Travel days

I love driving the motorhome!! It is so easy to maneuver, has lots of power to get us up the hills, it's comfortable and so convenient to have our home where we go. Driving 400 miles each day for 2 days wasn't bad at all. Of course having Rick there to navigate me through the traffic and detours helps a whole lot! It just wouldn't be fun without him.


For most of the first day we were lucky to be looking out the windows at the snow rather than in it. We'd left more than a foot of the cold stuff in the campground and know from the weather reports that it's been snowing there since. We got out just in time! The scenery on the trip was beautiful and the roads were clear. We don't have chains for the motorhome nor would I like to be in conditions that required chains.

One snowy evening, October 4th, as we were thinking about leaving the campground, I noticed very slow traffic on the interstate and Rick got up to see flashing lights of a snow plow right out front on the highway. We then saw a jackknifed 18 wheeler in the highway median and saw him put on his emergency flashers. I called 911 to report the accident and it seemed we might have been the first to call it in. He probably slid on the icy bridge and thankfully didn't go over the bridge into the river. It was hours before the truck was pulled out of the median. A big reminder to travel when conditions are good, if possible.


We traveled from Montana to Salt Lake City and stayed overnight at Cabela's in Lehi. The next day we did another 400 miles and made it to Las Vegas. The Thousand Trails park here is close to the strip, but once inside the campground you can almost forget you're in the city that never sleeps. You don't hear the street traffic so much, but you can frequently hear sirens responding to some emergency.

As we drove through Utah we once again ran into the army of large orange traffic barrels. Not actually "ran into", but they were lined up like soldiers for miles. I have a theory about the orange barrel-size cones of Utah. My theory is that someone at the Utah highway department has a relative in the cone manufacturing business. The cones stretch on for miles, often with no construction or workers visible. This year they didn't bother me as much and we actually had some good laughs about the miles of orange.

As I said, the 2 travel days were good, except for the gusty winds in the St. George area. It was pretty bad for about an hour and I'd have to say the wind is the least fun when traveling in a high profile vehicle. I'd even take a constant wind rather than gusts that hit you from the side. But we made it fine and Rick said I did a good job of staying within my lane. It did seem that every other car gave me lots of room and never stayed close by for long. The wind calmed down before we got to the Virgin River Gorge, a beautiful canyon between St. George and Mesquite. The Gorge is quite astonishing the first time you go through it.