After four months in Yuma, and another four weeks to and in Skokie, it is time to head home! It will be very sad to part with mom/dad after being with them for the past 15 months, but we are looking forward to seeing them again in the fall for our Barcelona cruise.
Our route home has us taking our time to see several national parks on the way. Our plan has us visiting Arches National Park, followed by Bryce Canyon National Park, Zion National Park – and then Yosemite National Park before heading up to Mukilteo. Our itinerary is as follows:
May 2, 2021
A gorgeous morning for the next chapter of our travels: sunny with a few clouds and 70 degrees by our 8:00 am departure. Today’s route was through an abundance of farms through Illinois and Iowa so the scenery was a little repetitive. A mid-morning rest stop for something to eat provided a break in the driving. We arrived at Cabela’s in La Vista, Nebraska, about 4:00 pm where it was 88 degrees. We relaxed for a while, had a dinner of grilled turkey and Swiss sandwiches with chips, and then walked around for a little bit to stretch our legs. We shared the truck/RV parking behind Cabela’s with three other trucks and it worked out well. Overnight we experienced an intense thunderstorm (at least by Western Washington standards). There was torrential rain, hail, high winds, and nearly nonstop lightening and thunder. All the while we were snug in our bed on the RV and enjoyed hearing the storm around us, although it did interrupt our sleep for a short time. It had the side-benefit of knocking some dust off the RV and car.
May 3, 2021
An overcast, cooler start to the day when we hit the road at 7:00 am. It was another day of farms but later, still in Nebraska, there were some cattle ranches. We stopped later in the morning at a rest stop for something to eat. While still in Nebraska we crossed into the Mountain Time Zone gaining an hour. A little while later we entered Colorado where the views varied from expanses of rolling hills with only short vegetation growing on them to farmland, and cattle ranches. About an hour or so before getting to our destination it started to rain steadily. We arrived at Emerald RV Park in Ft. Morgan, Colorado, about 2:00 (47 degrees) and the rain stopped! This park is really just an overpriced gravel parking spot with hookups. Kind of an ugly park. We look out at a big empty lot with a worn down house on it. The area did not have a good assortment of RV parks or places to boondock so it had to do.
May 4, 2021
We started an hour earlier than planned start – as “someone” forgot to set “her” alarm for the new time zone. After a pretty pink sunrise we were on the road before 6:00 am. The front window of the tow car had a thick layer of frost and there was patchy fog throughout the beginning of our drive. Once we drove through Denver we entered the Rocky Mountains which gave us a very scenic drive for all of our morning. Our elevation was constantly up and down, peaking at 11,000 feet above sea level. In many areas we were at or above the snow level giving us beautiful snow blanketed scenery but the road was clear, dry, and gave us no problems except for some road construction reduced speeds. One area we encountered was all snow covered pine trees which was gorgeous. Pat caught a glimpse of several elk in this area. We drove through several ski resort areas where a few ski lifts were still running (but with very few passengers). We went through an area called Greenwood Canyon which had steep, layered walls of different colored rock which were cut over 3 million years ago by the Colorado River which ran alongside the highway on our drive.
The whole drive afforded us new spectacular views at every turn. Late morning we stopped at a rest area in Rifle, CO, again along the Colorado River, to have a nosh. We were surprised with a phone call from Mom, Dad, and Adam who were following our progress and saw that we stopped for a break. It was good to talk to them. We miss them very much! Once we entered Utah there were vast expanses of flat, shrub-dotted desert with mountains in the background. We pulled into Willows Springs Trail Dispersed Camping for our 3 night stay.
This is a free camping area with people in all kinds of RV’s, trucks, tents, vans, and cars parking all over the desert. The road in was very bumpy but got better, and about a half mile in we parked the RV in a spot that was mostly level. We are surrounded by incredible views including unique rock formations, green striped mountains, a long stretch of cliffs, wide open desert, and a range of snow-capped mountains. It’s VERY dusty, more so because we’re right by the road. Laurie peeked outside at 2:30 in the morning and said there were a lot of stars but some were obscured by clouds.
