Thursday/Friday, September 17 and 18: We left at 7:30 Thursday morning and drove the rest of the way through Colorado and onto I-80. We stopped for a late breakfast in Ogalia.

I had thought that a lunch time stop in Kearney, NE to the Cabelas store would be a good break for Jim, thinking of the store we have stopped to before in Sydney, NE however that turned out to be a disappointment. I think it was one of their earliest stores and it was very basic. We looked around for a few minutes but then just ended up eating lunch in the camper in the parking lot before getting back on I-80.

The rest of the day was taken up with driving almost all the way across Nebraska. We stopped for the night in Greenwood, just west of Omaha. The campground seemed really nice when we pulled in and set up - nice green grass and trees. We ate our supper outside and there was a beautiful sunset.

However what we did not know ahead of time was that we were right next to the Nebraska Speedway. And boy, were those cars LOUD! from 7:00 to 11:00 PM.

Because we were not able to get to bed early the night before we left a bit later on Friday morning. We drove past Omaha and stopped again for a late breakfast at a very nice restaurant in Shelby, Iowa with a red barn theme. It seemed good to be back in the Midwest! Great food and friendly down to earth people.

The Missouri River - Nebraska/Iowa Borde

When we left there we could see a storm brewing in the West and before noon it caught up with us. Jim had to drive through some pretty heavy rain for awhile.

We stopped for lunch in Williamsburg IA. I knew there would be several restaurant choices there since there was a Tanger Outlet by the off ramp. I couldn’t resist a quick stop to Christopher & Banks since I could see it across the parking lot from the Arbys where we had lunch. :-) While we were stopped there the rain let up quite a bit. We took a detour just south of I-80 on a county road because the Google mapping was showing a couple of accidents on I-80 with at least a 1/2 hour delay. We were thankful for having the info to avoid the backup.

Mississippi River - Iowa/Illinois Border

I called the campground we had been thinking of stopping at for the night in Utica, IL however they were full. We had planned to stop just west of Chicago and finish the trip in the morning. Jim said he was OK with continuing on home so we kept  moving. We stopped for supper in Morris, IL at a Chilis so we could have a good break from being on the road.

Jim had to make one more repair under an overpass along the highway because the passenger side windshield wiper started acting crazy and hitting the driver side wiper. At one point they got tangled together so neither of them were working. With the rain we were driving through the wiper was a necessity so out came the tools again.

We pulled in to the driveway about 12:35 AM. Wow is it good to be home! After almost seven weeks in the camper the house seems enormous!

Our great adventure has come to an end but we were able to see some of the most spectacular scenery that our Great God has created and we have seen His hand of protection over and over. To God be the Glory - He is truly and Awesome God!!

Wednesday, September 16: Today marked the beginning of the end of Jim and Mary’s Great Adventure as we began the 1500 mile trek back home from our last park stop in Moab, UT. I have gained even more respect for the skill required to pilot our 9 x 30 foot home on wheels through the terrain we have covered. As we drove back north to meet up with I-70 once again we saw this sign of God’s protection in the sky to the West …

About an hour later we crossed into the state of Colorado.

We drove through the Rocky Mountains and reached an elevation of over 10,000 feet. The drive felt at times like being on a roller coaster. In one area we were amazed at how compressed the roadways and railways had to be to fit in the canyon and follow the river.

Once we passed through the city of Denver the landscape changed quickly and dramatically as we entered the plains (appropriately named). We ended up reaching the town of Fort Morgan for the night. The area reminded me of Scottsbluff NE which we visited several times when Lisa and PJ were living in Wyoming. After I checked the map I discovered we are almost directly south of Scottsbluff.

Tuesday, September 15: Enterprise Car Rental picked us up at the campground at 8:15 in the morning. Once we had the car rental squared away we returned to the campground and loaded our gear for the day and headed for Arches National Park (about 10 miles away). The skies were just clearing from the rain showers we had through most of the night.

For the first hour Jim was chasing sun beams to get good photos.

We drove the main scenic drive through the park for most of the day. We took a spur off to see the Windows area and hiked to see the “Garden of Eden” overlook  …

Balanced Rock

… and three window arches (North, South, and Turret).

 The sun continued to play games with us all day however we were glad the rain held off for most of the day.

We also took the spur to view “Delicate Arch” however we were not able to drive to the overlooks for that arch since the rains has caused the road to flood and the park had closed it off.

