06/02/10 - Bauers RV Park, Glendale, Ut
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US191>I70>I89 After sitting for a month we were ready to
get back on the road even if it was just a days drive to the next
stopping point. It was a fun drive, roads were good and the scenery
seems to never end in Utah. It was a days drive over to Glendale, Ut
where we planned on spending a week before we headed back down to Las
Vegas for the truck show. Below is our spot at Bauers - a nice quiet
little park with no cell phone coverage so we put up the dish and ran
of the satellite and the parks WiFi for the week.
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06/03/10 Zion National
Park -
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We picked Glendale because of it's
central location. You've got Zion, the North Rim and back roads and
trails all within an easy drive or ride. We wanted to do Zion again as
we had done it back in 1988 on our first RV adventure but we didn't
have any pictures from that ride - so this time we got a few pictures.
Zion is a mixture of towering cliffs, trees and shrubs growing out of
the rocks and riot of color. The pictures really don't do the
beauty of the place justice. Zion is also home to the Mt Carmel/Zion
tunnel which is 1.1 miles long and runs continuously through the rock
inside the mountain. It's a real treat to ride through it. There are
occasional overlook cut in the side of the mountain but no place to
stop and enjoy them. I think their purpose is to provide ventilation as
the fumes would be overpowering without them.
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06/04/10 Grand Canyon
North Rim
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The next day it was going to be hot
down at Glendale and Zion so we decided to go for a ride up into the
mountains and see the North Rim as I had been wanting to get by there
for a couple years but just hadn't had a chance. I think the picture at
the top of the page really says it all :))
The view from the north rim is completely different than what you see
from the much more popular south side of the canyon. We walked around a
little, had our picnic at the main view point and then took off to see
the rest of the park and what things looked like from the other
viewpoints. We did Point Imperial and decided we'd save the other look
out for the next time we go this way. With so much to do here I'm sure
we'll be back.
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06/06/10 Back Roads
Today we decided to take the car and do a little wheeling. There was a
back road that wound through the hills and so we figured it would be a
fun explore. It was mostly just a bumpy back road - but there were a
few views along the way -
View from our picnic
split
Hole in the rock - perfect circle
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06/08/10 - Ride in the
mountains
You need to blow this one up and it still doesn't really capture the
grandeur of Cedar Breaks National Monument.
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Today we just headed out for a ride
with no particular destination in mind. It was going to be hot so we
just wanted to head over into the forest and find a cool spot for our
picnic. There are these giant lava flows in the area and we found a
picnic are next to them and stopped there for our picnic. Then we just
headed off randomly and ended up at Cedar Breaks National Monument. We
didn't know anything about it, but it was definitely worth seeing -
 
We thought 8000+ at the North Rim was good, but today we got up to
10,400 and the honey just keeps on trucking. We didn't expect the snow
but it was fun to get up in the snow and see the Breaks.
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06/09/10 - Back to Vegas
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US89>AZ389>UT59>I15 - back to
Vegas for the show. We stayed in the same spot as last year, next to
the trees and in the afternoon shade :)) Show was even smaller this
year - but I'm sure they'll be putting out a press release about
attendance being up and the show being a big success....Picture of the
booth below - that's Brian Thomford, a competitor, but also a fulltimer
like us and a good friend on the left and JJ Martin, our lead salesman
on the right.
It's hard to believe that less than a year ago JJ was in the hospital
after a very bad car accident with the doctors telling everyone he
probably would not make it through the night. We're sure glad they were
wrong :))
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06/21/10 - Ely, Nv
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I15>US93>Ely, Nv.
Time to get out of Vegas and get back on the road. Heading up to Elgin,
Or again this year for a couple more days with our customer up there
and if the weather co-operates we're hoping to get in a bike ride and a
day of wheeling :))
This is the same place with the extremely scenic and challenging road
out and I"m looking forward to that part of the drive as well. I'm sure
it'll earn a few new pictures here.
Today we avoided the "shortcut" and came up the US93 which is marked as
a scenic route. There were definitely some scenics but as luck would
have it I'd left the memory card in the computer and my Nikon will not
work at all without a memory card installed. Oh well, we'll get them
the next time we come this wa.
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06/22/10 - Mountain Home, Id
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US93>US30>I84>Mountain
Home, Id
A good drive and the route through Twin Falls took us right by the
fall. The picture is from the road we were on. This is a real
interesting area and next year we may stop here for a week or two to do
some exploring. There's a big river, and a lot of geology sites, a fish
hatchery, and possibly some back roads to explore :))
We just spent the night in a parking lot - but that didn't mean there
was nothing to look at - we got a nice sunset.
