TooBusyForWork

Now to Wyoming and Montana

We left the Black Hills on Monday, 27 June. We scored a great dry camping spot at De Smet Lake between Buffalo and Sheridan. We spent 3 nights there, sitting right next to the lake. It was a lovely change from all the commercial campgrounds we have been in. It was also the first time we have been without hookups on this entire trip! We did need some generator time for AC on two days, but it was pretty simple except that. Since we are finally in the mountains, we had to have mountain pictures!

See the snow capped mountains? Near Buffalo.

We saw at least 100 pronghorns, but this was the only picture I got. It isn’t very good, still being from a distance and cropped a lot, but at least it does show a pronghorn.

We left De Smet and went to the KOA at Hardin, MT. They had a tornado her not too long ago, and the campground still shows the effects. It wasn’t in great shape before, but the owners have been so busy recovering from the storm that a lot of routine maintenance has been deferred. Still not a bad place to stay the night. It was amazingly quiet.

We took a trip to the Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area south of Hardin almost to Wyoming. The area is lovely with a large flat area for farming and a canyon where the Bighorn River runs. There is one big dam and a smaller dam, both to supply power. The smaller one also acts as silt control for the blue ribbon fishery on the Bighorn. The impounded river is more like a wide river set into a deep canyon. Next time we come through I want to rent a pontoon boat and drive it up the canyon. It would be a gorgeous trip.

The immediate downriver dam for power and silt control

We are now in the Helena, MT KOA. The trip here was unusually busy, but then again it WAS the Friday before the Independence Day holiday! It seemed like all of Montana was on the move in RVs, cars, and SUVs. There was every type of outdoor gear imaginable – tents, OHVs, boats, etc. We stopped at the rest area in Bozeman, and traffic to get on I-90 was backed up almost a mile! I think people are so excited to get out they are going no matter how bad the fuel gets. As we went through Billings I finally got the motorhome washed. It was past dirty. And then we got 8 miles of gravel an hour later. Sigh. My pretty motorhome looks awful again. An hour past the gravel section our windshield got a big divot from a rock! We were 30 minutes from Helena, but too late for Safelite there. We ended up arranging to have it fixed in Great Falls next week.

As we pulled into the Helena campground, I got this adorable picture of both cats sleeping together. They aren’t usually cuddly with each other even though they are sisters, but this was so cute!

Luna is in Minnie’s favorite travel spot

Luna is normally on Kevin’s lap during travel while Minnie is almost always in this specific chair. She definitely prefers this specific quilt too. The picture is a bit misleading about their relative sizes. Minnie is actually significantly smaller than Luna.

Today we went on a scenic boat tour through Gates of the Mountains, named by Lewis and Clark as they came through on the Missouri. The area is part of the Missouri River dam system now, so the very narrow entrance is partially hidden by water these days. It was a fabulous trip, almost 2 hours long, with a great captain. He gave lots of information about the history, the geology, and the flora and fauna. Here is a picture dump.

A lot of the area around the marina is gently rolling

This boat was built in the 1950s, but we went in the modern version with a roof.

Mostly limestone cliffs with lots of caves and crevasses

An unusual eagle nest on a rock. It was stolen from an osprey a few years previously. See the babies?

Imagine the water 20’ lower. This is the “gate” the explorers saw

I actually took about 80 pictures, but that would have been a bit excessive!

We are finishing up the day with laundry and shopping, all the fascinating stuff of long term living. I admit (again) that I LOVE my stackable washer and dryer. They are smaller than home units, and the dryer takes a long time because it works on 110v. However I love not going to the laundromat and never knowing how hot the washer or dryer is.

The campground looks like Tiffin convention, and we are the small folks! There are numerous Bus and Phaeton models in the park. The folks who pulled in next to us are going on the same caravan we are, and they are headed to Great Falls on 5 July, just like us. I am betting some of the other rigs here are part of the caravan too. Guess we will find out on Tuesday.

