Moab, Utah

Sept 07   Torrey - Moab, UT     miles       3 1/2 hours

We tried to leave kind of early this morning because there's rain in the forecast. I wanted to stay at this campground right along the Colorado river but Joe convinced me that wasn't a good idea with the rain expected. We found a campground right outside of Moab called Moab Rim Campark. They got a Good Sam rate $77.22 for 2 nites. It's an okay park, right along a busy street so got some noise. Hopefully, the rain will pass in a couple of days and we can get to another state park for half the price. We'll spend a few nights in Moab and visit a few parks in the area.

We had a late lunch in town, walked around a little, and went to the visitor's center. We planned to watch the football game tonight but the cable wouldn't work. Really bummed....got our Direct TV going but the game is on the local station which our Direct TV doesn't catch. We need to keep up with our fantasy football.

Our campsite at Moab Rim Campark

Nice view but kind of noisy

Sep 08

The forecast is heavy rains today but this morning is kind of overcast so we took a drive to visit Dead Horse Point State Park about 45 minutes away.  We got dramatic views of Canyonlands National Park and the Colorado River 2,000 feet below. An almost isolated mesa, the area was at one time used as a natural corral for wild horses.

Dead Horse Point overlooks the Colorado River

 Next stop for the day was Canyonlands National

My strong husband holding up the arch

Park, Islands in the Sky District. First stop was Mesa Arch. A short hike lead to a cliff edge arch.

We stopped at most of the overlooks but it started to rain so no long, hard hikes today. Canyonlands remind me of the Grand Canyon, but on a smaller scale. Every overlook offers a different perspective on the park's spectacular landscape.

Grand View Point

Green River Overlook

Joe calls me Dora.....for Dora the explorer. I always try to plan for a full day of activities. This morning he said we need to slow down. I'm wearing him out. So he gave me a limit of 5 hours of exploring. Pretty funny because we left at 9 this morning and was sitting down for lunch in Moab at 2pm. Talk about good timing!

Sept 09

It rained all night and when we woke up it was still overcast and rainy. We decided to stay at this campground another night. We got a late start this morning, finally left around 12pm to drive to Arches National Park. Stunning! I got so excited because of the awesome scenery, I wanted to see everything!

Balanced Rock

Double Arches

Garden of Eden

Double Arches

North Window

South Window

Turret Arch

Lunch Break

Skyline Arch

Rain coming, good thing we're heading out of the park

We couldn't do everything in one day. After many short hikes, we decided to come back tomorrow.

Can you see the double rainbow?

Our campsite at sunset

Bryce Canyon & Capitol National Park

Sept 04   Las Vegas, NV - Bryce Canyon National Park, UT   275 miles   7 hrs

We made a couple of stops along the way so it took us about 7 hours to make this drive.

Camp site #4

We're staying at the North Campground located inside the park for 2 nites. It's dry camping at $15.00 per nite. Very nice park that can accommodate our motorhome.

We took a short hike this afternoon along the rim. Probably about
two miles. Bryce Canyon is absolutely amazing.

Sept 05

I have a very busy day planned for us. We woke up early this morning to see the sunrise at Bryce Point. Was very cold, probably around low 40's. There were a lot of people already there waiting for the sun to come up. This was the best time of the day to see the hoodoos. The shadows and different lighting from the sun was pretty cool.

At 9:00, we got on the Rainbow Tour Shuttle. It's a three hour guided tour that goes to most of the look outs. Our guide Skip, was pretty good. The only negative was there was a lot of slow moving seniors that took forever to get off and on the bus at each stop. After the tour we were exhausted. We ate lunch and took a nap.

The top of the trail. Switchbacks all the way down.

This afternoon we drove out to Sunset Point and did the Navajo Loop hike. It's a short but steep trail. Joe and I felt so out of shape. Going down was easy but coming back up was a killer. We had to stop numerous times to catch our breath. The hike took us about 1 hour 15 minutes.

Looking up at the hoodoos from the bottom is really different from seeing everything from the top.

