The long drive home with a fun stop in Moab, Utah

Our final Tucson sunset

Isn’t it great when a plan comes together?  Seriously!  Everything went according to our plans as we pulled out of Voyager a little after 7 p.m. Monday and started the long trek home.

We spent much of Monday packing the stuff to go home and storing and disposing of things related to the trailer. We did a pretty good job of consuming nearly all of our perishable goods and only had a small amount of stuff to toss out.

Joan finished up the last of the salmon steaks and she dropped the last three eggs and a piece of toast on me for dinner in the trailer just before we departed. She was nice enough to fry up the eggs for me, though.

Some of the coming home luggage

After dinner I finished the process of hooking up the trailer to the Tahoe and then we just waited until the sun went down so we could begin the first leg of the trip towards Flagstaff.

We’ve tried several different times for leaving the park, but we think we’ve hit on a winner this year. When we arrived in Phoenix about 9 p.m. we fueled at our usual spot and then made our way through the city with little traffic.

Phoenix is often a terribly congested place and it makes life tough with a trailer, so finding a time when traffic is light is a definite plus. Temperatures were a little higher than a prefer for the trailer and truck for towing, but as we climbed out of Phoenix the temperatures fell to an acceptable level.

Hooked and ready to go

The climb to Flagstaff starts at about 1,000-feet in Phoenix and ends a little over 7,000-feet in Flagstaff.

Our goal was to reach the McGuireville Rest Area about 50 miles south of Flagstaff and sleep there. Arizona permits overnight camping in RVs at the rest areas and when we arrived there was just one open spot in the truck/rv side of the rest stop. We parked, brushed out teeth by flashlight in the trailer and turned into bed (with no heat) about 11:30 p.m.

We slept well until about 2:30 a.m. when the cold settled in and so we added a blanket and cuddled a little tighter and fell back to sleep until 6 a.m.  Temperatures were in the 40s when we got up. On the way up the rest of the mountain to Flagstaff we had two very healthy coyotes run in front of our rig, headed to a large corral of cattle.

Our "camping" spot at the rest stop

We were up and back on the road by 6:30 a.m. and made the final climb up the hill to Flagstaff arriving at Camper’s World just before 7:30 a.m. and an hour before our scheduled winterization appointment for the trailer. We had enough time to move all the luggage from the trailer to the back of the Tahoe before our appointment time.

I had a moment of anxiousness when I started packing the Tahoe and found I was really short on space. But we crammed all the stuff in and the technicians winterized the trailer in short order. I hooked the trailer back up and we drove the ¼-mile to the storage lot.

Entering Utah

Once inside I discovered our space was a tight one. We had a trailer on one side and a fifth wheel RV on the other, but I was able to back the Laredo into the spot without damaging us or them. It took about 40 minutes to lock up the trailer, cover the tires, remove the battery and generally make sure the trailer was secured for the next nine months.

We left the storage lot (I forgot to take a photo of it parked) and headed to a nearby gas station to fill up for the trip to Moab, Utah.

We averaged just 8.9 miles per gallon on the trip up the mountain, but we quickly improved on that without the trailer being dragged behind. The long hill down from Flagstaff into Navajo country certainly contributed to the 31.1 miles per gallon average we got for the first part of the trip to Moab.

A few dumb "asses"

The trip through Monument Valley was beautiful and the trip was uneventful other than a very strong wind that had us dodging tumble weeds much of the afternoon.

One notable thing happened during our trip to Moab. We passed through the town of Bluff, Utah, which was a place where I spent two weeks doing a mission trip back in the early 1960s. Young people from St. Luke’s of the Mountains and several other Episcopal churches made the trip to help the Native Americans dig trenches for water and sewer lines on the reservation near Bluff.

Sign at Bluff, Utah

It was a place I never thought I would see again and yet, here at 68, I was back.

After arguing with Joan about her concerns over livestock running into the road, a couple of donkeys made a liar out of me by running into the road just north of Bluff. I’ll never hear the end of that now.

We checked into our hotel, showered, cleaned up and then met my sister Pam and brother-in-law Jeff at The Blue Pig for dinner. Moab is a beautiful town that is a mecca for folks with four-wheelers and dirt bikes. The place was packed and after dinner we called it an early night and headed back for a good night’s sleep.

At Arches National Park

Mileage out (Tucson) 40483

Mileage in (Flagstaff with trailer) 40767

Time out (Tucson) 7:15 p.m.

Time in (Flagstaff) 7:23 a.m.

Time out (Flagstaff) 9:49 a.m.

Mileage in: (Moab, Utah) 41105

Time in: (Moab, Utah) 4:40 p.m.

On Wednesday, Jeff and Pam picked us up at our hotel and we spent a beautiful day exploring Arches National Park and all the beautiful vistas it has to offer. It is hard to describe in words the magnificent views it offers, but I’ll put some pictures up to try.

Joan balancing a rock on her head

We did a little hiking and walking and enjoyed a picnic lunch among the great rocks of the park. We drove back to the hotel where Jeff and Pam were staying and enjoyed a leisurely visit on a second floor deck overlooking downtown Moab. Pam put out a nice spread of cheese and crackers and everyone but me sipped a little wine.

About 5 p.m. we headed to Pasta Jay’s next door to the hotel where Jeff and Pam were staying and enjoyed a wonderful Italian dinner. After dinner Joan and I walked back to our hotel, which was only two blocks away, for another good night’s sleep.