Chuck wagon dinner plus more scenic drives in South Dakota

Still in Spearfish, SD, and still at the same campsite. The resort originally said we would have to move on Friday morning, but someone else cancelled and we got to stay in this nice site. It is always nice to not have to pack everything up!

There is a nice quilt store in town, Heartfelt Quilting, where I bought the backing for the quilt I am working on. The lovely owner volunteered her shop for me to sandwich the quilt, so we went there on Friday. I got it all put together with Kevin’s help, and it is ready for quilting.

Kevin made reservations at a chick wagon dinner for Thursday evening. The name of the place is The Stables at Palmer Gulch which is actually at the KOA near Mt. Rushmore. They give you a choice of riding a horse to the site (a lovely meadow) or riding in a wagon. We chose the wagons!

There were 5 wagons each holding 20 people.

The entertainment was enjoyable, but not very long. The food was standard chuckwagon far with steak cooked to order over a wood fire, Dutch oven potatoes, and fabulous beans. The Dutch oven fruit cobbler was a bust though! Soggy with no real crust. Still an fun evening.

The entertainment was a funny musician, a duo, and a cowboy poet

While we were getting our initial entertainment, the saddle horses that had brought some of the attendees down were released from their corral. They were quite excited to get back to their horse nuggets! They trotted and cantered away after rolling in the dust just outside the corral.

The riding horses after they were let out

As we packed up to leave, we met the riding horses and back up draft horses coming back to the meadow. This was their main pasture after their nuggets, and they seemed pretty happy about the entire thing. All of the wagon folks went back in the same wagons we came in, and the horse back riders went in their own wagon. However theirs was pulled by a John Deere tractor with a front loader attachment! It was late when we got back, and the bed felt awfully good. I still haven’t completely adjusted to the time change!

Today we took the Rimrock Scenic Byway. Another enjoyable ride! The problem was we had one tire leaking a bunch of air, so Kevin aired it up while I made an appointment at Discount Tire in Rapid City, the nearest location. We just arranged the trip so we were in Rapid City right after lunch. The worrisome thing is they didn’t find anything wrong with the tire! They did put a new valve stem in, but the old one wasn’t obviously leaking. Hope it works because I really don’t want to buy new Jeep tires! Just one picture from today, but I think it illustrates the reason for the drive’s name.

Spearfish Canyon and Custer State Park

This is us at Elkhorn RV Resort. It is expensive, but the sites are lovely, as you can see. Note the wonderful steps next to the motorhome. Kevin is determined I don’t fall down the motorhome steps again! I should have taken the picture at a different angle so you could see the hills around us. Oops!

You can’t stay in Spearfish and not drive the gorgeous scenic byway down Spearfish Canyon! We spent most of Wednesday in the car, but it was worth it.

The scenery doesn’t disappoint after the byway either.

Lake Sheridan on the way to Custer State Park

You go through the old mining town of Lead, SD the way we drove. The locals pronounce is “Leed,” and it has historic sites all over the place. The Homestake Mine was the deepest and biggest gold mine in North America. It was discovered during the Black Hills gold rush of 1876, and was in production until 2002. It now serves as an underground scientific laboratory, and it was where neutrinos were discovered.

Ruins of the famous Homestake Mine mill in Lead, SD

We eventually arrived at Custer State Park. Lots of rocks, hills, and trees, and absolutely lovely.

Rocky crags similar to those of Mount Rushmore before carving

The most famous drive in Custer is the Neeldes Highway. It has six one lane, low narrow tunnels carved into the rock, restricting it to passenger vehicles only. You can get an idea in these two pictures.

There is a reason for the name “Needles Highway.”

We ate lunch at the historic State Game Lodge where Presidents Coolidge and Eisenhower spent time in the summers. They had a very nice buffet, but I had planned on one of their traditional bison burgers! The buffet was a quite acceptable alternative though. We came back through the craziness that is Keystone (just outside Mount Rushmore) and Deadwood. I try to stay away from both. I just can’t get excited about Rushmore. We have seen it, and the carvings are interesting, but I much prefer more natural sights. And Deadwood is just the definition of a tourist trap! Come to think of it, so is Keystone.