May 5 2021
We woke up to find we had about half a dozen new neighbors since we went to bed last night. Most were just sleeping in their cars or in tents. We didn’t hear a sound overnight. It was a beautiful sunny day in the high 70’s. We headed to Arches National Park just after 7:30 am and arrived before 8:00 am since it’s only a few miles away. Since Delicate Arch is the most iconic site in the park and it gets very busy, we decided to go there first.
We tried a short hike to a viewpoint but the arch was a mile away and left us wanting a better view. With some reluctance on Pat’s part, we decided to do the difficult rated 3 mile round trip hike to the arch. It’s rated difficult because the trail climbs almost 500 feet up a steep slickrock slope, has no shade, and has a 200 yard long narrow rock ledge that hugs the mountainside as you get near the arch. With patience, encouragement, and prodding by Laurie to keep Pat going, we made it to Delicate Arch. What a spectacular sight! It was as majestic as it’s pictures, especially as it was backed by the snowcapped La Sal Mountains. In all the hike took us about 2 ½ hours round trip. Having accomplished our main objective, we drove the road through the park stopping at various viewpoints including other arches and rock formations.
It is an amazing park with our 5 hours there well spent. Back at the RV we rested, rehydrated, napped, had dinner, and caught up on some computer stuff.
May 6, 2021
We had an extremely early start to our day as we stood outside stargazing at 1:00 am! Through a slight haze we saw a gorgeous sky heavily blanketed with stars in all directions, possible because there’s very little light pollution out here in the desert. We were back in bed by 1:15 am.
After starting our day for the second time, we headed out at 7:30 to Dead Horse Point State Park about ½ hour away. Our senior pass doesn’t work at state parks so it was $20 to enter. The main feature of this park is the awesome canyon and rock formations created by the Colorado River meandering through the bottom of the canyon, and Mother Nature in general. It was amazing to see all the exposed layers of history going back over 275 million years! We scrambled (rather than hiked) over varying layers of slickrock to get to better viewpoints. By 10:30 we had seen the canyon from the many viewpoints and were done with the park, but it was still so early.
On the way in we had seen signs and a turnoff for Canyonlands National Park and decided to go there since our senior pass got us in for free. The area we went to was called “Island in the Sky”. We drove along a high mesa (the “island”) with expansive canyons on 3 sides. The western canyon was formed by the Green River and the eastern canyon by the Colorado River.
The rivers join up in the canyons to the south. The best sight in the park for us was the iconic Mesa Arch which we did the ½ mile hike to. Pictures don’t do it justice. The arch forms a horizontal elongated window to 3 rock formations in the canyon behind it and the snowy La Sal Mountains in the distance. Everyone was taking turns taking pictures of each other here. This area made our 2 ½ hour stop at Canyonlands worth it. Back at our RV a lot of campers had cleared out so we took the opportunity to relocate the RV so we could make an early departure out a level exit to the gravel road without worrying about being blocked in by new campers who might come in overnight. Then it was time to rest, have an early dinner, catch up on some computer stuff while the generator was on for a little while, and just hang out until bedtime.
May 7, 2021
Laurie said it was a beautiful, reddish sunrise (Pat missed it by a few minutes). We wandered around the area to take pictures of the RV from different viewpoints. There also was a colorful hot air balloon which we saw take off and slowly rise up above the surrounding mountains. After a quick nosh for breakfast, we were on the road about 8:00 am. The start of today’s travel included more incredible mountains, rock formations, and canyons. It got a little greener as we went west and we started to see farms and cattle ranches, with the snowcapped Rockies in the far distance. We arrived at Cedar City KOA Journey about 1:15 and got settled into our back-in site with full hookups. It looks like a nice, clean park, although our view out the front window is of the park’s maintenance building (when we booked this was the very last site available for our size rig so we couldn’t be choosy). It was about 80 degrees today but with a strong wind making it pleasant, and blowing lots of small, round seeds around with every gust. We relaxed, enjoyed long hot showers, spent time on computers, ate dinner, and relaxed some more watching TV.
