobile phone.

The Volkswagen Disposal Yard of Moab, Utah

Dear Readers, I found another Volkswagen disposal (junk) yard. This one is in Moab, Utah, off Spanish Valley Drive. The official address is Tom Tom Foreign Car Parts and Service at 1809 E. Mill Creek Drive, Moab, UT. An energetic Tom Arnold ran an active recycling business for Volkswagen collectors, but he passed away some time ago, and now his collection of 200 or 300 bodies sits in his lot. Tom considered this his man cave, according to a 2009 article in Moab Happenings. A lady I met in Moab knew his son and secured permission for me to walk around and take photographs (small towns are great because usually someone knows the right person to contact about almost anything).

TomTom's VW Museum, watch cat on patrol

Needless to say, there is a lot of inventory here - buses, Beetles of various ages, Karmann Ghias, and Squarebacks.

I was concerned, was there a watch dog? No, even better: there were watch cats. These two were on perpetual rodent control and cuddle duty.

This was the Volkswagen Type 3, known as the Squareback in the US market. These were handy little station wagons with much more interior room than the Beetle. I had a 1965 model in college. When camping, I could sleep in the back at an angle or straight front and back with the hatch open. You can't do that in most of the absurd modern crossover/SUV play trucklets that the suburban "adventure" set drives to the mall. With the rear engine over the drive wheels, that Squareback could go up muddy logging roads or snowy passes in the Cascades.

There are at least a hundred Beetles in Tom's lot. I did not see any older split rear window models, but some may have been present somewhere. At least here in Utah, rust is not a problem.

This is a 1949 Type 1 split-window model, from Wikipedia Commons (public domain). These are collectors' items now.

The Karmann Ghia was based on the mechanical underpinning of the Type 1. These were nice little sports cars.

Tom had organized his inventory neatly. Volkswagens had such a long production life, you could fit parts from various years into a car you were restoring. The Type I (Beetle) was in production from 1945 to 2003. According to Wikipedia, "With 21,529,464 produced, the Beetle is the longest-running and most-manufactured car of a single platform ever made."

But if you wanted some chassis parts, air cleaners, mufflers, etc., that may have been more of a challenge.

My other article about a VW disposal yard is from Raymond, Mississippi. I need to return to see if it has changed.

These are digital images from a Fuji X-E1 digital camera. One day I should return with film.

UPDATE OCT. 2019: Many of the Volkswagens are still there, but the yard looks cleaner and the brush has been trimmed. Click this link to see the 2019 photographs.