Oh, and I found a great little quilt store in Spearfish. I bought backing for my great niece’s baby quilt, and the lovely women said I could use their tables to sandwich it! Fabulous news, and I will do that on Friday.

We have to move sites tomorrow from this huge pull through site to a large back in due to their reservation mixup. I have discovered a car wash that has an oversized outside bay we are hoping to wash the motorhome in. The poor baby is absolutely filthy. So tomorrow we will move the Jeep to the new site, then take the MH for a wash. When we get back and set up, I will go sandwich my quilt.

Finally out of the heat dome

It was just so bad in Chamberlain we decided to leave a day early. Not only was it hot, hot, hot, but an even worse wind was forecast for Tuesday. I was tired of driving a big box in heavy winds! We made reservations in Wall, SD at Sleepy Hollow RV Park. It fit the bill for a straightforward full hookup site, but no extras. However it was lovely and cool! The temperature never got above 85, a fabulous change. We actually had to turn the heat on this morning with the temps in the low 60s. Well, at least Kevin had to turn on the heat; I was doing just fine LOL!

Wall is just outside Badlands National Park, so of course we had to go for a drive. It is a lovely place, but I have never seen it so crowded! We decided we would just enjoy a drive through without stopping for much. We just wanted the basic experience, and we have been at the park probably a dozen times. It was quite relaxing. Of course I did have to get a couple of pictures of the badlands plus a flower picture.

Classic badlands photo with scary clouds

The Yellow Mounds area is one of my favorite. No color correction – they really look like this

The scary clouds ended up a serious thunderstorm not long after we got back to the motorhome. Lightening was very visible, but we missed the worst of it. And the prickly pear was a surprise. There were hardly any flowers visible in the expansive, tall grasslands. These guys were tucked at the end of cut banks where the grass wouldn’t out compete them. The petals are like crepe paper – thin and textured.

While in Wall, one must go to Wall Drug – an absolute requirement. We bypass the tourist part and head to the restaurant for the best cake donuts I have ever had! It is a tradition with us. We also both got cups of their very weak 10 cent coffee.

Mine are the plain ones and Kevin’s are the caramel frosted ones.

We went for breakfast this morning a few minutes after 8:00, the normal time they opened. There was a sign that said they would be open today at 10:00, and this is why.

Two stream of water to tap down hot spots

This is across the street from Wall Drug, the Cactus Cafe and Lounge. A fire started around 9:00 pm, and this is what it looked like at 10:30 am. The one building is obviously a complete loss, but they saved the other buildings on the block, though the ones next door to this obviously will have significant damage. The fireman just adjusts the sprays occasionally, making sure no hot spots remain to flair up later.

We drove to Spearfish, SD, arriving at Elkhorn RV Resort just after 1:00. It took some delaying tactics to make it that late, mostly be Kevin stopping by the Cabela’s in Rapid City and just relaxing a while in their parking lot. This place is much fancier than we normally stay at, but the sites are relatively spacious and well kept. However they got our reservation confused, and we may have to move sites on Thursday. Somehow they wrote the dates down in July instead of June! We think we have things settled though, and we plan on enjoying the Black Hills, a lovely place.

Wind and heat, heat and wind

We moved to Lake Sharpe, Left Tailrace campground, not far from Chamberlain, SD. It is a snake like “lake” on the Missouri River, the last of the dams built on the river. The weather, however, continues to be awful. Temps have been hitting 100 for a few days, and the lows are 80 or more. The winds have been a continuous 20 mph with gusts much higher. I am really quite impressed with the tenters that have stuck it out. A few of them had their tents pretty much flattened by the wind, and it has to be miserable to try to sleep with temps in the 90s at 10:00 pm.

