Finished Nebraska, through Wyoming & Utah, into Nevada

 

At Little America in Wyoming

Our first night at Cabela's was beyond interesting.  Around 11:40 I heard water running. Thinking it is a broken water line, I open the door and realize they are watering the lawn...but one sprinkler is broken and shooting water sky-high just in front of our motorhome.  Ok, all is well except now Indy wants out...so her and I go out and get wet, she does her stuff and we get wet coming back in.  All is well...until around 2 am when the SKIES opened up.  For nearly 30 minutes it rained and rained and rained, with lightening and thunder and winds.  Fortunately the National Radar showed no warnings, and sure enough it passed without incident.  The second night was fine...although the lawn was again watered (along with the roadway where the broken sprinkler's water landed.

We were up by 6 am and hit the road within 20 minutes.  Even then the sun was being blocked out by the smoke from the western fires.

Looking west, you can see the smoke off in the distance, despite the rain the area got 36 hours earlier.

Very quickly we were entering Wyoming.  We zipped through Cheyenne, and we had already gained 2,000 feet in elevation from Sidney.  My plan was to stop for breakfast at the Rest Area between Cheyenne and Laramie. 

At 8,640 feet in Elevation it is the highest spot along I-80...higher than Donor Summit which is only 7,239 feet!  

This part of the Interstate is linked up with US Highway 30, which is the Lincoln Highway...so they have this wonderful monument of Lincoln at this rest are.

After a quick breakfast, we hit the road again.   Wyoming is full of hills, rocks, ranches, weeds and sagebrush.

At another rest area we saw these two guys (the gal stayed with the truck) working with this dog on these large boulders.  Marcia thought they might be training the dog, and sure enough they were...but neither of us thought about taking a picture of them working with the dog...our bad.  Anyway, the dog is on its way to Utah to get more training, and then it is going to Africa where it will work to track down and fight elephant poachers.

 These four pictures above were taken around Rock Springs and Green River.

By 2 pm we reached our destination of Little America, about 60 miles away from the Utah boarder.  The first picture in today's blog was were we first parked...we were a bit worried about how many RVs were there when we arrived...but they all left within the hour, and we picked a good spot in their RV area for the night.  Except for a bit of highway noise, we did not have to fight any truck noises, although a few latecomers were a bit noisy.  Not bad for a free night's sleep.  It is good to see that Little America, first built in 1952, is in such good shape.

We hit the road by 7 again, and found overcast skies, and very soon a light, but persistent rain.

But it did make for some nice pictures, smoke free pictures.

Soon we were across the Utah border.

Stopped for breakfast at a rest area a few miles into Utah.

And then found ourselves headed down Parleys Canyon.  It was a bit of a white-knuckle drive down the canyon and through Salt Lake City...and the light rain did not help any.

Along the receded Great Salt Lake shoreline is Saltair III.  Number one blew down and then burned down.  Number two was set afire by an arson.  Number 3 lies there mostly unused.  Never seen the inside, but have seen pictures of all three.  Number 1 was very popular, and the other two never could reach the popularity of the first one.

WOW, look how far down the Great Salt Lake is right now!  I have seen it low like this before, have also seen it reaching the roadway of I-80...held back in a few places by sandbags.

 

The rain started to let up out by Tooele (pronounced as Too·i·luh), and it was gone for the rest of the day.

The Tree of Utah sculpture created by Swedish Artist Karl Momen, was put alongside the roadway in the 1980's.  For decades folks would park near it and take pictures, but now there is a fence and highway sign which says "No Stopping".

Marcia did a great job getting this picture as I slowed down to 55 mph.

Our destination for the day is the The Welcome Station RV Park about 8 miles west of Wells, Nevada.  There are around 20 RV sites, just less than half are pull-through, each full hook-up, and the rest pull-in or back-in, some with full-hookups and other with just water and electric.

It is a Passport America campground, but only on Sunday through Thursday and only for one night...so we were only charged $17.50 for our one night stay.

Glad I called yesterday because the park is full.  Who would have imagined that here in eastern Nevada, as dry and desert-like that it is, that you can find an Oasis like this with plush green grass, large shade trees, and friendly folks running and owning this park.

Utah to Lake Mead, Boulder City

Bright and early start Sunday morning reveals blue skies, white mountain tops, and fog over Deer  Creek Reservoir.  Had a nice visit with my daughter, and helped her move into a new living arraignment with her good fried Jenny who just purchased a condo and moved into it herself last week.  Stephanie will spend weekdays down in Provo close to school, and weekends up in Salt Lake City area with Jenny.  She is still feeling the ill effects of last year’s surfboard incident, something which she might have to deal with the rest of her life.  She can only handle a couple of classes at a time, and cannot work.  Like these NFL quarterbacks who got knocked in the head one time too many, she has really gone through the ringer, so to speak.

       

Thank goodness the fog over the lake was not hovering close to the ground, so we had a very enjoyable drive down Provo Canyon and on to I-15 where we headed toward Las Vegas.

Got a good shot of Bridal Veil Falls as we came down the canyon.

While Marcia, who took most of the pictures, got a good shot of the fall colors.  Yes, start of fall in Utah’s Salt Lake City/Provo area, a wonderful time of the year.  Wake up to 32 degree weather one day, and 55 degree weather the next.  Highs can be in low 40’s and up to the 80’s…and as fall moves closer to winter, well…use your imagination.  But the colors you see are just fabulous!

