Last Hurrah from the Road

Our finale: biking through Zion NP, a taste of bumbleberry pie, and frozen custard

The view from Zion Canyon Road in Zion National Park. Most vehicles except shuttle buses are prohibited on the road from early March through late November. One of the best ways to see it is on an electric bike!

All good things come to an end—and that includes vacations that have stretched from late April to mid-June, with a slight break in the middle to catch a breath. We arrived home from our latest road trip in time for Father’s Day.

Neither my husband nor I have living fathers to celebrate, though the ones we had continue to loom large in our memories—and those memories, as I’m sure it is for most everyone with a dad, don’t confine themselves to Father’s Day.

Among my favorite childhood recollections are of our annual summer trips to a family camp near Yosemite. For my father, the lush Alpine meadows, pines and soaring mountains probably reminded him of childhood vacations in the Black Forest, Switzerland and Austria with his four younger siblings, not far from their home in Karlsruhe, Germany.

My father Werner (later Vernon) center, with his four siblings, Eva, Gerda, Ilse, and Irwin, skiing in Austria in 1929. No lifts in those days, he recalled. You just carried your gear up the hill and skied down.

I trace my love of the mountains to those vacations and to my father, who seemed to shed his tough, demanding exterior (mostly!) and get swept up in the romantic landscapes that surrounding us—except en route to and from the Sierras when he was navigating the narrow grades of a steep, winding two-lane road with sheer drops on either side while small children squabbled in the back seat.

Half Dome, probably the most famous symbol of Yosemite National Park, in a photo taken in Yosemite Valley in September 2009.

I joined my husband Jeff about two weeks ago for the last leg of a road trip that took us from Bozeman, Montana to Yellowstone to Victor, Idaho to Park City, and finally to one of my favorite national parks (though Yosemite will forever hold a special place in my heart).

Zion National Park is breathtaking in every season, though it can be hot and crowded in mid and late summer. We’ve been visiting since the 1980’s, first discovering the park on a side trip from Las Vegas, about 2 hours away. In those days there were far fewer visitors—less than 2 million per year—compared to 5 million or so today. I’ve lost count of how many times we’ve returned, often in July or August, the hottest months of the year when temps can soar into the high 90s and lately even into the 100’s. On our recent visit, we arrived late in the afternoon as the mercury had ratcheted up into the alt-90’s. And yet I never say no to returning to Zion. Here’s a piece I wrote about another visit three years ago during the pandemic:

Escape to Zion

View from our room at the Best Western Plus in Springdale, Utah. Prices have skyrocketed at many places, along with the growing popularity of Zion. The points program at BW can make it cheaper for frequent visitors. The pool is a welcome respite on a scorching day.

This time, we employed the best strategy for beating the heat and masses: hiking early the next day, meaning Jeff assumed his carnival barker persona, rousting me (slightly mutinous!) at 5 in the morning to take the shuttle into the park, coffee in hand. It was worth it for the morning coolness, the lighter crowds (though not at the shuttle stop), and most of all for the glorious light on the soaring pink, cream and red sandstone cliffs surrounding both Springdale, the town where we stayed just outside the park, and in Zion Canyon. That’s the deep gorge created over some 270 million years and sculpted into towering sedimentary rock walls by the Virgin River that runs through it.

From left, view from the Red Rock Grill at the Zion Lodge, and a waterfall and stone steps on the Kayenta Trail.

Jeff had a great idea to rent electric bicycles to pedal through that gorgeous gorge on our last morning.

I was hesitant because 1) I’ve never ridden an electric bike, and 2) I’m still skittish about riding a bike at all, even 10 years after having an accident in which I tore the ACL in my right knee. But, I thought, why should Jeff have all the fun?

After first taking a wrong turn onto a busy roadway and encountering a huge, heavily marked, very active snake (I couldn’t be sure if he was a harmless gopher snake or a rattler, but I didn’t stop to investigate!), I finally got onto the right path, which led to a nearly deserted road. At this point, only shuttle buses, bikes and walkers were allowed to proceed. The canyon was ours!

It was a little piece of heaven. The ride was mostly flat, but when it wasn’t, the bike with its seven speeds powered me up the slope. Then I just sailed down the hills, barely peddling, with red cliffs, pines, river and rocks flying by in a polychromatic blur. If I crash, I thought, what a way to go!

Sadly, it’s impossible to capture any of this in a photo. Here are a few more anyway.

Of course there was pie…

Kate McDermott, who writes an excellent newsletter here on Substack and authored a classic on pie-making called Art of the Pie: A Practical Guide to Homemade Crusts, Fillings, and Life, got me thinking about pie when she asked if I’d sampled any great slices in the course of our travels. As Jeff is so single-minded about ice cream, I hadn’t—until we wandered into the Bumbleberry Bakery, also a gift shop and formerly a restaurant until a fire destroyed it in 2020.

There’s still a restaurant, an inn and a store, but now a little bakery serves the pie—and we ordered a slice. Who could resist such a name—and the story that goes with it? It’s rather ridiculous, but it’s good for a laugh, which is the point. You can check it out at the store’s website here. But here’s a little taste of the “Legend of the Bumbleberry”:

It is created by perfectly blending burple and binkle berries together. These delicious, juicy, and rare berries grow and ripen on a giggle bush. For those who have never heard of a giggle bush, it is no wonder, as these bushes only sprout in the most special of places. A giggle bush begins to quake, little by little, as the burple and binkle berries begin to ripen. At the exact moment that these berries ripen, they let out a little giggle. On a sunny summer day, the giggle bushes shake for hours and, if it’s quiet enough, berries can be heard giggling uncontrollably.

The sign, the server and the pie at the Bumbleberry Bakery in Springdale, Utah.

As for obtaining more information about bumbleberry pie beyond the legend, the bakery isn’t giving away any trade secrets. A Wikipedia entry claims there’s no such thing as a bumbleberry, and the pie is “a mixed berry pie,” or it may contain other ingredients such as apple and/or rhubarb. There’s absolutely no mention of a giggle bush.

My verdict? The pie was a little sour, a little sweet, crunchy from seeds, possibly raspberry-dominant, with blueberry notes—no rhubarb taste at all. The crust could have been more buttery and flaky. My favorite road pies are currently tied between the huckleberry I had last summer in Jackson Hole, Wyoming at The Bunnery Bakery & Restaurant and a slice of olallieberry pie I ate several years back at Linn’s Easy as Pie Shop & Cafe in Cambria, California. But now I’m primed to try making my own pie from one of Kate’s recipes.

And ice cream too!

Jeff isn’t really a berry person, so, after leaving Springdale, we stopped at our favorite ice cream place in St. George, Utah, Nielsen’s Frozen Custard. With a chocolate cone in one hand and a vanilla in the other, he was a very happy camper. And I had a good giggle—and a lot of licks!

What is this man thinking?

So tell me: What’s your favorite summer pie or dessert? Do you have a strong memory of a road trip, a visit to a national park or a summer adventure? Did a friend or parent have an influence on your vacation choices as an adult? I’d love to hear from you!

And that’s it for this week. I’m so glad you’re here! Whether you’re a longtime subscriber, brand new, or thinking of pressing the subscribe button (please do!), your likes, comments, shares, ideas and questions make all the difference. So thanks a million!

See you next time!

Ruth