Day 26 -- Green River to Springville, Utah -- 132 Miles

Today turned out to be exciting and even somewhat out of the ordinary. We rolled out of Green River at our usual hour around 9:00 A.M. and made our first stop a local cut-rate gas station that seemed to have no customers until we arrived. That's usually a bad sign, but since empty gas stations are easier to enter as well as exit with a 32-foot rig, I chose it specifically for its obvious customer absence.

Once we had gassed up, we quickly left Green River behind while using Concetta and her handheld IPhone to navigate us to the tiny town of Springville, Utah, which lay up the road about 132 miles.

As usual, Utah's desert landscape was glowing in the early morning sun, and we enjoyed every mile that we traveled on Interstate 70 and on Utah Routes 6 and 191. Early on we passed through many of the towns that my various relatives spoke about when I was a child. Names like Price, Castle Dale, Soldier Summit, Helper, Scofield, and Clear Creek came and went on the roadside signs as we climbed the grade out of the desert lowlands (photo top left).

When it got close to lunch hour, we just happened to be approaching a roadside rest where we'd stopped at the very beginning of this vacation. I'm not sure what the name of the stop is on the map, but Utah has gone to the expense of erecting a replica railroad station and roundhouse to entertain travelers, as well as installed several charging stations for electric vehicles (photo lower right).

The last time we stopped at this place I had hoped to grab a few photos of the recreated train station and roundhouse, as well as hike up the adjacent hill to the real railroad tracks and grab a photo of a passing train. Unfortunately, that day it was gray and overcast and seemed to be threatening rain, and I didn't end up accomplising any of my goals.

Today turned out to be a much nicer day for fulfilling my previous intentions. Though cloudy, the day was mostly sunny, and I successfully turned our lunch hour into 90 minutes of both eating and taking several dozen photos. The hike up the hill to the railroad tracks was a little tough on this old duffer, but I made it. I didn't see or hear any trains coming, but I just decided to wait until one appeared around the distant bend before I retraced my steps back to the rig.

The first thing I noticed, even while I was down in the parking lot and a hundred feet below my future track-side vantage point, was the wonderful sandstone geological features that had been exposed by the railroad cutting through the mountain for their tracks. There seemed to be alternating layers of creamy, blocky sandstone, and dark, almost black sand or mudstone. You'd have a foot or so of the creamy sandstone, mysteriously broken into large cube-sized chunks. Then you'd have a couple of feet composed of literally hundreds of thin layers of mudstone piled one atop the other. It is possible that the dark layer was mixed with volcanic ash. (photo lower left).

Every time the sun would pop from behind a cloud and illuminate the hillside, I would fire off as many photos of that incredibly interesting geology as I could. Then, since I was still waiting for the train to arrive, I spent the overcast moments both looking for artifacts and studying exfoliated pieces of the cream-colored sandstone for evidence of fossils. Sadly, and try as I might, I didn't find any fossil evidence.

Meanwhile, a hundred feet below me in the parking lot, Concetta was beginning to think I had gotten totally lost. But when I finally gave up waiting for the train, taking photos, and looking for fossils, I hiked back down the mountain and let her know I was still alive. But, I told her, I was headed back out again because on my walk back to the rig I came across a couple of RVers who were in need of some assistance.

Before arriving at the rest stop, these RVers had noticed that the "skin" on one of their driver's side lockers had peeled off the support structure and bent double in the slipstream. They wondered if I had any Bungee cords, and I told them that I did, and I would go retrieve my collection and return.

After telling Concetta about my mission, I rummaged through my emergency stash, pulled out my container of Bungees and, for good measure, grabbed a brand new 50-foot roll of eighth-inch nylon line. Once back at their rig, I saw in my absence they had tied up the locker door skin with a knotted length of coaxial cable, which seemed to do the job. However, I insisted that they take my roll of nylon line just in case.

I always thoroughly enjoy helping out other RVers. More than once in our travels we too have been the recipients of some very good deeds by both fellow travelers and by members of the public we have encountered quite by chance.

During all this time, the train still had not appeared on the tracks above the rest stop, so we decided to move on. Naturally, we hadn't driven more than a couple of miles, and we passed the train coming up the canyon. Had I been able to remain just another half hour, I would have had my shot. But oh, well, better luck next time.

Amazingly, we hadn't driven more than another quarter of an hour, and we rounded a bend and encountered a huge two-lane traffic jam. When I say huge, I mean the double line of cars, trucks, and RVs of all descriptions stretched ahead as far as we could see down the canyon, perhaps as much as three miles, before it disappeared around a distant bend. We both assumed that there must be some giant accident like an overturned oil tanker or six-car pileup to create such a mess.

Very quickly our rate of travel was reduced from 60mph to less than 5 mph. We kept going, but you could almost walk as fast. Foot-by-foot we crept over the hill and down the canyon, side by side with a multitude of folks doing the same thing. Unfortunately, we had only just finished our murder mystery so didn't have that entertainment to take our minds off the tedium of the jam. I went ahead and popped John Denver into the machine, and we listened to "Rocky Mountain High," and other Denver favorites.

When, after nearly an hour, we finally arrived at where the two lanes became one lane, traffic suddenly took off like a shot, and we rolled away from that point at our usual 60mph. To our astonishment, there had been no huge accident at all. The entire debacle had to be chalked up to the Memorial Day traffic overtaxing the carrying capacity of Utah Highway 6/191.

Once past the jam, we very quickly rolled into Springville, our destination for the night. Rather then head right for the camp, we took what we hoped would be a few moments for me to stop by the Springville Cemetery and visit the grave of my two times great grandmother. Here in Springville my Mormon ancestors have lived and prospered since the first wagons arrived in 1847.

Alas, though I have located the grave in the past, and have even photographed it, I was unable to locate it today. I strolled around for a good forty-five minutes, but never saw a single "Daley" family member grave. After that bit of disappointment, we traveled on to our KOA camp in Springville, thus ending a really fascinating day.