Smokey the Bear and Tibetan Monks? I Must be in Boulder (Utah)…
Smokey the Bear and Tibetan Monks? I Must be in Boulder (Utah)... [2:32m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
Smokey the Bear and Tibetan Monks? I Must be in Boulder (Utah)... [2:32m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | DownloadBoulder, Utah will never be confused with the bigger Boulder (that would be the more substantial map dot in Colorado), but we found it to be a charming stop on our journey through southern Utah. Renegade cows, a Russian waitress, Tibetan Monks and Smokey the Bear all combined to make it a memorable over-night stay.
We arrived late in the afternoon, damp and mud-splattered (courtesy of Bryce Canyon National Park), with a strong desire for room service.
Our room at the Boulder Mountain Lodge was spacious with views of meadows and mountains and included a coffee table book that dissed “Smokey The Bear” in strong conservationist language.
This was actually a hilarious bonus for my group who had been terrorized by Smokey’s gargantuan remote-
voiced presence at our Ohio State Fair in their younger years. Personal greetings from an over-sized and overly-friendly bear statue are a bit unnatural and didn’t generate the warm “save the forest” feelings the Park Service was probably striving for. Which made the Smokey The Bear bashing book great environmental bed-time reading…
Our initial exploration took us to the fenced pasture across the road, alongside the breezy flowers of a vast meadow and on to a charming enclosure that concealed a 12-foot hot tub and patio. We gratefully soaked our feet after rinsing them in the adjacent shower and laughed over our afternoon’s adventure at Bryce Canyon. When we quieted down, the whole world was perfectly still. The pond just beyond the decorative iron fence hosted a bird sanctuary brushed by dozens of butterflies. And further out, mountains emerged from the rolling meadows.
As we crossed the drive to a restaurant, the Tibetan Monks were a bit of surprise. The purple-robed gentlemen arrived in minivans with minimal luggage and enormous smiles. The Drepung Loseling Monks were featured on the Hollywood soundtrack of “Seven Years in Tibet.” It seemed unusual to bump into them in southern Utah, but it turns out, Boulder, Utah is a yearly trek for them.
We ordered surprisingly good carry-out from the Burr Trail Grill and chatted with another “Hannah” while we waited on our order. Home for the summer from school in California, she told us a little about growing up in an area canyon where they had to create escape routes with cut trees whenever heavy rains washed out the roads -and wear safety harnesses for the crawl above floodwaters to safety!
We savored our quiet evening. Hannah and I planned to run in the morning, and then we’d hike Lower Calf Creek Falls in the Escalante National Memorial.
Well, we got half of it right…
Next: The Cows…
More on Utah:
“Road to Zion (National Park, Utah)”
“Into ‘The Narrows’ (Zion National Park, Utah)”
“The Subway (Zion National Park, Utah) Part One”
“The Subway (Zion National Park, Utah) Part Two”
“Court of the Patriarchs and The Emerald Pools of Zion (National Park, Utah)”
“Hoodoo Heaven” (Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah)“Dogs and Cars -but not Cows…” (Boulder, Utah)
