On June 2nd we said goodbye to Las Vegas, the city that
never sleeps, and started our journey to Utah. We had to change our
route just a little but still had much planned for this fun state.
Unlike a lot of our other posts, this month will be few words and lots of pictures. We have decided to just let the pictures speak for themselves. Bryce Canyon was an absolute eye opener and left Susan and I in awe. While pictures don’t capture the entire scene, we hope that you get the idea.
Our first stop took us to Salina, UT and the Butch
Cassidy Campground http://butchcassidycampground.com/. This was an RPI campground so rates were $10 per day. They had the option to charge us a $3 daily fee for 50amp service but we lucked out and they either waived the fee or forgot to add it to our bill. Salina is a pretty small place with only a couple thousand residents but it seemed to have about all we needed, well within a 30 mile
circle…
We really only had a couple missions to
embark on from this base camp, to visit Bryce Canyon National Park https://www.nps.gov/brca/index.htm
and to ride our motorcycle on the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument
Tour (Hwy 12). Unfortunately, due to weather we were not able to make the
motorcycle trip this time.
After our stint at Salina, we headed
southeast to the Jeep mecca of the world, MOAB,
UT! In Moab we had a nice stay
at OKRV
http://okrvpark.com/. The park was a
bit of a diamond in the rough - few amenities but super nice people. OK RV honors
Passport America discount and during the month of June there was no limit on
the number of days we could stay. We did have to pay an extra $5.00 per day AC
charge (this is added during June, July and August) but with the temperatures
in the 100s daily and the ACs running almost nonstop, we did not complain.
Total cost with the AC charge was only $24.50 per day - that is a bit above our
$20 per day budget but we have scrimped enough other months to allow us to
splurge a bit and remain within our cumulative daily budget.
Susan and I decided that June was probably
going to be our “vacation” month so to speak. We have stayed on a pretty tight
budget throughout the year, but Moab just had too much to do…lol - and using
the excuse of it being our anniversary month Susan didn't argue.
Along with everything we did, we still found
plenty of time to off-road in the truck and we went places we probably should
not have been in a pickup, but we had a blast. We crossed over an 11000’ pass https://stateparks.utah.gov/stateparks/wp-content/uploads/sites/26/2015/02/LaSal_Pass_OHV.pdf
where just days before they had opened the trail for the summer season - and
apparently NO ONE knew it was open yet as we did not run into anyone along the
pass and locals were surprised to hear we had been on the pass. There was still
snow in higher elevations and we drove through it as we climbed, weaved and
zigzagged back and forth along the mountain pass and saw beautiful country.
We actually had so much fun on that adventure
that we did it again on a different day, except this time we ran into a bit of
bad luck when we blew a tire. Our off road adventures in the truck kinda came
to an end after that but the tire shop in Moab was great. Luck was with us and
we were able to get me a new tire installed and purchase a new spare the
next morning. Thankfully someone else had had tire trouble the week
before who had the same exact tires we have on the truck and they had purchased
a full set of four - leaving 3 perfectly good tires with less mileage and wear
on them than the ones we had. We purchased two at a great discount Thank You
Moab Tire http://www.pointstire.com/moab!
The last thing we saw while there was the
Hole in the Rock just south of Moab. It was a short tour and yes a bit of a
tourist trap, but very interesting. The house was literally carved in the side
of the rock - no need for AC or heat as it maintains steady temps year round.
It did have running water and electric - even had a large hand chiseled bath
tub! I would post the link but then you would hate me as last time I went to
the home page it popped a "zeus virus" which is a tracking scam that
is set up to make it look like your computer has been compromised and directs
you to call "tech support" so, as an alternative if you run an image
search you can see pictures, we weren't allowed to take inside pictures.
As with Bryce Canyon, we were left with pure
amazement of the country we live in during our visit to Moab and hope some of
the pictures will show the beauty of this place as well. I KNOW we will be
back.
Did I mention that Moab also caused other
changes in the Wickett travel plans? Ok, maybe it was Moab and a few too many
conversations with Eric Highland. We ordered a Jeep Rubicon Recon Unlimited…lol
Susan and I have always talked about a Jeep and we have always wanted one but
just never could figure out how to fit it in. Well this time instead of finding
reasons it would not work, we decided to simply say we will make it work. So
just as we arrived at Hill AFB I made a call to a dealer in Austin, TX (Covert
Jeep) and placed an order. (more about that next month).
With Moab in the rearview mirror we were
starting our slow migration north and made our last stop of June at Hill AFB
FamCamp in Layton, UT http://75fss.com/famcamp.
What we found when arriving to Hill AFB was a nice facility and a few
things to do in the area. But you have to wait until next month to see what we
did. We hope you enjoy all the pictures.
Bryce Canyon
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| Taking the shuttle tour is a must! |
MOAB Jeep Day
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| Petroglyphs |
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| Temps on Jeep day HOT! |
Canyonlands National Park
 |
| An overview of a Jeep Day road |
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| Leaving Canyonlands |
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| Heading back to Moab |
Arches National Park
Hole in the Rock
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| Cactus made of bowling balls |
LaSal Pass
Misc Area Exploration
