Day 21 -- Winnemucca to Carson City, Nevada -- 187 Miles

Day 20 -- Wendover to Winnemucca, Nevada -- 185

As you might guess, traveling across the vast vacant areas of Nevada is nothing new to us. We've been across countless times, mostly on either end of one of our RV sojourns. But I think today will turn out to be the most memorable trek ever!

Even though this morning in the Wendover KOA it was sunny but cool, the weather condtions quickly changed to stormy, rainy, and ultra windy as we headed west. Still, miraculously, we soon began to see patches of sunlight peeking through gaps in the dark clouds and by mid morning the angry look to the sky had softened.

The rainy and gloomy day actually turned out to be nothing short of the best photo-shooting conditions we've seen on this trip. The clouds continued to be impressively stationary as well as beautifully cumulus in nature. And though many clouds remained dark and threatening, more and more of them took on a lightened hue. The whole effect on the landscape was magical as the darks and lights of the sky translated to darks and lights on the ground.

In short, for the entire day we had the most spectacular show of Nevada's sage-covered desert lands with miles of velvety purple ranges and peaks in the background. I could hardly persuade myself to quit shooting and return to the rig so we could make Winnemucca by dark.

Day 19 -- Nephi, Utah to Wendover, Nevada -- 200 Miles

Today started out pretty nice with a glorious sun overhead portending a fun driving day for our trip from Nephi, Utah to Wendover, Nevada. But all too soon, the sky began to look gloomy and stayed that way as we approached Interstate 80 near Grantsville, Utah.

Then, as we began our trip west on the Interstate about 11:30 a.m., it began to sprinkle a bit. By lunchtime it was raining much harder and continued to rain briskly as we pulled into the truck stop at Belle, Utah for lunch.

Off and on for the next couple of hours, it took turns raining and not raining. When we stopped at the Bonneville Salt Flats rest area, we were fortunate that it wasn't raining that particular moment, and I managed to grab a couple of photos.

We were also lucky that it wasn't raining when we pulled into the Wendover KOA for the night. At that time, the sun happened to be shining, and I was able to do the complete setup without seeing as much as a drop.

Incredibly, when I came in and got ready to take a shower, the rain came back. By the time I was out of the shower, it was hailing like crazy. I even shot a photo of a picnic table nearby that was entirely blanketed with hail.

As I sit here typing on a day where there's been not much to type about, I can't help reflecting on things that occurred to me while I was driving. For instance, I first saw Salt Lake City way back in 1962 when it was a fairly quiet city of about 189,000 people, I imagine mostly Mormons. Since I have many Mormon ancestors myself, I know that the Mormons came west to escape persecution from states like Missouri and Illinos.

For instance, in 1838 the Governor of Missouri told the Mormons that they had to be out of the his state by a certain date or they would all be killed. Basically, the same thing happened in Illinois when the Mormons were driven out of their city of Nauvoo during the dead of winter in 1847. The bottom line here is that ignorant Americans back then thought Mormons were a danger to society and would never be productive and valuable citizens in America.

Today it occurred to me as we traveled north toward the booming metropolis of Salt Lake City, and passed mile after mile of bustling economic activity, that the Mormons had been better citizens than anyone gave them credit for. Salt Lake City WAS the perfect place for an industrious, hard-working people to found a city that now out shines many of America's best known cities.

My three times great grandfather came west from Nauvoo to Salt Lake City in 1848 and settled in the area of Springville, Utah about 50 miles south of Salt Lake City.

In 1852, he returned east to locate his oldest son who was still living in Missouri. The son, John S. Daley, returned with his dad to Springville in 1853. It's my belief that John S. Daley remained behind in Missouri with his younger brother in 1848 to work as teamsters for the American Army during the Mexican War. By the time the father arrived in Missouri, the younger son had died, though I have no idea where, when, or how.

By 1861, John S. Daley was a farmer, had a new wife and three kids, and had gotten through a rather major scrape with the law. But in May of that year, John mysteriously disappeared, some say at the hands of Indians. Still, there is no official proof that I have found that authentically documents what happened to him

Day 18 -- Kanab to Nephi, Utah -- 228 Miles

Today is our 18th day on our trip to wherever the heck we end up. Seriously, when we started out, we had absolutely no definite plans to be anywhere except wherever the route we chose took us that particular day. We began our journey heading for Pacifica, California for a special family event. But after that event, we wandered south along Highway 101 for a day, then decided to head east. We chose a route and set out, only to discover that our GPS had independently chosen a different route for us.

Ok, we thought, maybe she knows something we don't about the route we chose. But after that incident, we never completely trusted her guidance again. This, of course, complicated our navigation considerably, but since we didn't care where we ended up most of the time, if the GPS lied to us we just went with it

All things considered, and despite our ongoing war with the GPS, we have been to a great many exiting destinations in just under three weeks. Just to name three, we've been to the Grand Canyon for two nights, to Monument Valley for two nights, and to Durango for two nights so we could ride the Durango & Silverton train to Silverton and back.