      

The Wasatch had a dusting of snow while we were here…thank goodness the rain let up just long enough to move Stephanie on Saturday.  Soon the Wasatch Mountains are in our mirror…

And the deserts of Utah lay ahead. 

   

As we leave Utah just south of St. George, you enter Arizona for just a few miles, passing through another wonderful canyon.  Few people live in this area of Arizona, and if you do, you are isolated from the rest of the state with access only through either Nevada or Utah.

We make it through the Nevada desert, through the hustle and bustle of the never sleepy city of Las Vegas, and on down to Lake Mead.  We are just passing through on our way to Phoenix for a very short visit with friends on Tuesday morning before heading to Kansas City. 

Lake Mead is the largest reservoir in the United States.  The National Park Service oversees the Lake Mead National Recreation Area, and there are various camp grounds in the area.  We stayed at the Boulder Beach Campground.  With the Senior Pass to get into the area for free, the pass also gave us a discount on camping to only $10 per night. Not sure where we are staying tonight, but it will be within an easy drive of Cracker Barrel in Phoenix where we will meet our friends before heading on to Kansas City.

Red Canyon RV Park

After a brief stop over in Cedar City for gas for both the motorhome and the car, we made it to Red Canyon RV Park just east of Panguitch, Utah.  This will be our home for a week as we go off to visit nearby Bryce Canyon N.P., further off Zion N.P., and not too far off Cedar Breaks National Monument. Somewhere during the week we have to do laundry, grocery run in Cedar City, and anything else we decide to do.  

  

Last evening while still at Cathedral Gorge, a fairly short, intense storm blew through.  It was enough for me to put the slide in, but not enough to wake up Marcia from her nap.  Just a small amount of rain where we were.

Made for a nice pink sky after the sun settled over the hill to our west.  This is looking South, South-east, the other two shots were more north and pointing toward the storm which passed by 20 minutes earlier.

This is a southern view while still in Nevada, skies looked 

And it did not take long for us to reach Utah….definitely one of my favorite states.

   

It is your typical RV Park, with some space between the spots.  We are lucky today, so far, in that we have nobody on either side of us.  We got to pick our spot, and the first two RV’s you see past us came in sometime after us.  We decided to park near the office because the WiFi is stronger.  Already went through 5 gigs of our 20 gig air card for the month, so having WiFi for the week for the blog postings, which takes up a bunch of the bandwidth, is highly needed.

They also have these little cabins, which I am sure are used during the summer, but are empty now.  Red Canyon RV Park is a Good Sams park, and they offer weekly rates, which we took advantage of.  At $175 for the week, we thought that was pretty good considering where we are located.  The park is not open from November 1st until April 1st., but there is a winter phone number if one wants to make reservations during the winter for when they are open.  Tomorrow, weather permitting….and it is raining now, we plan to visit Bryce.

From Utah -- a Surprise For Mom

Had to stop at the first rest area in Utah, not because “we had to”, but because I just had to get a shot of the red rocks…how I love the red rocks of Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and other places.  There is just a warmth and nice feeling about it.

But Bubba and Skruffy don’t give a darn about the red rock….they love the green grass…the REAL green grass, no stickers, not pests….

    

Well, a different type of pest….they little prairie dogs wouldn’t stop chatting at them.  I had to hold Skruffy back, she was ready to take off after them, while Bubba just gave them a few looks.

As we drove further west we came to Echo Reservoir, which was not full, but had a lot more water in it this year than it did last year.

This is a nice area up around the reservoir, with many farms and ranches within the valley, and nice views of snow-capped mountains.

Then we get our first view of the Park City area ski slopes.  This is the area where Stephanie works.

Much latter we get a quick view of downtown Salt Lake City.

So a couple of weeks ago I get a call from my daughter Stephanie, she wants to ride with us to California, then fly back after the BBQ on Saturday….a big surprise for her Grandma.  So we kept it quiet, and that’s what we did.  Was it a surprise?  Well, it is hard to surprise Grandma after 84 years.  She called me a few days ago and asked if there was any way we could squeeze Steph into the motorhome and bring her to California.  I responded with the best “non lie” that I could think of….”Mom, she has a job!”  Well, that did not work, so she totally expected Steph today when we pulled in, but it was worth every attempt, and the important thing is that she gets to see Stephanie for the first time in a few years…even if it is only for a 26 hour time period.  Yes, Steph flies back to Utah tomorrow around 4:00 pm, so at 2:45 her brother Michael, who arrives by train at 11 am tomorrow, and I will drop her off at the airport and then I have to head over to Berkley with Michael to take him home because he is in the midst of finals.

Not really sure what she was showing off with her i-phone, but on the right is Arny’s mother, my mom is to the left, Stephanie was wearing her new 49er hat, and our motorhome is parked once again at my sister Sandy’s and brother-in-law Arny’s house.  Wish I had a picture of how happy the dogs were to be back….especially Bubba who licked Arny’s face for the first time as soon as he saw him.  Bubba had been very subdued the past 48 hours or so.  Yes, he was happy to be able to smell all the smells when we stopped at places, but the travel was really getting to him.  But as soon as we arrive, wow, what a change!  We lost count at how many times Bubba and Skruffy rolled and rolled on the grass, and how many barks Skruffy had at the Squirrels.  Tomorrow is the BBQ, and another travel day for me as I pick up Michael at the train station, and later drop Steph off at the airport and take Michael back to the Bay Area.  But it will be well worth it.