The area is absolutely gorgeous though! Huge swaths of tall grasses that sway with the wind plus the river/lake and lots of old Sandhills from the river movements in the past. It was hard to get even so-so pictures due to the wind and dust in the air.

Lots of dust in the air from the high winds

Old sandhills have large numbers of yuccas

We also went to the Alta Lakota Museum and Cultural Center at St. Joseph’s Indian School in Chamberlain. It was a small but very well done museum with lots of local lore. They were even having a quilt display – large Medicine Star quilt patterns like the one on the famous statue “Dignity”.

One of a dozen or so quilts. I love the Baptist Fan quilting design.

There were lots and lots of wonderful things, both beaded and the more traditional porcupine quill decorated. I just wandered around and spent time at each display with awe. The displays placed the items in their cultural context too.

And no visit to Chamberlain from I-90 would be complete without a picture of the “Dignity” statue at the rest area on the east side of the river before you get to Chamberlain.

We are just burned out here. We had planned to stay until Tuesday, but we have decided to head farther west and up in elevation, searching for some milder weather. We made reservations at a campground in Wall for tomorrow night then head to our spot in the Black Hills on Wednesday.

Council Bluffs and Omaha

We are at Lake Manawa State Park in Council Bluffs, IA. Fabulous brand new campground with full hookups, concrete parking and patios, big picnic tables, and fire pits. We have a nice view of the small lake, especially since they seem to have decided no campsite needs a tree! This is the true definition of “satellite friendly.” It has been really hot, so we didn’t go to as many places as we wanted.

We did get to the Doorly Zoo, an absolute must-see if anyone is in the area. I have my new mobility scooter, so I can finally be able to get through places that need a lot of walking. It was getting hot even though we were at the zoo by 9:00, so we did the primate area, the desert area, the rain forest, and the aquarium. We didn’t do the large animal exhibit because of the heat and Kevin’s knee. I won’t bore you with all the pictures, but I have to put some of my favorites up.

This mama did a great job of ignoring the humans

Since we came in the morning, many animals were still eating

This is the mai. Big guy in the gorilla group

The penguins swim so quickly that this was the best of many attempts

Not a great picture, but the best I could do

Almost no birds in the rain forest except these two, maybe bird flu?

It was 90 degrees by the time we left the zoo after a lunch around noon.

The next day we drove the Loess Hills National Scenic Byway. Loess (pronounced “Lus” like bus) is glacial debris. On the edge of the Missouri River bottomland is an unusual landform on the Iowa side where the loess formed hills. The erosion is intense, and it was the first part of Iowa that got terraces cut into the farm fields. The hills are really lovely though. You can see the ridge line in the center of the picture along with both the heavy forest on the slopes and the rich farmland at the bottom.

Contrast the Loess Hills with the river bottom of the Missouri River. Flat!

We also just wandered around town. There are some incredible historic areas in Omaha I had never heard of, and they are lovely. We also visited a couple of quilt shops to get fabric for a baby quilt for a soon to arrive great niece. I got it cut out and over half the blocks sewn! I hope to finish the blocks before we leave tomorrow.

Today we went to the Strategic Air Museum. Lots of glorious airplanes! It was even hotter than the previous days so I was glad it was indoors. A small set of the pictures.

Missiles were mostly outside. Compare the size of the missile with the people

I think the ceiling ones are interesting

Not a lot of rotary wings, but they did have some

Today’s high was 102 as read off our weather station on a pole at the motorhome. It was dreadful! We keep the MH cool with both air conditioners going and all the blinds pulled down. Makes for a boring view, but there is so much glass that you have to keep the sun from heating up the inside. It is humid too, with a 66% humidity right now at 87 degrees.