Jeff was kind enough to drive all day Wednesday which is a rare treat for me to be able to sightsee from the passenger seat.

On Thursday, I offered to drive so Jeff could enjoy the scenery and we headed out to visit Dead Horse State Park and then Canyonlands National Park.

My sister Pam and Joan at Dead Horse Park

It was another great day among some unbelievable views. The four of us did quite a bit of walking and hiking and Jeff and I made it to the top of Whale Rock which is a monolith of a boulder. We had a picnic lunch in Canyonlands and basically spent the day saying “Wow” every two minutes.

Instead of going back to town we headed out to Red Cliffs Winery and Restaurant. Jeff, Pam and Joan did some wine tasting until it was time for dinner and then we enjoyed a leisurely meal eating on the banks of the Colorado River as it passed by.

The area has been used for dozens of movies and commercials and we spent some time visiting the Movie Museum in the Red Cliffs hotel before heading back to town. Once back at Jeff and Pam’s hotel we hugged and said our good-byes and just recalled how quickly the two days had gone.

Jeff on Whale Rock

It is great to have relatives who are also great friends.

So, too soon Friday morning came and it was time to depart Moab for the long journey home. The parking lot at the Moab Hotel (where we stayed) was packed with off road vehicles, trailers with off road vehicles and generally every manner of truck and rv you can imagine.

We headed north and merged onto Highway 70 where I was pleased to discover the speed limit in Utah on the Interstate was 80 mph.  Those are the kinds of speeds that make getting home much quicker. We made our way quickly to a Love’s Truck Stop in Grand Junction for gas.

Me on Whale Rock

The new traffic interchange really threw me for a loop as the exit and entrance ramps and roads around the interchange are backwards from what we are used to driving here in America. (Think England).  I nervously followed the signs and eventually made my way to the gas station on the “wrong” side of the road.

As I pulled up to the gas pump I heard a wild and scary noise coming from a livestock trailer at the pump next to mine. It sounded like a sick donkey, but the only thing in the trailer were horses so I assume one of them made the strange and awful noise.

Me and the "Duke"

We crisscrossed the Colorado River several times as we traveled west through Colorado and at one point Joan made a strange noise of her own when she spotted a large eagle’s nest in a tree next to the river and then spotted a large bald eagle tending to the nest. The perch was probably perfect as it was directly over the river which is good feeding grounds for an eagle.

The freeway continued to climb into the snow covered mountains until we reached Vail where we were above 10,000 feet and surrounded by skiers and snow covered slopes. Some of the travel was slowed by construction zones, but things picked up when we began the descent from 10,000-feet to mile-high Denver.

Some of the grades were so steep that at one off ramp for a small town there was a sign that read “If you have lost your brakes, stay on I-70, do not exit here.”  In other words, we don’t want your careening, out-of-control vehicle in our town.

80 mph!

Outside Denver we switched from I-70 to I-76 and continued our journey to Ogallala, Nebraska. Our phones both changed time zones, but not the car clock, which usually automatically switches. We learned on arrival to our hotel in Ogallala that we were still in Mountain Daylight Savings time, but would cross over to Central time about 10 miles east of where we stayed.

The hotel was full of young girls in town for a volleyball tournament and other than causing Joan to break out in hives when she spotted all those middle school kids they were quiet and well behaved. Well, except for the girls on the second floor trying to spit on the girls on the first level when we first got there.

Colorado!

We had dinner at The Spur, which was adequate, but not real good.

Mileage out: 41256

Mileage in: 41822

Time out: 8 a.m.

Time in: 4:26 p.m.

Snow near Vail

Saturday morning came quickly and we headed out for what I knew would be a very boring driving day. I have done this section of Nebraska several times and it is like driving 400 miles on the top of a dining room table. Flat and very little scenery. There is the beautiful overpass in Kearney, Nebraska but other than that the only thing around to stop the wind is the barbed wire fences on both sides of the freeway.

We were pleased to learn that Kearney, Nebraska is the place where the Sand Hills we see in Michigan in summer and Tucson in the winter stop to mate during their migration.

Nebraska!

The wind blew a gale all day so I was glad that I was not pulling the trailer today. We spent much of the day listening to Radio Classics on the XM Radio along with Lou Simon’s “Countdown” on the 60s music channel. The radio helped to make the day go a little faster.

When we arrived in Williamsburg, Iowa we checked into our Ramada Hotel only to find out that it was full of boys here for a wrestling tournament. We’ll let you know how that went in our next post.

Although there was a restaurant in the hotel we opted to drive about 15 miles into Amana Village to eat at the Ox Yoke Inn, which was a German American restaurant on the line of Frankenmuth. I had the Sauerbraten and Joan had the Chicken Snitczel. We ended up buying some of the homemade strawberry jelly to take home.

Kearney, Nebraska

We returned to the hotel and crashed for the night. Tomorrow we head to my sister Laura and brother-in-law Philip’s home in North Aurora, Illinois for a short stay with them. My sister is a great cook and I look forward to a good home cooked meal there.

We’ll complete the log of the trip after we get home to Lapeer on Tuesday. I’m hoping the crummy weather in Michigan will move out before we arrive home, but it probably won’t.

Mileage out: 41822

Mileage in: 42379

Time out: 7:17 a.m. (MDT)

Iowa!

Time in: 4:40 p.m. (CDT)