So as our vacation comes to a close in the next few days, we have to pause and reflect on the many places we've been, the many people we've met, and to the many miles we've traveled in search of adventure. The GPS never quite learned to behave herself, but since we check every single mile against a map atlas, we don't care if she tries a bit of sneakyness once in a while.

Last night we stayed in a fabulous camp called Grand Plateau RV Resort just a few miles to the east of Kanab, Utah. The camp was very quiet, the layout was spacious, and the grounds were well kept by an itinerate camp handiman, Frank. Frank told me he loved his life in RV camps and had most recently come from a camp in Montana.

I got into a conversation with Frank because when I talked to him outside the camp office he sounded Austrailian. He grinned and responded that everyone thinks his accent is from down under, but in reality he's from the U.K. Well we hit it off great after that since I told him that vitually ALL my ancestors were from there as well. But that's the way of folks who either run camps or rent spaces in camps. Everybody is immediately your friend.

Our plan for today was to avoid Interstate 15 and continue our sojourn north on Utah Route 89, a route neither of us remembered having traveled before. On the map Route 89 appears to go all the way to Salt Lake City which is exactly the direction we wanted, regardless of what the GPS wanted. And our plan worked for most of the day, though for some unknown reason Route 89 dumped us onto Interstate 70 for twenty miles or so, but eventually we got back to our original route -- sort of.

If you remember we've been traveling on Route 89 all the way from the east entrance/exit to the Grand Canyon. We chose that route for a very good reason, we never travel the Interstates unless there is no other choice. We prefer rolling farm fields, winding roads through forests, and the mainstreets of many small towns still nurturing vestiages of the past.

Today for instance, we stopped and photographed a briskly-running stream on our route, a motel operation housed entirely in railroad cars, a wonderful Queen Anne victorian mansion, and a mouldering 19th century wagon that had all but fallen apart. We also photographed three abandoned filling stations from the 1930s and 40s, a sage-covered field of old rusted trucks, and -- best of all -- the boyhood home of one Robert Leroy Parker, alias Butch Cassidy.

The aforementioned photo subjects, plus a myriad of others over the years, are the reasons we avoid the Interstates and keep rolling down America's meandering lifelines once so important to yesterday's growing towns and villages.

One of the things that very much intrigued us about our route today is the large changes in roadside geology we experienced. Down near Kanab, Route 89 was bounded by large sandstone cliffs and boulders that exhibited a sort of rounded makeup full of criss-cross striations on their face. I very much regret that there was no real places to pull out to photograph these oddities as they were the first such examples of such rocks that we had seen on this trip.

Further up the canyon the striated sedimentary rocks waned, but were replaced by talus slopes of decomposing sedimentary rocks largely covered by pinion, juniper, and sage.

Even further up Route 89 the highway was suddenly bounded by nothing but volcanic lava flows, some that looked very, very new, and some that looked decided ancient. Since the lava flows were often hundreds of feet think and towered above us, I was constantly wondering if the Route 89 was only possible because the flows on either side of the road somehow stopped short of merging.

Sadly, I was not able to photograph ANY of the fascinating geology along our travel route today, but that just means we will have to return and give it another try.

Day 17 -- Grand Canyon Village, Arizona to Kanab, Utah -- 210 Miles

Today, as an young elk wandered by our camp to bid us farewell, we finished stowing all our gear, buckled our seatbelts, and rolled out of the Grand Canyon Trailer Village headed for the park eastern exit. It's always hard to say goodbye to such a lovely, awe-inspiring place, but it was time to make way for some other family and head for our next camping spot as we continue our Spring 2025 sojourn through the wonderful southwestern United States.

The Grand Canyon Trailer Village is really great park. It may be a difficult place to secure a space, but once you do, you discover that the Trailer Village is in a wonderful spot for you to participate in whatever activities interest you. Located only about a quarter mile from the Trailer Village front gate is a grocery store and small cafe. There's plenty of parking there, even for large RVs. We stopped this morning to do some last-minute grocery shopping, and the parking lot was largely empty.

The Blue Line park shuttle comes right to the Trailer Village gatehouse, and you can jump on and ride directly to the Visitors Center. From the Visitors Center, you can catch different shuttles that will take you everywhere from the train station to the most distant outpost. There's a geology museum on one route, and a great number of scenic overlooks, and hiking destinations. That way you may hike out and ride the shuttle back when your feet get tired.