If the weather is so bad, why are we here? We have been waiting on some packages. One is a new Mifi from FMCA. They are phasing out their T-Mobile plan in favor or a plan from AT&T. However it seems like my package got lost at the Post Office! If wasn’t the fault of the USPS though. Whoever shipped the package didn’t put the “General Delivery” on the address! We got it today, and everything seems to work pretty well so far. The other reason we are waiting is for yet another scooter to arrive. It has a more powerful motor so it will go over rougher ground, something that will be handy in Canada and Alaska. It got delayed in shipping, but it should arrive in Cedar Falls tomorrow or Wednesday! Kevin will drive back to pick it up while I work on the baby quilt.

Tomorrow we go to Sioux City, IA. It is actually closer to home, and it has some nice museums. There is a weather front anticipated to cross right over us tomorrow, so we will leave this campground by 3:00. The campground is only 2 hours or less from here, so leaving late will be fine.

And we are off!

It has yet again been a month since I posted. I guess I just don’t feel I do as much stuff worth of posting when I am home. I did get a few things done though.

First off, we did get the MH yearly maintenance done. It was relatively painless. We use a small town Freightliner/Cummins place in Decorah, IA. Small enough they remember me, but full qualified and certified by Freightliner and Cummins for motorhomes. Good hourly rates too!

I did attend a quilt retreat at the Newton, IA KOA and the associated Alta House event center. It was run through the RV Quilter Facebook group, and I really enjoyed it. The facilities were top notch, the price moderate for everything we got, and we even had MaryAnn Fons or Fons and Porter fame give us a trunk show! I finished all the piecing on a sweet little quilt. The blocks were appliqués by my grandmother in the 1930s using mostly flour sack fabrics. When I got them they were yellowed and filthy. I soaked them in Biz, a non-chlorine laundry additive. After the first 6-7 hours, the water was just brown! I kept dumping it out and refilling, gently submerging the blocks. After 4 days, they were in pretty well clean, and happily nothing faded! They are fragile though, so I backed them with a lightweight interfacing designed for tshirt quilts. I had to do some creative trimming since they weren’t the same size or positioned the same. I finished the quilting at home on the quilting machine. Much easier than using my domestic Bernina machine.

Hand appliquéd, machine pieces and quilted.

Mostly we have just been getting ready for this upcoming western Canada and Alaska trip. Kevin was thoughtful enough to look for a small mobility cart for me. I have a mild case of scoliosis, but as I have gotten older, the arthritis has gotten bad, particularly in my left hip. It hurts to walk more than 100 yards or so, and I knew we would be doing more than that. He also bought some collapsible freestanding steps for the motorhome. I love them! They give a great platform to stand on in front of the door, and they have a railing! I had a bad fall a couple of years ago, and it was the proximal cause of my rotator cuff repair.

The steps actually attach to the platform, and you can adjust the height on each leg individually. He added some rubber bumpers because the raw metal edges would be bad on the paint.

We are now staying at a local campground, Big Woods Park. It is sooooo,inch easier to load the motorhome here than in the storage u it or at the house. Here we can open up all the slides, get things sorted correctly, etc. We will head out tomorrow morning to Omaha, NE. We plan to go to the incredible Henry Dorly Zoo plus some museums. We are staying at the brand new Lake Manawa State Park campground. When I say “new,” they just opened 1 June!

Expect lots of pictures folks.

Rallies and limited travel – subtitled COVID sucks!

I left off on my last post in March at the FMCA diesel club rally. We had a good time, met nice people, and learned more about our motorhome. All good stuff! We then went to the FMCA international convention in Tucson which also was great fun. Kevin and I were in the advance team working parking for the 1500 motorhomes that showed up. It was a busy time so I got behind posting. We were parked where the red arrow points, right behind the big music stage.

We were lucky enough to be right behind the main music stage. We just sat in our own comfortable lawn chairs and listened from our motorhome.

And then I came down with COVID, undoubtedly from the rally. Sigh. I knew it was possible, even probable, but at some point you have to trust the science that says we are protected.

