Trip Home, 2026, Dodging Heat

 

According to Google, these routes (above) are the routes from Sacramento area to Holiday Florida.  But I determined that this other route (below) is the best for this HOT time of the year...

This route, through Ely Nevada, is the coolest route of all those HOT HOT routes.   For instance, the night before we left Ely Nevada was at 70 degrees at 1 am compared to Needles NV, which was 100+ at 1 am.  Wendover was around 95 degrees at 1 am.  Phoenix, was 10-15 degrees hotter than Needles.  So Ely, which is along US Highway 50, was the best option, due to it higher elevation.  Indeed, the night-time temps were in the low 60's, very comfortable.  The only other option included in map 2 (below) includes a stop in Fort Smith and Pine Bluff Arkansas. 

The trip to Ely was uneventful.  Coming down the hill, as we call coming I-80 from Reno to Sacramento, was busy heading down to Sacramento, not so busy headed up toward Reno.  We got gas in Fernley, and the trip along US-50 to Ely was easy, but has a few slowdowns due to driving through some small Nevada Cities along the way.  As we neared Eureka, there was a small forest fire.  As we neared Ely, we saw there was a larger fire which looked like it could include Ely itself.

    

The fire, called the Ward Fire, burned 8,683 acres and today is around 95% contained.  When we saw it it was around 8,000 acres and 0% contained.  We stayed the night at a BLM Elk Viewing area right off US-50.  That is where we got most of the pictures above, and this picture below the next morning.

Overnight, the fire had died down, and it looked like a bunch of smoke.  Later in the day the fire blew up again, but for the most part the heart of the fire died that night.  It was the closest we were to any fires the entire trip.  Unfortunately, it blew our plans to visit Great Basin National Park was destroyed due to the heavy smoke in and around the park Monday morning...so we continued on.

      

The drive along US-50 to I-70 was nice.  Traffic was light on 50, a bit heavier on I-70.  The first two pics above are from US-50.  

        

When you get to I-70, the views get even better.  I think I-70 from Salina, Utah to Denver, Colorado, is one of the most scenic Interstate rides there is.

       

       

We got to Fruita, which is just west of Grand Junction, around 5:30, losing an hour as we entered Utah.  We stay at the Welcome Center / Rest Stop in Fruita...where they even have a free dump station for RVs.  The night temps were in the low 60's, which is very comfortable for sleeping.

 

Tuesday Morning we got a 6:30 start...the sun was coming up in front of us as we drove toward Denver. 

Glenwood Springs is right on our route, and Marcia has a Nephew who lives there and owned a Coffee Shop.  Catch the word "OWNED" ... we thought he still owned, so we stopped to surprise him.  He and his wife, who ran the bakery attached to the Coffee Shop, sold it all 3 months ago.  Oh well, we tried.

We continued on towards Denver...oh the views are just lovely.  

As we got closer to Denver, the traffic was getting very busy.  However, other than a slight delay at the Johnson Tunnel (Edwin C. Johnson Memorial Tunnel is the eastbound bore of the Eisenhower-Johnson Memorial Tunnels on Interstate 70 in Colorado. Located about 60 miles west of Denver, it carries traffic under the Continental Divide at an elevation over 11,000 feet.) the traffic moved right along.  We continued on I-70 through the rest of Colorado and into Kansas.

Entering Kansas we soon lost another hour due to change to Central Time.  We headed on to a little town called Quinter, Kansas.  They have a large city park on the north side of town, and they encourage folks to park their RVs there at the park and spend the night...no charge.  In the picture above, we stayed on the left side of the road which does not block the road that goes through the park.  They have a Dairy Queen on the south side of the town, so we drove over there and got dinner, drove back to the park for the night.  We both were surprised at how good the DQ Burgers were.  Also, with our luck, the temps did not get above 80 all day.  In Quinter, the night temps were again in the mid-60's...our last good sleeping night!

After such a pretty drive from Utah to Denver, we did not touch the main camera again.  From Qunter we drove to the Fort Smith area and had dinner with Marcia's cousin Jim.   The temps at the Cracker Barrel where were around 75-78 degrees.  Along with the humidity, not very good to sleep with.  Turned the AC and generator off around 1 am (both of which are not conducive to sound sleep) and suffered through a warm night.

Thursday we got to Pine Bluff around 9:30, went over to the City RV Park to dump our tanks, and then enjoyed a pleasant day with Jana, who cooked a nice dinner for us before we headed out before 6 pm.  (Jana was my Reference/Genealogy Manager at the Library...she too has now retired.)  That night we were going to stay at the Arkansas Welcome Center at Lake Village.  It was 7:30 when we arrive, and it was HOT.  I figured the AC and Generator would have to run perhaps all night!  I told Marcia I would rather drive on into the night than sit under a loud AC trying to be comfortable until bedtime.  So off we drove...all the way until Midnight when we stayed at a Cracker Barrel in Hattiesburg, over 200 miles away.  Temps were warm, but I did sleep...probably out of sheer exhaustion.