This morning, as we left the grocery store and circled around to catch Route 64, we just had to stop one more time and view the magesty of this beloved geologic oddity known as the Grand Canyon. When we arrived at the roadside overlook and parked, we could see that the canyon was covered with a purple haze that obscured much of the detail of the geology below. But just as I was about to be disappointed with the obscurred view, I heard a girl call to her boyfriend that he should take her photo after she had craweled out to the edge of an overhanging boulder.

Naturally, that was too good an "invitation" to resist. I walked to the edge of the canyon myself and watched the girl edging out onto the rock. While my photographer brain silently thanked her for wearing red, I snapped a half dozen photos to document her feat of bravery.

At that point I had to return to the rig as we were taking up about six parking spaces, and I knew that someone would be awfully disappointed if there were none left to allow them to park so they could take in the purple haze.

Once out of the park we sought out a gas station at the terminus of Park Route 64 and Arizona Route 89 north. After tanking up, we were off in search of our next adventure. Route 89 North runs into Utah, or, if you turn east on Arizona 160, you'll find yourself in Tuba City or Kayenta. Going that way, you can end up in Monument Valley where we camped several days ago.

Our destination for the night was the Grand Plateau RV Resort in Kanab which can be reached by staying on Route 89 north all the way to the town of Page near the Glen Canyon Reservoir. From Page you can continue on Route 89 through Utah in a sort of northish, westish, southish direction. Or, you can take the route we chose and take the Alternate 89 North turnoff, and it takes you along Arizona's famous "Vermillion Cliffs."

The Vermillion Cliffs are largely red sedimentary sandstone overlaid with sea-bottom limestone. In huge portions of the cliffs the very dense limestone, which at one time kept the sand and mudstone from eroding, has tumbled off and fallen to the desert floor below. Concetta and I have been in search of some limestone samples since we first learned about the geologic feature from Ranger Annie.

As you can see from the photo at left, I am holding a sample of the sea-bottom limestone and the Vermillion Cliffs form the background. Though we failed to get any nice specimens on the road out of Grand Canyon Park, our lunch stop in the photo provided us with some perfect samples. According to Ranger Annie at the Grand Canyon geology lecture, the sample I'm holding here probably dates to 270 million years ago and is bascially the remains of unimaginable numbers of sea creatures.

After lunch and the addition of several more limestone samples to our growing rock garden collection, we made our leisurely way along Route 89 Alternate toward Kanab, Utah. Although the camp, we were told, was difficult for GPS units to find for some past travelers, the camp host had given Concetta specific turn-by-turn instructions that she said would take us right to the camp office.

This was working fine until we stopped to snap a couple of photos at a Native America jewerlry sales area. Naturally, I got out to shoot whatever geologic features I found interesting, and Concetta rolled down her window to get some fresh air. At that precise moment, a large gust of wind grabbed the paper with the directons to our evening camp that she had been navigating with all afternoon and blasted them away on the wind.

All I heard as I saw the tiny note waft its way in a sort of northeast direction was a cry of anguish from Concetta. Quickly, I rounded the side of the RV to try and keep the slip of paper in sight as I walked quickly in that general direction hoping for some miracle that would allow me to regain possession of the important document.

Eventually I lost sight of my quarry, but I just kept walking in the direction that I had seen it flying. I kept scanning the red desert hoping that the white paper would stand out no matter how far away it was getting. Finally, when I was almost ready to admit that the directions slip was gone forever, I spotted something white resting against the root area of a sagebrush plant about forty feet away.

I held my breath as I quickened my pace. Could that wonderful gray-green plant, official state plant of Nevada, have reached out and grabbed the infintismally small scrap of paper as it flew by so I could catch up with it? As I reached down and grabbed the delicate thing, I was truly amazed that not only did it not disappear on the wind, but it miraculously remained within the confines of the space that I could easily reach. I didn't have to fruitlessly climb the nearby mountain, or bushwack through a rocky canyon.

After leaving the Vermillon Cliffs portion of Route 89 Alternate, we began a slow, steady climb into the forested slopes of the Kaibab National Forest. Where once we were coursing our way through hot, vermillion-colored desert, now we were climbing into the domain of the pinion, lodgepole pine, and scrub brush. The air cooled as the rig ate up the miles at higher and higher altitudes, up to 8,000 feet and higher.

As you might guess, I had to stop and stretch my legs occasionally so I spent my time capturing photos of wild flowers lining the mountain road. Route 89 Alternate is such a great way to enter Utah from Arizona that I can't recommend it enough. The traffic is very light, the scenery is incredible, and there are plenty of places to pull over and spend some time just taking in the beauty of the landscape, be it desert or mountain.

If you have plans to stay in Kanab as we did, there are at least two camps right in town. We chose to stay at the camp that's just a short distance east on Route 89 towards Lake Powell at the Glen Canyon Dam. Our camp is not as far off the highway as I would have liked, but they gave us a space that is at the back of the park and on a slight knoll where we'll be able to see the sunset.