May 8, 2021
Another early start – then off to Bryce Canyon National Park, roughly 1 ½ hours away. We took a scenic route there through some mountains where the higher elevations still had pockets of snow and the temperature was 34 degrees. There were wonderful rock formations and colorful cliffs along the drive. We were stopping to take pictures before we even made it into the park. The park was a pleasant 50-60 degrees (good hiking weather), but there was a cold wind at times. Bryce Canyon is home to the largest collection of hoodoos (irregularly-eroded rock spires) in the world. The first part of our morning we spent at Bryce Amphitheater which is an enormous canyon filled with red, orange, and white hoodoos of various sizes and surrounded by tall cliffs. We hiked along the rim from Sunset Point to Sunrise Point (which was about a mile away), as well as stopped at Bryce Point which gave us views of a different part of the canyon. All amazing!
Next we drove the Scenic Southern Drive which is about 18 miles and has numerous viewpoints along the way. We stopped at Natural Bridge which is a huge orange hued arch that frames the beautiful distant scenery in it’s window, and also at Black Birch Canyon which was a lookout with more hoodoos and unique formations. The end of the road had 2 viewpoints close together, Rainbow Point (highest point in park at 9,115 feet) and Yovimpa Point, both having more spectacular views out over the canyon.
After we left the paid park area there was one more stop called Fairyland Point which was just as it’s name implies. It was a magical looking area of colorful hoodoo spires, each formation uniquely different from the next. We made the long drive back to the RV where it was in the mid-60’s and we did some planning for the next couple of days, called to wish Mom a Happy Mother’s Day a day early, ate pan grilled burgers for dinner, and spent time on our computers. A lot of time was spent driving today but it was absolutely worth it!
May 9, 2021
An early start: departing the RV just after 6:00 am, we made the long drive to Zion National Park arriving about 7:15.
The park was busy already. You need shuttle tickets to ride the shuttle buses along the Zion Canyon Scenic Road and we managed to snag a couple the night before for a 7:00-8:00 am departure from the visitor’s center. We hopped right on a shuttle about 7:45 and took it to the farthest point, Temple of Sinawava, arriving about 8:00 am. From this point we did the 2.2 mile Riverside Walk hike that follows the Virgin River.
The walk goes through a deep canyon with towering, sheer, vertical walls. There was greenery along the river, and at different points you could see distant mountains/cliffs with varying colors continuously changing due to the position of the sun over the canyon. At the end of the Riverwalk a second, more strenuous hike began called The Narrows Hike which is 9.4 miles round trip and is actually hiking through the river itself! A large percentage of the people doing the Riverwalk were continuing on in special clothing, shoes, and wooden walking sticks. This was not for us! Hopping on the shuttle we took it to another shuttle stop called Big Bend. From there we could look waaaay up to the top of a cliff where daredevils were walking along the rim to the top of Angels Landing, a 1,488-foot tall rock formation. The hike is steep with long drop-offs, but there are chains bolted into the cliff to provide secure handholds on the final stretch. It’s 5 miles round trip and gains almost 1,500 feet in elevation! Over the last 20 years 13 people having died on this hike. Another pass by us. We spoke with a park ranger at this location about endangered California Condors. He told us about the birds in the area and had a telescope set up through which we saw a juvenile Condor sitting high up on the cliff wall waiting for it’s parents to return. Next up was a shuttle stop where we did a very long hike.
The beginning was the Kayenta Trail which was a lot of up and down over rocks as well as up and down stairs. This trail hooked up to the Lower Emerald Pool Trail which took us down many stairs, between huge boulders, and across a small bridge into a grotto-like area with water dripping down the cliff sides from up high and ending up in a pretty green pool. The hike out was easier and ended at the next shuttle stop from where we started. Not really sure how far we hiked but it was a workout! A shuttle brought us back to the visitor’s center for Pat’s magnet shopping and Laurie stamping in his National Park Passport. It was time for a rest while we drove the extremely scenic Zion-Mount Carmel Highway, making numerous switchbacks on our way up the canyon with jaw-dropping views in every direction, and then through a 1.1 mile tunnel. After exiting the tunnel and seeing the long line of vehicles, including RV’s, waiting to go through the tunnel in the return direction, we ended up just continuing on the highway to the east entrance of the park which made our trip to the RV longer but at least it was very scenic. A lot of traffic was headed into the park as we were leaving about 1:30. With all our park visits we learned that it really pays to arrive very early ahead of the crowds. Mother’s Day dinner was mostaccioli from the freezer which Pat had made back in Illinois. A relaxing evening followed including phone calls with all 3 kids. We’re greatly looking forward to seeing them when we return home Sunday.
