With a Campsite Slope Like This…

19th Trip- Days 87-89, June 11-13, 2021 Jordanelle State Park, Heber, UT

Friday, 06/11/21 I realized something this week. I am not joking one bit. Literally, there is more food in the fridge in HOWE (our name for our travel trailer – Home On WhEels) than in our house fridge! (Minus the extra condiments.) This cracked me up! I am so thankful we can keep the fridge on while HOWE is at home so I don’t need to bring the cold food in and back out of the house. Makes it so nice. As Kevin was packing tonight, he said he didn’t need to pack any clothes because he has enough still in HOWE. That made my day! 🙂 I have never been to Jordanelle Reservoir except in passing. Kevin camped here for the Winter Klondike a few years with Boy Scouts when we was a leader. From our house, we could go two totally different ways but we decided to go the south way through Provo Canyon. The truck pulled HOWE with no problems at all up the mountains. Passing Deer Creek Reservoir, we saw more than 10 people kite-sailing on the water. It looked like they had enough wind to really get going. We marveled how the city of Heber has grown. We got to the campground and was told “take a right and then a right” into our loop. So easy.

As we pulled up to our campsite, we started laughing, kind of in shock and kind of in wonder. The site is so steep! Thankfully it is just a pull off. We got out and as we set up, literally the jack in the front is all the way to it’s lowest point. The back is so high, the bumper is almost to my shoulders. And let me tell you….I can’t reach the bottom step to get in! I am 5’0” and I can’t get in.

Thankfully I am able to come at it from the side and swing myself up to grab the safety handle. There is no way I can open the door latch. We laughed as I said, “short people problems!”

I knew I would be worried so Kevin kindly hooked up the safety chains to the truck. Otherwise, I would worry about rolling down the hill, even though we have the chocks. Dinner was pulled pork sandwiches, chips and potato salad. Then we walked around the campground loops.

This is a great campground! And the reservoir is just a bonus. The sites are huge huge huge with paved roads, paved parking pads, concrete patio with concrete fire pits. The campground host told us campfires are allowed here, if we don’t let them get too big. I was surprised because the state banned them the other day. So that is nice. The walk was enjoyable, perfect weather with no wind. Kevin talked to someone camping here on our walk and he said it was 36 degrees last night and very windy. Burrr. The lake has several sail boats and I think they are beautiful to watch. We also saw every other kind of boat craft. It cooled off pretty quickly so I came inside and read while Kevin read outside. Now a little snack of cookies and more relaxing. 🙂

Saturday 06/12/21 We slept in until 8:30! For breakfast, Kevin made pancakes on the griddle.

After breakfast, we drove over to the marina. There were quite a few boats being launched. I always like watching boats. We then drove to where the kayak rental is, a place with a sign that said, “sup kayak” with an arrow to the road. For some reason, that cracked me up. Very cute. Kevin rented a kayak for 2 hours and off he went. I didn’t go because I get very dizzy if anything rocks too much.

I spread a blanket under a tree and read my book. And I people-watched, which was very fun. Lots of families getting together for meals under the canopies and all were reserved.  When it was about time for Kevin to be done, I walked on down to the beach and watched him come in. He said he liked the kayak and the water is nice. He would like to kayak through a river sometime. Back to HOWE we went for lunch. It was a different kind of lunch for us than I normally make. We had chips and a 5 layer dip I had bought at the store. Well, we both said that my homemade layer dip is much better. 🙂 Then it was nap / reading time. We had a nice large tree in our site and it provided nice shade. Kevin took a nap in his outside chair and I read.

Soon we were off for a drive. We drove to the Jordanelle Dam and learned it was built in 1993. The surface area of the water is equal to over 3000 high-school football fields. The height of the dam is 400 vertical feet and is about 100 feet below the stream bed. It is built to withstand a 6.5 earthquake directly below the dam. The reservoir’s average annual yield is enough to take care of about 400,000 individuals in addition to supplementing irrigation.

We drove on up the mountain to Kamas. We saw a humungous sign someone had posted in their yard about “Slow down” you blank, blank, blank. It seemed the homeowner had had quite enough of people driving too fast. Poor guy. That evening we walked round a different side of the campground and saw several deer.

This is a great State Park and we want to come back…but maybe get a more level campsite. HAHAHA