Friday we got a start around 8 am towards Florida.  Getting to Pensacola around 11 am, we decided that we were not going to stop to visit Marcia's Granddaughter in Tallahassee and just drive home.  We arrived around 10 pm...nice to sleep in our "Primary Home" again! 

Overall the route we took did provide us three out of five good night's sleep.  We found ample places to sleep without paying any camping fees.  The southern route would have been impossible...the north route would be bearable, but not as good.  It also is the prettier route, in my opinion.  

To Green River Utah

 

Although it takes longer to go across US-50 than it does I-80, I love '50' much better.  You still go through all those towns, you drive through the cities, you see the old landmarks like the Nevada Club Casino in Ely pictured above.  And today we were blessed with some rain...

...and cooler temps due to the rain.  Yes, it did get up to around 85 but it was pretty cool for most of the day.

This part of Nevada has a bit more trees which adds to the scenery...or lack of, depending upon how you look at it.  The clouds make for even a more dramatic look.

RANT:  We stayed at a place called Border Inn Casino right at the Nevada Utah Border along US-50.  All indications from other blogs and reviews showed that the price was $25 per night, full hook-up, which included WI-FI and some reported ok Verizon coverage.  Well, when I checked in, after they ran the card, I found out it was $50 a night plus tax.  I looked at the lady and said, "I thought it was $25 per night?"  The reply was, "We have new owners, they raised the price."  Ok, so where is site #6 (our assigned site), and she replied, "They are all clearly marked out there...should be along row number one."  Meanwhile, an older lady asked the clerk why the 213e Park credit card machine was so far back into the staff area, and she had to nearly hand the credit card machine to the use to get them to scan their card.  The clerk shrugged her shoulders, the older lady said, "We will have to look into changing that..."   All the while this same older lady heard me question the price, heard the clerk tell me to go find my spot on my own, and there was no question about any of that!  Well, being so tired from the past few days, we paid that price, and used as much electricity and water as we possibly could without wasting anything.  As for the park, it is on dirt, it is half full of what I would call Mobile-home Trailers, and there were five other real RVer's, could have been six but that lady drove off when she saw that she had to run her water and electricity all the way from the front of her truck to the back of her trailer she was hauling.  Oh, and the Verizon was nonexistent, and there was no WiFi.  So we had no TV, no WiFi, no Cellular Data (but we did have phone...it was all roaming), and thank goodness we had a collection of DVDs just for the occasion.  We would NOT recommend this park at all due to the rudeness, lack of service, and lack of caring for the needs of the paying customer.

The first 80 miles from the border to Delta Utah was a bit boring...60 miles of no Internet, it took 50 miles before the clock automatically changed on our cell phones, and we might have seen a dozen cars/trucks going the other way during this part of the trip. 

As Delta got closer, so did some nicer scenery.  We stopped along the Highway in Delta to check our email, basic Internet stuff, and take care of business.  Too bad Indy had no where to go, so we waited until we found a better spot between Delta and Salina at a truck stop that almost had grass.

Between Delta and Salina, where we pick up I-70, we saw many green fields, lots of cattle, and a few rock formations that caught our interest.  But it was AFTER we got on I-70 that we were awed.  In my opinion, I-70 from Denver to Salina (perhaps all the way to I-15) is the prettiest INTERSTATE in the nation.  Yes, there are better highways, but not better Interstates in my opinion.  Here is a long series of pictures that tell the story.

 

 

As you can see, the views along I-70 are wonderful.  Elevation ranges from 4,500 feet up to 7,200 feet and back down again.  Many moments of using our lower gear, and many moments of using overdrive to slow us down as we headed down the 6% grade.  All the while, trying to keep my eyes on the road and not the scenery...which is impossible to do.

We left the Nevada border right at 7 am, which quickly turned to 8 am Utah time.  We arrived at the iCamp Green River RV Park and Campground at 1:30.

The price is the same for this park as the one in Nevada, BUT the attitude and helpfulness of the staff is a 100% turnaround.  Asked for a Water Electric pull through with shade.  The lady says, "This is the best we have, but there is a back-in site which has good shade.  Not wanting to hook up on Monday morning, I took the best site they had.  Shade hits around 5:30, which means the heat of the day is right there on us.  The new AC that we have kept us at 80-82 degrees with outside temps hitting 99 degrees.

The A-Frame building is indicative of it being an older KOA.  Likeother older KOAs, they choose to use the "iCamp [name of town or area]".  This is our second or third one we have stayed at now. 

Indy is happy that we have stopped...and she will be even happier when we find grass again!  So far the trip is going well...no problems with the motorhome or the HHR tow car.