FINALLY - the last entry from our spring trip west .

I left off on the last trip post with us just entering Monument Valley. We found their RV "parking area" and unhitched the Silver Dog House. Then paid the $7.00 to drive a trail among the Buttes, Spires, Towers and cliffs. The formations are the result of uplift and then millennia of water and wind erosion. The red color of the sedimentary rock that makes up the formations is a result of large deposits of iron oxide. Monument Valley is probably the most photographed landscape on the planet so I just had to contribute my collection of pictures.



The wind was blowing hard the whole time we were in the valley and we still had Monument Valley pumpkin orange sand in the bed of the truck when we got home.

We spent that night camping on the beach at Lake Powell.

The wind was still blowing and some kids camping in tents had problems with them blowing down the beach if they were not in them. The Silver Dog House was buffeted by the winds all night. Duncan had a swim but cut it short when he became more interested in a neighbor's dog than in minding his manners.

We were beginning to run short on time but still wanted to see Zion and Bryce Canyons. After all we had come this far we could not leave without at least a look at part of Utah.

We made the mistake of breaking one of our own rules - never try to find a new camp site on a weekend. First we tried Coral Sands State Park where the sand was more ORANGE than coral in color and the campground was full.
We pushed on the the east entrance of Zion where we were told that the campgrounds there were full. There were none back to the east and Richard did not want to drive through the tunnel with the trailer so we turned around and went the long way around, back south through Arizona to the west entrance near Hurricane.
After searching out a doggy day care where we could leave Duncan for our tour of the park we finally found ourselves at the only full service RV park we stayed in during the six week trip (except for the Airstream Factory). Early the next morning Duncan was deposited at the doggy day care and we spent the day touring Zion Canyon on foot and with the almost silent propane powered shuttle buses.
We returned to collect Duncan before dark and spent another night cheek to jowl in the very cramped park.


Now we headed to Bryce Canyon. Here the campgrounds were not full but the choicest sites were and we had to choose one on a steep slope. That afternoon we worked our way to the end of the road at the highest point in the park, stopping at lookouts along the way, and drove right into a snow storm. Zion Canyon was the first time in the trip we had been too hot and now we were freezing cold. I took pictures as long as we could stand the cold and wind then returned to the trailer and its heater. The next morning dawned bright and clear and found us as Sunrise Point to catch the first light over the Canyon. It was cold but beautiful. We spent the morning retracing out steps of the afternoon before and taking pictures with sunlight on the scenery instead of snow falling from low lying clouds. Wildlife showed itself in the form of Wild Turkeys and Pronghorn Antelope, neither the least bit afraid of us. The sun on the Aspen trees showed me what Richard has always told me - the Bark was white as birch in the east. The morning felt rushed as we broke camp and headed east at lunch time.

The last part of the trip was a two and a half day mad dash across the continent from Bryce Canyon National Park to the Airstream factory in Jackson Center, Ohio. There is one large album in Picasa that covers that 1500 mile stretch. Most of the pictures cover the scenic drive north of Bryce Canyon through Grand Staircase - Escalante National Monument and then east across Utah and Colorado to the Eisenhower/Johnson Memorial tunnels on I-70 which cross under the Continental Divide at 11,000 feet.

Utah 12 is a designated scenic road that twists and turns through some of the emptiest landscape we saw on the trip. It crosses the north west edge of the Colorado Plateau and is as nearly soil less as any landscape I have ever seen.



Utah 12 met Utah 24 and traveled east through Capitol Reef National Park, another area I would like to spend more time. We finally met I-70 and headed east. That night we stopped at a Wal-Mart parking lot in Glenwood Springs.

The next morning was cold and rainy. We drove I-70 through mountains with snow still on the ground. the last section of the Interstate Highway system to be finished goes through the very narrow Glen Wood Canyon. The Interstate is paralleled by the Railroad which of course came first. In order to make the railroad and highway fit in the narrow canyon with the river they are built on three different levels, the highway on one side of the river and the railroad on the other. At Hanging Lake Dam in Glen Wood Canyon there is a tunnel through the mountain that is amazing. My picture is from the highway but I have since found a flicker album of pictures that are much better than mine. There is a rest area there that we unfortunately missed, so there are pictures from different angles. The Flicker album also includes the Eisenhower tunnel. If you run your cursor over this one you will see the rail road tunnel as well. And here an east bound train going under I-70. And this picture shows I-70 divided on two decks at different elevations, plus has information about the canyon I wish I had known before we drove through it. We will have to go this way again. Here is a blog with an amazing photo of the west end of the tunnel entrance, from above. You can see all three tunnel entrances, and the dam on the Colorado tributary.

Beyond we climbed to the Continental Divide and went under it at 11,000 feet through the Eisenhower/Johnson Memorial tunnel. By the time we reached the Continental Divide we had returned to winter with deep snow on the ground. Fortunately the cloud cover was out of flakes and we drove just underneath the bottoms of the clouds through a dark morning with the sun actually trying to burn through.

From full winter west of Denver we descended to spring across the plains and spent the next night in a Wal-Mart parking lot in Topeka, Kansas. That was a nearly 700 mile drive. The last day's drive was over 700 miles in the rain. We pulled into the camping area at the Airstream Factory in Jackson Center, Ohio at 10:00 pm Thursday night. They have a nice camping facility they call the Terraport, where your stay is free, the night before, day of and night after, if you are getting service. We met a couple from Alaska who would be staying over the weekend as their service was more extensive.

Friday morning early they came and collected the Silver Dog House and were done with the repairs in very fast order. We took the factory tour in the afternoon and shopped at the factory store.

Saturday we made the relatively short drive home.