Joe & Wilma's Excellent Adventures

 Monday, August 5, 2024

Happy Heavenly Birthday to My Mother

On to Arizona

Moving on across Utah, I did get a picture of the pretty Morman Temple up on the hill.  I can actually see the temple from the window of the RV.

  We started out on Hwy 89, then had about 25 miles on interstate 70. The pretty mountain pictures are from I -70.  As we drove the stretch on I -70, we had mountains off on both sides, but once we turned on Hwy  89 again we were driving through the mountains right along beside the Sevier River. 

Mountains all around us.

We went through Whistle Stop where I think you can rent train cars to stay in. The Big Rock Candy Mountain Resort is also in this little burg.  This is a very pretty area with lots to do -- ATV rentals, several campgrounds, lots of mountains to explore.  

We  came through an area with what looked to be poultry barns just south of Marysville but we don't know if they are chickens or turkeys.  There was more than one row of them.

 The pretty Sevier River eventually left us, but then we came up on the Putte State Park and the Piute Reservoir. For a while, we drove along a very muddy river, but we never saw a name.  

Butch Cassidy is from this area and as we came through Junction, there was a sign that they celebrated Butch Cassidy Days just this past weekend.  We always miss these big deals, usually by just a few days.  Flags were hanging on most telephone poles. We don’t know if that’s part of the celebration or if that’s always like that.  Joe saw a loop road and thought we should take that, then he remembered we were not in the jeep. I reminded him that we were in the "making miles mode" today -- no side trips, although we went past Bryce and Zion National Parks so side trips would be a good thing. 

We came upon Butch Cassidy‘s boyhood home, just south of Circleville, Utah.  But I think this whole strip on Hwy 89 claims him.

Right after we left Panguitch, we got behind a little blue car that was swerving all over the road. He almost took out an oncoming vehicle and he almost sideswiped a vehicle pulled off on the right.  Tthat vehicle pulled out right in front of us and eventually the little blue car pulled over and that car pulled in behind him. I was just about ready to call 911 so I hope whatever the situation was they got it taken care of. It was certainly a wreck about to happen.  

Next up was the Bryce Canyon turn off with the beautiful red mountain behind it, 8 miles past that was the little town of Hatch where we stopped for lunch at 1:15.  

 We’ve got some pretty good clouds behind the Bryce mountains so I thought we might get rained on.  It was pretty cloudy when we went across the street to the restaurant. I told Joe we should take an umbrella. We are just not umbrella people, but sure enough when we came out, it was raining. We sat at an outside table for five minutes and it slacked off so we hustled across the road.  And we don't hustle very fast.  

Near Kanab, we got into the red rock country.  This little town has lots of outdoors activities available.  It would be a good destination for active people.

After we came out of Kanab, we spotted some smoke, just a small puff of smoke, in the distance.  As we continued south on 89A, the smoke continued to expand. We’re really afraid we have spotted a new forest fire.

A scrawny coyote crossed the road in front of us. It looked  like he might have a broken leg.

From Kanab to our campground in the Jacobs Lake area, it was a steady climb of 3000 feet. Joe said he felt like he was pulling the jeep sideways.  Joe said this was probably the longest and hardest pull we have had the whole trip.  It was about a 40-mile climb, slow but steady, Joe said, and we’re camping at almost 8,000 feet. We got to the campground about 4:00, ready to be off the road. 

This campground, Kaibab Camper Village, was a nice surprise. We had been at Jacob’s Lake, which is just across the road and down about a half mile, but it doesn’t have any hook-ups so we decided to come to this commercial campground with full hook-ups. It’s lovely, shaded, quiet, clean, the woods all around us are very clean , we’re really enjoying it and will probably extend another night.   We even ate dinner outside at the picnic table, a rare treat on this trip. 

Looks like I’m gonna have to pick up some pinecones before we leave though.

We drove 230 miles today, and crossed into Arizona just after 3:00 (2:00 at home, but I think we are still on Mountain Time here).  It's 70 degrees as I write this (9:00 p.m.) and is supposed to get down to 64 tonight.  That's why we will probably stay another night here.  The Phoenix heat looms on our horizon.