Zion and the Steptoe Valley

Kanab, Utah, turned out to be a very pleasant place to park for the night. Nothing special, but a very quiet, well ordered park with well mannered neighbors. The space was easy to back into. The utilities easy were easy to access. And we were parked far enough away from the main highway where we didn't hear much in the way of traffic noise all night. With yet another day dawning clear and bright on the high desert, we pulled up stakes on Wednesday morning and headed north and west toward home. Pausing only to grab a bit of grocery shopping we were soon rolling out of town. We thought we would probably be able to reach Ely, Nevada, by nightfall. That's what we thought.

As is turned out, we made it all the way from Kanab, Utah, to Springdale, Utah on the west side of Zion National Park, a distance of perhaps sixty, maybe seventy miles.

Now that's nowhere near the fewest miles we've every traveled in one day. That distinction goes to a tent-camping vacation a couple of decades ago when we traveled exactly fourteen miles up the California coast in an eight hour period. Still it was somewhat surprising when I sat down this evening to bring this blog up to date and discovered how little miles we'd traveled yesterday.

Maybe you can guess the reason. If not, I'll tell you. It was due to the absolute jaw-dropping magnificence of Zion National Park. Neither one of us had ever been to Zion and the place just completely mesmerized us. Between our constant stopping to take photos and the time we spent at the visitor center and park museum, we simply exhausted our entire travel day. Discretion always being the better part of valor, we soon decided that the RV park in Springdale and a cocktail as the sun went down was just what the travel Gods had in mind.

The RV folks gave us a site right down by the Virgin River where we could hear the water cascading by as we went about our camp duties. The site was largely level and dry and in short minutes we were all set up and enjoying our vodka and cranberry juice "picker-upper" in our lounge chairs. In the background, above the river, the jagged sedimentary cliffs of Zion glowed with the rosy hew of a setting sun. We've never before seen such expressive geology as we encountered in Zion. The towering rocks stuck us as so ancient and humbling that we were moved to seek out a book on the park's geologic history.

This morning, our flirtation with Zion over (if it could ever be over) we once again loaded our gear into the trusty Ford and headed for the open highway. Our goal today (as it had been the day before) was to reach Ely, Nevada, on Highway 50. I sort of guestimated that it would be an easy run and it certainly turned out just so. Traffic was extremely light as we powered up Interstate 15 toward Cedar City. We didn't plan on stopping anywhere and hitting Ely by early afternoon appeared to be a cinch. Appeared to be.

Of course, we hadn't reckoned on running across an attraction in Cedar City called the "Frontier Homestead State Park Museum." Now, if you've been following these on the road tales for any time at all you know that our Tioga almost never passes anything with museum in the name. This time was no exception. Almost before we knew it we were jockeying the motor home into the parking lot and presenting ourselves at the entrance counter. We were about to have our day improved about 200%.

Seeing that we were about the only patrons present, a docent immediately volunteered to take us under his wing and give us about a ninety-minute guided tour of the facility. We looked at each and every exhibit, from wonderful photography, to fabulously-restored wheeled vehicles, from a fully-stocked print shop, to an authentic sheep-sheering facility, from an early-day school house, to an extensive children's hands-on exhibit, from sample weaving, to early and exotic firearms. Gee Wiz, I was in complete heaven. There was lots and lots more, but you get the idea. My favorite exhibits were the wheeled vehicles, especially an authentic "mud wagon," a sort of stripped down stage coach, that was completely restored.

As you might guess, we spent so much time in Cedar City that we were significantly behind schedule by the time we left. In fact, shortly after we left we came across a roadside rest and pulled in for our lunch. Once lunch was finished, it was perhaps 1:30 p.m. and once again we hadn't gone very far since breaking camp that morning. However this time we decided that we were simply going to make Ely or else. So we put the pedal to the metal and our eyes on the road ahead and by 5:30 p.m. we had reached our goal and were pulling up to the KOA.

I have to tell you that if you're on the the road in this part of America you will find no lovelier place to camp than the KOA at the foot of the magnificent Steptoe Valley on Highway 50 near Ely. This Valley and its surrounding mountains are take your breath away beautiful.

Tomorrow we're on the road again, headed west on Highway 50, the self-proclaimed, "Loneliest Road in American." It's a long run to Carson City, at least long for us given our penchant for stopping at the drop of a hat and sampling the local color. We'll be getting up pretty early tomorrow and with any luck will be home by sundown. Not sure when we'll be back on the road again, but there has been some talk of upgrading the RV to something newer now that we're certain that we've become addicted to this RV lifestyle. We just want to say, thanks for coming along and we hope you have a chance to get out there and try this grand adventure for yourself.