In case someone reading this is one of the rare people who haven’t gotten COVID yet, I can assure you it sucks. My first symptom was a sinus cold from hell. I get these occasionally from my allergies, but this time it progressed to where I could hardly stop coughing. Took a test – negative. Then I came down with fatigue that was unprecedented. I started sleeping 14 hours a day, and Kevin had to drive the motorhome. I just wanted to get home! The day we made it home I took another test, and this one was so positive! The test line was 3 times thicker than the control line. I basically slept most of the day for about 2 weeks. Gradually the sinus disaster slowed down, and I began to feel human. Luckily Kevin, though positive, was not nearly as sick as I was. He took care of me, and my son brought us groceries during the time we were contagious. By late April I was feeling human again, almost a month after I started being sick. Oh, and I am double vaxed and boosted!

While I was recovering, we set up appointments to get some work done on the motorhome. Our big electric slide wasn’t retracting evenly, and it was making dreadful noise. We checked a bunch of places in Iowa, but I couldn’t find someone I felt comfortable with. We made appointments in the Red Bay, AL area and headed down on 30 April.

We spent the first night at a lovely Corps of Engineers site on Mark Twain Lake, Ray Behrens campground. As usual, it was lovely with big sites and mixed sun and trees. Also as usual, I forgot to take a picture! The next night we spent at Boothill RV Park in far southern Missouri near Portageville. It is in a handy location and clean. It is mostly long term residents this time of year, but there were lots of sites that will be filled up during summer with transients. And it was yet another no picture location! We made it to Red Bay on Monday just after noon and found a nice spot at the Red Bay RV Park. It is just a parking lot, but it has full hookups and is far enough out of town that it is nice and quiet.

On Tuesday, Waylon Burroughs took our old captain chairs and the new covers Tiffin had sent to replace the severely deteriorated ones we had. He brought the recovered chairs back on Wednesday. Here you can see the old and new covers.

Wednesday we had Scott Petty put in a SoftStart for our front AC. It keeps the initial power surge when the compressor turns on to be much lower. I had bought it during a Black Friday sale, and it was much easier to let Petty install it then Kevin.

Thursday we had an appointment at Precision RV to have the slide looked at. Turns out it had broken pieces! It needed a new complete set of parts on one side, and they got it at a discount from Tiffin because they buy half sets that Tiffin doesn’t use in the Service Center. Nice! While they were at it, they fixed the door awning that never has worked very reliably plus adjusted a bay door latch that was getting sticky. They also lubricated all kinds of things, showed Kevin how to do it in the future, and cleaned out the air conditioners on the roof. They also inspected all kinds of things, and everything else was good! I really, really liked these guys. They were very interested in showing us how to do our own preventative maintenance which was nice. Highly recommend!

As usual when we are in Red Bay, we spent time driving around. It was very warm – mid 80s – and very green. The wildflowers were lovely in the meadows. I apologize for the photos because I forgot my camera and had to take these pictures with my iPhone. I think you can get the idea though.

There are lots of hills in this part of Alabama

And the landscape roses were blooming in riots of color!

We are off tomorrow morning, much more confident in the readiness of the “house” part of the motorhome. I have a yearly maintenance appointment scheduled for the chassis in a couple of weeks. We will then be ready to go!

Around Page, AZ

We started out staying in Page, AZ in the yard of a friend. Nice way to handle the cold weather! We officially here for a native heritage dinner theater, but we took a scenic drive too.

The Vermillion Cliffs National Monument was fabulous! They are the second “step” in the Grand Staircase of the Colorado Plateau in northern Arizona and southern Utah. I am just going to post a bunch of pictures I took with my camera, though none of them really represent the glorious red color of the cliffs.

We eventually had to climb out of the Colorado River valley, and we were able to get a different hope of view – SNOW!

