Across Utah

Today's journey is supposed to take us straight down the I-15 from snow to warm. Destination is St. George, in the farthest southwest corner of Utah. Again when we left Brigham City, it was trying to snow, although the roads were good. An hour or so of driving took us to Salt Lake City where the road planners must get good drugs on a regular basis. There's no other explanation for roads going here and there, curving up over, down and around. And to make it worse, there's considerable construction going on that modifies interchanges a bit and invalidates signage. We intended to bypass the main area by taking I-215 (beltway), but totally missed the exit and didn't know we missed it. So, when we got to the interchange where 215 re-enters I-15, we EXITED instead, and started to head back north. No major problem as the GPS system re-routed us back to where we needed to be, but a good indication of the confusion of first time drivers in the area.

Lunchtime found us around Fillmore, and the weather had turned from cloudy to sunny. It was still chilly, but bright sunshine gives a lift. The balance of the trip was relatively uneventful, a combination of long straight interstate driving punctuated with rollercoaster trips through 'mountain' passes. The mountains here are not as high as the Rockies at home, and the valleys are not as restrictive, so the highway climbs and curves gently. The steepest downgrade we encountered was only 6% for a couple of miles.

We arrived in St. George at about 3:00pm after driving about 600 kilometers. The bus and the car are filthy from all the snow (and also from the construction at the storage yard in Calgary). We had previously looked up an RV wash place to get rid of the worst of the grime. When we arrived and got out to unhitch the car, we found its battery was dead. Graham must have been really tired when he hooked it up this morning. Also, the RV wash height was only 12', so we couldn't take the bus through anyhow. So off we went to the McArthur's Temple View RV Park, 5 minutes away.

It's great weather here - +40F with blue skies and bright sunshine! This is what we're trying to achieve with all this driving. Not only that, but the countryside has lots of red rocks and cliffs and is very different than anything seen on earlier trips (see Elaine's pictures). And no snow! Just for reference, we are almost exactly 1000 miles (1600 km) directly south of Calgary.

After 1000 miles, the motor home and car look like the RV equivalent of homeless people. If you saw the 'RV' movie, we were something like the motor home they pulled out of the lake. So we decided to change plans a bit and take a two day break in St. George, un-winterizing and washing the RV, extending the slides, cleaning the inside and giving the dogs (and ourselves) a break from travelling. By nightfall, we had done much of the above, and were really tired. So out to eat again, only to discover that the car has an almost flat rear tire. And we put these tires on new just before leaving. Oh well, a task for tomorrow to get it looked at (we just filled it with air to get us to the restaurant and back). We both turned in early and slept like logs.

Paul & Rhonda: There's nothing like going for a walk without jackets! Hook up that 5'er and c'mon down!

Jan 19, 2008

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