May 10, 2021
Left the RV park at 11:00 am after a relaxing morning as it’s a relatively short drive to our next stop (Walmart) and we don’t want to arrive too early. Today’s travels took us from Utah through the NW corner of Arizona, through southern Nevada, and into California. There was beautiful scenery along the way including green dotted mountains, rugged rocky mountains, and open desert areas. Some we drove through and others were in the distance. We arrived at Walmart in Barstow, CA, which has a huge gravel lot at the back of its regular parking lot. Although there were signs posted stating “No Trucks” and “No Overnight Parking” the lot had quite a few trucks and RV’s spend the night. We spoke with the store manager, and she indicated that we could stay overnight in their parking lot. Considering the comings and goings of trucks, and a busy railroad nearby, it was a pretty quiet night. Before we settled in for the evening we ventured into Walmart wearing masks and sanitizing our shopping cart to buy a few items we needed, including ice cream. Somehow the ice cream keeps evaporating from the RV freezer!
May 11, 2021
We left Walmart before 7:00 am. The drive was scenic at first but then we came into California civilization. A rest stop providied a spot for sandwiches along the way. We arrived at High Sierra RV Resort in Oakhurst, CA, about 1:00 and quickly hooked up and settled in. The park looks okay and is less than a half hour from the southern entrance of Yosemite. After the last of the leftover mostaccioli we relaxed and watched some TV.
May 12, 2021
Today was day one at Yosemite National Park and we focused on the Yosemite Valley floor. We left about 7:00 AM, arrived at the southern park entrance about 7:30, and finally arrived in the area of the visitor’s center around 8:30. Along the way we stopped at a viewpoint called Tunnel View, because you get an eyeful of jaw dropping views as you come out of a tunnel. The expansive view included El Capitan (a vertical 3,000 foot granite monolith popular with climbers), Horsetail Falls (couldn’t really see), Cloud Rest, Half Dome (5,000 foot tall rock formation that has a sheer face with 3 other rounded sides), Sentinel Rock, Cathedral Rocks, and Bridalveil Fall (one of the most prominent waterfalls in the Yosemite Valley). As we traveled through the park these iconic sights were often visible from different perspectives. The park is heavily forested so there was lots of greenery in addition to the rocky mountains and formations. Our main hike was from the visitor’s center area to Lower Yosemite Falls, mostly under towering trees.
Yosemite Falls is one of the tallest waterfalls in North America with a 2,425 cumulative drop. We “hiked to the hike” from our parking spot so we’re not really sure how far we hiked altogether. From a distance Yosemite Upper and Lower Falls are visible but as you get closer you just see the powerful lower falls pounding into boulders scattered at it’s base. We were close enough to feel a cool mist in the air. Returning from the lower falls there was another short hike to a viewpoint that let us see both the lower and upper falls with a gurgling stream flowing by. A very peaceful spot where naturalist John Muir once had a cabin.
Next up we completed Cook’s Meadow Loop Trail which was a level paved loop around the meadow but it provided outstanding views of the west wall of the valley including Yosemite Falls and El Capitan, and Half Dome to the north.
A short offshoot trail took us to a bridge over the Merced River and gave us several more impressive views. Our last stop was on our drive out of the park along the Merced River which was a stunning view of Bridalveil Fall, as well as several other of the previously mentioned sights in Yosemite Valley. Also on the way out we visited the Tunnel View viewpoint again to see how the lighting had changed since early morning. Then it was time to head back to the RV, eat hamburgers for dinner, talk to M&D&A, plan for day two in Yosemite tomorrow, and rest.
May 13, 2021
Day two at Yosemite we devoted to the Glacier Point area. A long, winding road led us up through the trees to over 7,200 feet with two viewpoints – Washburn Point and Glacier Point. From Glacier Point we had an exhilarating view 3,214 feet down into the valley below which we visited yesterday. Between the two points we had commanding views of Yosemite Valley, Yosemite Falls, Half Dome, Vernal and Nevada Falls, and Yosemite’s High Sierra country.