Then we drove to the end of the drive to an area called “Devil’s Garden” and hiked to see “Tunnel Arch” and “Pine Tree Arch.” Pine Tree Arch was my favorite of the ones we were able to see and we found a nice quiet spot to have our lunch just on the other side of the arch.

Pine Tree Arch

Our lunch stop view

On the way back through the scenic drive we stopped to see the “Fiery Furnace” area and got back to the car just ahead of some more rain drops.

By then it was about 3:00 and we decided to head back to Moab. Once back to town we stopped for a coffee break and some shopping on the main route through town.

After that we had dinner at a nice restaurant just across from our campground. We found a table on the back deck and enjoyed the warm (but not hot for once) temperatures for a relaxing supper time. Once again we finished just in time to avoid more rain drops.

From there we headed back to other side of town and took a drive along the Colorado River for a few miles.

Monday, September 14: We started off with a beautiful sunrise at our campground.

After returning our rental to the airport we headed north. Most of the day was spent driving from St. George in the South West corner of Utah to Moab, farther north and close the Eastern end of the state. The scenery for most of the drive was spectacular!

Salt Wash View Area

Salt Wash View Area

Salt Wash View Area

Salt Wash View Area

Salt Wash View Area

Devil's Canyon

Spotted Wolf Canyon

Spotted Wolf Canyon

 Along I-70 there is a stretch where there are no towns for 105 miles. We made sure we had topped off the gas tank before we entered that section.

We had some rain along the way and some sections of very high wind. That made the driving a bit more challenging but Jim handled it like a pro (as usual).

I booked a campground in Moab and a car rental for tomorrow so we can tour our last national park of the trip.

We had to skip three of the Utah parks that we originally had on our itinerary because we are a couple of days behind. The other reason is that we discovered motor home touring within the parks out west doesn’t work very well - that means more time to get a rental car and a second night stay in one location.

Sunday, September 13: We left the camper at 8:00 AM in order to arrive at Zion National Park by 9:00. I had read that parking usually filled up by 10:00 AM and getting on the shuttle was our only option for seeing Zion Canyon. We wanted to make sure we wouldn’t have to park in the nearest town and loose precious time since we would have only the one day to see the park.

On the drive there we saw some beautiful redneck mountain sides even before we reached the park.

The shuttle system worked very well for us - we never had to wait more than 5-10 minutes for the next bus to come by. We started off at a site called the Court of the Patriarchs where the three prominent mountains to view there were named Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The influence of the early Mormon settles to this area was evident everywhere.

Our next stop was for a feature called Weeping Rock which required a steep 1/2 mile round trip hike. This is the sign at the beginning of the trails

What we missed was a very small sign with a very tiny arrow that pointed to the left so we went straight ahead. After we had hiked the trail with steep switchbacks up the mountain and we knew we had gone way, way more than a 1/4 mile we finally asked some other hikers what trail this was. They said it was the Observation Point Trail - a 10 mile round trip hike to the top of the mountain. So we immediately turn around and hiked back to the bottom and took the other trail to see the Weeping Rock. We did get some nice shots of the canyon on our "extra" hike.

 Stop number three was to Big Bend - a bend in the Virgin River which flows through the canyon. From there we could see hikers on top of the ridge that took one of the other strenuous mountain climbing hikes

The end of the shuttle run took us to a spot called Temple of Sinawava. From there we took a one mile hike called the River Walk along the Virgin River. The trail gave us nice views of the river and hanging gardens on the canyon walls. All along the way there were squirrels that begged to be photographed (well they probably were really begging for food).

The end of that trail was the beginning of one called The Narrows - the complication there was that the trail was the river and we did not come prepared with water shoes to walk the river bed. We did take off our shoes and cross to the other side so we could continue as far as the bank went. So I guess we have very limited bragging rights to hiking the Narrows.

On the way back down the canyon we stopped at the Zion Lodge for a late lunch and at a museum where there were some additional great shots of the mountains.

 

Once we were back to our car we set off on a trip along the Zion - Mt. Carmel Highway.

The road wound up the mountainside and through a 1.1 mile tunnel. A unique feature of the tunnel was was through the mountain side. Jim snapped this photo through one of the windows.

The rock formations on the East Side were all together different than the Zion Canyon.

We also saw a few desert big horn sheep along the way.

Rain clouds were gathering as we left the park and we got a thunderstorm at the campground back in St. George and rain through part of the night. Thankfully that cooled down the temperatures a bit.