Day 75, Sunday March 20

Yesterday’s trip up the Colorado River was so interesting, we decided to explore the Lower Colorado Scenic Byway today.  This was a totally different adventure.  The road is only 17 miles long before it turns to dirt and continues into Canyonlands National Park.  We drove the road as far as it was paved (again, not having the appropriate car to explore off-road).  This portion of the scenic byway follows the Colorado closely, with the river on one side of the road and steep reddish-orange sandstone cliffs on the other.  After turning off Hwy 191, it isn’t long before we were in the deep gorge of the Colorado River.  About 4 miles along the byway, we came upon lots of rock climbers in an area they call Wall Street.  It looked like many were just learning the sport because they weren’t climbing very far up the cliffs. 

A little further down the road we looked for a site we’d read about that had petroglyph panels along the cliffs.  It wasn’t too hard to find because the numerous cars gave the location away.  Once you found the elevation of the inscriptions, they were pretty easy to spot.  

It was hard taking photographs because the petroglyphs were on a rock that was a black color.  It was hard to see the detail through the lens at that distance, but when I got home and put them on my computer, I really got some good shots.  

Further down the road was a turnout and description of dinosaur tracks.  The rock with the tracks was halfway up a not-very-defined trail of boulders.  Dave hiked (crawled) up and took a photo (I learned my lesson and decided this climb was way too difficult for me). 
Unfortunately, the photo had something funky going on with it and I couldn't dowload it to the blog.  

We passed a number of trail heads to places like Corona Arch, Bowtie Arch and Jug Handle Arch. You can be hiking for months in this area and never see all the arches and rock formations. The paved highway ends at the Intrepid Potash Mine where potash, a mineral often used as a fertilizer, is extracted by flushing large volumes of water through an extensive system of underground tunnels and then evaporating the water in ponds. They had an exclusive rail line to haul the potash out of the river canyon to a major distribution center. We got some pictures of these ponds from up on Dead Horse Point State Park, before we knew what they were. The river canyon widens at the site of this mine, and provides a beautiful view of the sheer cliffs of Dead Horse Point State Park above.

Dave was itching to get a golf club in his hands, so in the afternoon, he went to the local golf course for some putting and chipping practice.  Because tomorrow’s our departure from Moab, we decided to go out to dinner for our last evening.  There was a huge Jeep Rally in town and most of the people who arrived in our RV park in the last few days were towing a Jeep.  

They signed up for off-road trips of differing difficulties and they all went out in caravans into the desert (some were climbing slickrock trails over boulders..yikes!).  Anyway, the restaurant we went to was Zax right on Main Street.  We sat outside and watched all variety of Jeep and other off-road, street legal, vehicles parade by.  It was pretty entertaining.

Home to do clean up and packing for our early departure tomorrow.

Day 76, Monday March 21

Moving day again.  Today we headed north to what we thought would be northern Utah for our nightly stop.  After we mapped it, we decided we could make it farther north than that, so ended up in Declo, Idaho.  The day was clear and sunny.  We hated to leave the nice weather in Moab, knowing we’d be heading into colder weather (and wetter) north.  We drove north to I-70 and then picked up US-191 north toward Provo.  Because the weather was warm, we weren’t too worried about snow going over Soldier Summit.  

The scenery on US-191 was pretty much desert the whole way to Price, with cliffs in the near distance that were home to some major mining operations.  We saw lots of rail and trucks moving coal from places like East Carbon and Wellington.  We soon discovered that as the canyon narrowed, we were travelling through the middle of these mining towns like Price, Spring Glen and Helper.  Outside of Helper, we began our climb over Soldier Summit (elev. 7,477 feet).  At 11:30am it was sunny, but windy.  When we reached the summit I checked the temperature and it was 54 degrees and the road was clear.  We did see some patches of snow alongside the road, but that was all.  Smooth sailing.  We picked up I-15 at Spanish Fork and took the freeway all the way north until Tremonton where we branched off on I-84 toward the Idaho border.  The drive through northern Utah and southern Idaho was beautiful.  Most all of it is farmland and it’s all starting to green up with spring.  Just before we came to the intersection of I-86, we saw lots of signs that said we were in high dust storm areas and not to stop on the highway.  Fortunately, it wasn’t blowing enough that we had any threat of dust storms, but we could see how this would be a possibility with the right conditions.  We did pass multiple gates that could close the highway as needed, so it was obvious the signs could be a reality.

forgot to take a pic of our site

Our RV site for the night was Village of Trees RV Resort.  It was a good location, just off I-84 on the Snake River, in the town of Declo.  The park had lots of large trees and all pull-through sites, so we didn’t have to disconnect the car.  There was a new bridge being built over the Snake River on I-84, so part of the park looked like it was housing construction workers.  The park was large enough to keep the “resident” campers in a separate section from the “transient” campers.  It was a very nice park with a pool, fishing pond, gas station, grocery store and café.  After registering in the communal grocery store/café, I told Dave we weren’t eating there.  The whole place smelled like grease.  I’m sure the food was fine, if you like deep fried (and have the option to wash your clothes after you eat there).  We experienced our first rain in a couple months at night.  It didn’t rain all night, but we had showers periodically.  Back to the winter clothes that Dave said he didn’t need to bring.  It’s nice to have that fleece again!

 Day 77, Tuesday March 22

We didn’t plan to travel any further than Boise today.  It shouldn’t have taken more than 2-3 hours, but we were heading into a storm cell that was predicting winds at 30mph with gusts to 40+mph.  We left at 10am, and decided we’d try the interstate and see how difficult it was.  If the winds were too bad, we’d resort to the old side highway where we could travel at a lesser speed.  The wind was on our nose (not good for the gas mileage, but oh well) most of the trip and we kept our speed at about 50mph and stayed in the slow lane.  The truckers were moving by us at 70mph, but we just kept on driving at our own comfortable speed.  Even Cassey came out for most of the drive (now that we’re on our way home, she’s getting braver).  All the wind was in front of a storm that we finally caught up with as we approached Boise.  Hail!  Not just rain, but hail.  At least it cleaned the windshield of bugs. 

 With a quick lunch stop and a gas stop, we got to the Boise Riverside RV Park at about 3pm.  We plan to be here 3 nights. 

Our view out the windshield

The RV park is located in northwest Boise on the Boise River and there is a bike/hike trail right in front of our coach.  Dave had been behind the wheel for a long time and after we got hooked up, decided to take a short hike on the trail.  After he got back, we went into the center of Boise for dinner.  We ate at a fun restaurant in the old part of Boise (kind of like Pioneer Square with the old brick buildings and original brick on the insides) called Bardenay.  Their claim to fame is that they were the nation’s first restaurant distillery.  They have 3 locations in Idaho creating liquor on site.  Each site specializes in a different spirit:  ginger rum, amber rum, dark rum, rye whiskey, vodka and flavored vodkas.  Oh yah..and their food is great too.