The panoramic views looked wonderful in the early morning sun, but probably would be even better later in the day. There was an interesting geology exhibit that told about the formation of the area. Our final stop of the morning was a viewpoint on the way out that gave an expansive view of a forested valley which, unfortunately, had experienced some fire damage. We saw areas of fire damage throughout the park, but also saw a lot of workers cleaning up some of the forested areas. The only hike today was the short 1/2 mile roundtrip hike to the Glacier Point Viewpoint. Other hikes in the area were too long, had too much of an elevation gain, or were hard to get to because the shuttle wasn’t operating in the park due to Covid. We were back in the RV about noon where we relaxed (getting real good at that), did stuff on our computers, made chili for dinner, and relaxed some more.
May 14, 2021
Our final leg to home began today. We didn’t leave until about 9:00 since we only plan on a 5 ½ hour drive today. We arrived about 2:30 at the Rolling Hills Casino in Corning, CA, which has a huge truck parking lot. After a brief rest we went to check out the casino. Masks were required there. Sadly, their wonderful buffet no longer exists due to Covid, with no plans to bring it back. The casino was full of people. The facility had a lot of construction going on in and out so business must be good. We returned to the RV, had chili leftovers for dinner, and Pat read while Laurie did Sudoku.
May 15, 2021
Today we were on our way by 6:30 am. Early morning it was cloudy and we had occasional sprinkles – the first rain of any sort since Nebraska. The drive took us through lush, forest covered mountains which was so different from our dusty, rocky mountain and formation studded drive a few days ago. Lake Shasta had the lowest water level we’ve seen in our travels with a huge ring of the formerly submerged land ringing the shore. Mount Shasta had it’s summit in the clouds with snow filled areas streaking down from it. Farther north in California we were back in sunshine with a few clouds around. Since we left so early this morning we got to Seven Feathers Casino way ahead of schedule. We decided to continue driving so we’d have a shorter day tomorrow. We even killed some time at two rest stops on the way so we wouldn’t get to our overnight site too early. One of the rest stops, French Prairie Rest Area, was huge with loads of pull-through spots and overnight parking up to 12 hours. We spent the night in the Camping World parking lot in Wilsonville, OR, where they allow overnight parking (once you check in and get a sign to put in your RV’s window so the police don’t kick you out in the middle of the night). We spent the evening packing up what we could so first thing in the morning we could load up the car.
May 16, 2021
With the car loaded up with everything but the food in the fridge/freezer, we drove off by 7:00 am. Traffic was pretty good and before we knew it we were at the storage unit by 11:00 am. After the RV was settled in it’s “garage” we headed home. How wonderful to see Daniel and Nicole’s smiling faces after almost 6 months! They looked great as did the house, inside and out. They were very good housekeepers while we were away. It will take a while to get totally unpacked and used to our non-traveling life again, but we are extremely happy to be home!
Overall, it was an amazing journey that started back in December of 2019 when we headed south with Nicole joining us for a while. Late January 2020 we met Bette-Karen and Bill to pick up Mom and Dad and bring them back to Yuma with us where they stayed in their own Airbnb a couple miles from our RV site. On the way home to Mukilteo we spent a week having fun in Las Vegas, us in our RV and M&D at Harrah’s. Covid was just getting started then and by the time we reached home in early March it had started to spread, and concern was rapidly rising. M&D were supposed to stay 2 weeks then fly to Skokie but it became unsafe to fly, especially for people their age. They pushed out their stay a month, then another month, and another . . . Come fall they really didn’t want to spend the winter in Illinois so we decided they’d spend the winter with us in Yuma in their own place. We left Mukilteo in the RV early in December 2020 spending four months in Yuma, which culminated with all four of us getting the Covid vaccine. Since it still wasn’t safe to fly we drove M&D back to Skokie in the RV (including a visit to the Petrified Forest National Park on the way) arriving in Skokie on April 12th. The next 2 ½ weeks were spent getting them settled back home as well as doing some major house-cleaning and “decluttering” of their house. Our mission accomplished we started the return two-week trek home driving south again to avoid any possible mountain snow. We did a combination of boondocking and staying in RV parks while we visited five national and one state park along the way. May 16, 2021, we happily returned home, ready to start planning our next adventure!