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6/23-27/10 - Elgin, Or
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I84>OR82>Elgin, Or.
Not a bad drive, but bad experience. The Flying J in LaGrande, Or has
signs posted on the truck pumps directing pickups and RVs to go to the
front pump which is "full service" meaning that a station employee
pumps your fuel. This is wrong, you can fuel at the truck island and
it's $0.10/gallon cheaper over there, but I found that out after the
fact and a complaint to the manager about being charged for following
their instructions got me nowhere. We'll fuel in Idaho in the future
and
skip fueling in Oregon all together.
That out of the way, we got up to Elgin and it's a great little
town. The RV park sits right on Clark Creek (actually more a river than
a creek) and Clark Creek Road is a great road for walking with another
creek running alongside the road much of the way. Going to work
Thursday and Friday, then we'll see if we can find a place to ride and
maybe a wheeling adventure for the weekend.
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06/26/10 - Ride over to Milton
Freewater, Or
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Saturday turned out to be a
perfect day for a ride so we headed out the 204 with a plan to just
explore, no special place in mind. We rode over the mountain and
just randomly turned up the 11 towards Milton Freewater. Along the way
we stopped under an overpass where we noticed hundreds of birds
congretating - turned out they had built nests on the concrete uprights
that held the overpass up. As we came into Milton Freewater we spotted
a sign for a park and since lunch time was approaching we headed off
for it. We ended up a little past the park and had our picnic on the
banks
of the Walla Walla River -
 
Oregon is a helmet state - so
honey
Bird
Nests
Or204 - forest overlook
with a helmet on :(
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06/27/10 - Umatila National
Forest - Back Roads
This is our FIELD OF FLOWERS and was the first thing we came upon going
down this road (other an a few mud puddles). Pictures to right are - a
log in the road, me moving it, one of the muddy spots we ran thru and
the last one is of one
of the minor rutted areas. We found some much deeper but didn't stop
to take pictures of them as we were to busy getting past them :)).
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Sunday was another perfect day
and we had a plan today. While at the Walla Walla River we'd checked
the map and there was supposedly a back road (dirt road through the
forest) to get back to that spot again. So we figured we'd give that a
try. But the best laid plans of mice and men - the road was closed. So
we just took off for an explore and ended up on a real wheeling trail -
mud, big (2 feet deep) ruts to stradle and some fantastic views -
unfortunately we left the camera behind, so these pictures are from the
phone - not bad for a phone :))
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06/28/10 Roadside Pullout - near
Lowell, Id
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OR83>OR3>WA129>US12>Clearwater
National Forest Roadside Pullout
This is a really fun drive for me - see THE ROAD -picture 1 below. I
love the windy twisty roads, especially on the bike, but they're fun in
the house as well - just take them a lot slower in the house. Plan was
to stay in Orofino, Id at the same park we stayed in last year - but we
were feeling good so continued on and figured we'd just stop when we
got tired. It was worth the extra drive -
Only down side (well maybe it was - maybe it wasn't) no phone - see the
view? Huge mountain to the south, no satellite so I had to just enjoy
the river and leave work for tomorrow. Very sad :)))
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06/29/10 - White Sulpher
Springs, Mt.
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US12>White Sulpher Springs, Mt
It was a good road and very scenic day. We continued along the river
for quite a ways and then the forest continued up into Montana where we
lost an hour switching to Mountain time and the forest gave way to the
rolling hills and plains. There was a long downgrade shortly after
getting into Montana and the pic at the left was taken near the top of
that hill.
We stayed at the Conestoga RV Park in White Silver Springs but I didn't
get a pic of the site there. It's a nice park and a good place to walk
:)) I walked into town to check out the gas station in town and see if
we could get in - we'd been having a little issue finding a station we
could get into, but they had a small town truck stop with a couple
pumps in the back for the big guys so we stopped there on the way out
of town.
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06/30/10 - Bowman, Nd
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US12>Bowman, Nd
The goal was to get the rest of the way across Montana today and into
the Dakota's. No special destination in mind, we just figured we'd go
till we got tired and then find a place to stop. The stop was Bowman,
Nd in a big dirt lot behind the truck stop there - we got all settled
in, stands down, the 2 passenger side slides out (we almost always put
those 2 out so we have a little more room to move around) and then the
fun started -
It started with the wind - gusting to 60-70 mph, rocking the coach. I
pulled in the slides to keep our slide toppers from being blown away
and we settled in to watch the show. I think this is the first time
I've caught the lightning with the camera.
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