Day Twenty-One
One more note about Vernal. They have a great garden program/committee/club/something. There are planters and baskets lining all the main streets with huge plumages of flowers. And they smell so good. It’s the little things.
Everyone has Dash Cams these days…
Asshole drivers, man. Most of Utah has been–true to stereotype–nice people. Today, we found the exceptions to the rule. Here is the thing, we are both polite drivers of our bigass motorhome. If there is ever a chance to pull over and let the traffic behind us go around, we do. (And FTR, not all pullovers are safe. Some have kinda steep drop offs or come up on you with not enough warning.) But sometimes, another driver rides our ass, and then zips around in an unsafe manner, and then practically cuts us off when they get back in our lane. It’s not just rude it’s dangerous and stupid. And when you do that–especially in a truck/trailer emblazoned with your brand/company–we will call you out, license plate and all. Moral of the story is don’t drive like a jerk. Someone will catch it on camera. Here are those cuts from our driving day.
From Vernal to Moab
The drive from Vernal to Wellington was steep AF…and not even all that pretty. During this time, we got another chip in the windshield. grrrrrr.
After a small stretch on I-70 and then once we turned south toward Moab, we encountered sprinkles of rain mixed with dust storms. It was an interesting combination.
The drive into Moab was beautiful, however. This is the very scenery that Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner were patterned from. Bonus. Did you know there were eleven “rules” for the storylines of the cartoons? Debunked/fake or not, they are plausible and funny.
We checked in at about 4pm. This RV Resort is posh and deserves the Resort label (which I have an entire rant about for campgrounds/parks that don’t deserve to use that word). We have two pools, two hot tubs, super-duper large concrete spots, gorgeous landscaping between spots to add more privacy. The “cabins” are 3-story townhomes with garages. We have pickleball, dog parks, ponds, and there was even a koi pond at one time. Posh AF! One neighbor was very funny to watch setting up, too; some things are transcendent.
Day Twenty-two
Arches National Park
We only had about a 20-minute wait to get into Arches, so we didn’t sneak in the northwest side entry (which was our backup). While waiting, we saw a mouse trying to stay in the shade under vehicles; he was quite funny…and is probably now quite dead. In the visitor’s center, we learned that he can howl to scare away predators. The Howler bites off the tails of scorpions so they can’t defend themselves and then eats them head first. Good mouse!
- Arches is gorgeous, but it’s also very hot, so we mostly stayed in the Jeep instead of taking any of the hikes to get closer to the arches.
- We saw an odd-brand RV; the owners are from Sweden!
- Approximately 40% of the cars were Jeeps, another 30% were RVs (with at least half of those being #VanLife) and then there were a few normal cars. LOL!
- The off-grid campground in the park is quite nice.
- To get out, we used that northwest “exit” through BLM land and Salt Valley.
We had an early dinner, and then took a break in the motorhome’s AC, and a dip in the hot tub. We ventured back out after 10pm to visit a local bar and enjoyed watching some people play pool; the one woman was quite good and way too humble.
When we came back to the resort after 1am, there was a Class A motorhome arriving….what a very long day they must have had!
Day Twenty-three
Dead Horse Cliff State Park
After a big day, we slept in. Our first stop was Dead Horse Cliff State Park. This is where they filmed the famous ending of Thelma & Louise. This park was way better than we expected. If you are in the area, hit this one when you go to the north side of Canyonlands National Park. It is well worth the $20/car entry fee.
Canyonlands National Park
The hikes to viewpoints in Canyonlands are a lot shorter than the ones in Arches, so even though it was hotter, we got out a lot more. We did the short and medium hikes to:
- peninsula view point
- Mesa Arch
- Green River
- Buck Canyon
- Grand View
We hit the showers and the hot tub again…and we met some people all here on the same 35-day caravan trip. After finding some food, we went back to the bar that was so fun last night, but it was overrun with some loud tourists on karaoke night, so we didn’t stay long…and came back to prep for a travel day tomorrow.