When we made it back from our 4+ hour trip, we went to Red Heritage Dinner Theater. My friend in Page had recommended it, and we thought it would be a nice change from all our time out in the boondocks. I don’t know exactly what I was expecting, but this was quite a bit different. First we got decent Indian tacos (fry bread with a meat – multiple choices- cheese, salsa, sour cream, lettuce, tomato) plus a light pudding dessert. Then we had an interesting cultural discussion about weaving in the Navajo tradition. The presenter, an older woman, described the process from shearing through spinning and dyeing while his granddaughter worked on a rug. The background of some of the patterns was discussed too. As a person who loves textiles, I found it very interesting!

The main entertainment began with an Indian flute player who played on both a single flute and a double flute I have never seen before! It was two joined flutes with a single mouthpiece. Fascinating. Then there was a drum set with four drummers and songs. After that was a dance exhibition with a variety of dance types and dancers. What an athletic group the dancers are! The energy expended was impressive.

Among all the fun things we have done, I have also finally finished my kid quilt for the FMCA rally. I always like to have at least one kid-friendly quilt to donate. This one was fun! I cut up bunches of scraps, many from masks I made in the last couple of years. Using the Accuquilt, it doesn’t take long, and I just randomly sewed them together. The piecing was enjoyably mindless, and I adore how much texture the quilting added. I used just a basic meander stitch, something I can do fairly easily on my Bernina 830 in the motorhome.

We ended up staying in Page an extra day due to snow. We had 2-3” in Page proper, and the surrounding areas on the way to Flagstaff got even more. When we were ready to leave on Thursday, Kevin had to break off an inch of ice from our big slide topper! It had pooled on the fabric, then froze overnight. What a mess! The road to Quartzsite, our destination, was clear, though there was significant snow around Flagstaff. We stopped at Hi Jolly, and we picked up pizza from Silly Al’s, a great spot. I then collapsed since I drove way longer without a break than I should.

We also took a trip to Yuma to pick up the glasses we ordered a month ago! Mine are Varilux progressives with polarizing and tint, while Kevin got just regular Varilux lenses. It was hundreds less than the optometric shop at home!

We are now at a rally with the Diesel RV FMCA chapter in Tacna, AZ about 30 miles from Yuma. Luckily I checked this place out only to find it doesn’t allow washing machines! This was definitely an issue since we had been boondocking for well over a week. We ended up getting water, turning on the generator, and doing 3 loads before going to the rally. We will still need to do another load while at the FMCA convention because I don’t have enough short sleeved shirts for this hot weather. It was 87 degrees here today!

Go north young (wo)man!

We left Overton, NV and headed north. The weather was a bit cold and snowy on both alternatives, and the northern route was a lot less driving. We chose to spend 2 nights at the Kaibab Paiute Tribal RV Park at Pipe Spring National Monument. Full hookups, reasonable price, and big roomy sites. The drive her was lovely, heading up through St. George, UT and Hurricane, UT, just south of Zion National Park. We are in an area of high red mesas, and it is gorgeous! Normally I wouldn’t post this quickly after my last post, but we took an enjoyable drive along the Smithsonian Butte Backcountry Scenic Byway. The northern end is in Zion National Park, but the road was very muddy, and we didn’t make it all the way. We did enjoy what we drove though.

Getting there means driving through the former FLDS towns of Colorado City, AZ and Hildale, UT. We have been through them a number of years ago, and they were really depressing. Their “prophet” was sitting in jail for child molestation, and they were really rudderless. A trust was running the towns under the auspices of the state governments and a judge. The difference now is significant! Lots of new businesses, new housing, lots of non-FLDS folks walking around. It still has areas of decaying homes and yards overrun with trash and weeds, but there were fewer than the last time we came through when we visited Pipe Springs for the first time.

Once we were on the Byway, the views just opened up.

The entire area was getting pop up snow or rain showers, depending on elevation. I think this captures the true definition of a forecast for “partly cloudy with scattered showers.”

Tomorrow we are going to Page, AZ, staying with friends at their rural spot. Undoubtably there will be more sightseeing and more pictures then.

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