Going up the switchbacks on the other side

Joe taking a break

Another break

Almost to the top

For dinner we drove out to Ruby's Inn. We had the buffet for $21.95. Worth every penny! Excellent dinner. We got there about 6pm and went right in. When we finished around 715pm the line was real long, so the timing was good. We had a very full day at Bryce Canyon, really enjoyed ourselves.

Sept 06   Bryce Canyon - Capitol Reef National Park, Torrey, UT   112 miles   3 1/2 hours

Today we're traveling on National Scenic Byway 12, Utah's first All American Road. This exceptional 124 mile route negotiates an isolated landscape of canyons, plateaus, and valleys ranging from 4,000 to 9,000 feet above sea level. Very scenic, at times kind of scary. The roads would get very narrow and no shoulder. Also traveling along the mountains means cliffs sometimes on both sides of the road at the same time. We just took our time. Joe was pretty quiet and had to concentrate while I enjoyed the scenery.

Start of Byway 12

We're staying at the Thousand Lakes RV Park in Torrey. Nice park, Good Sam discount rate $32.25 for full hook ups.

Nice views

Joe cooking dinner

View from our site

We took a drive to Capitol Reef National Park located about 10 miles down the road. We did the scenic drive and made a few stops. Very nice park, I wish we could spend another day exploring but we need to get going. The next few days will bring a lot of rain to the area.

Twin Rocks

Petroglyphs on the side of a mountain

The Castle

Las Vegas

Sep 03
 It's been about a year since our last RV trip and we've been very busy. We did a major renovation to our house. Joe did most of the work and it took about 2 months. Our son Josh got married to his long time girlfriend, Casey, in May. They are expecting a baby later this year, our first grandchild! We're getting excited. Our daughter Miki graduated from West Oahu in May with a degree in elementary education. We're so proud of her.

We're back in Las Vegas getting ready to start our journey to Utah and Colorado. We have 5 weeks to explore. We came in on Monday, September 1st and have been getting things ready.  We're staying at Sam's Town RV Park. We had a promo for 2 nights complimentary so the third night we're paying $26.71. Las Vegas is very hot. We've been here for 3 days and it's been over 100 degrees everyday. We go to the pool everyday to cool off and talk to other RVers to share stories and get tips. We got the oil changed in the RV by American Mobile Lube. Very convenient because they came to our site. It cost us $135.00. We also got our RV cleaned by Red Rock RV Wash. They also came to our site. They charge $2 a foot and $10 for the roof. With the tip, total was $80.00.

We plan to leave very early tomorrow morning for Bryce Canyon National Park.

Last entry for our summer 2013 RV trip to Alaska

It's August 31, 2014 and realized I didn't finish my last post for last year's RV trip to Alaska.
Joe & I really enjoyed our 5 month vacation. We are financially in the red but it was worth it!  We're glad we did the Alaska Highway, but probably won't do it again. It's one of those "you have to do it at least once" things. Believe me, once in enough.
We traveled over 8,900 miles in the RV and over 4000 miles for the Kia.
Now we get to go home to our family, and plan Josh & Casey's wedding for next May.

Back to Las Vegas

Aug 28     Bakersfield, CA to Las Vegas, NV    276 miles     5 hrs 30 mins
Today's drive was very boring but we're finally back in Las Vegas. We're staying at Oasis Las Vegas RV Resort for 3 nights. They have a Passport America rate that can be used up to 3 nights. That means half off. So for 3 nights we're paying $80.08. What a deal! This place is really nice. The best part is they have an adult pool and hot tub. I spend a lot of time at the pool, so having an adult pool is wonderful. We really like it here. They're located close to the airport off Las Vegas Boulevard.

Glad to be back in Nevada

Aug 31     Today we moved over to Main Street Station RV Park. We'll be staying for 3 nights. Nothing fancy here, but we like the location. No swimming pool here, and it's super hot in Vegas. For 3 nights it's about $60.00. We met Scott & Donna at Triple 7 for dinner. We watched football and drank too much.

Sept 2   We spent the evening at Triple 7 again. This time with Winky & Leslie, Dean & Vivian, and met some new friends Mark & Lani. We had such a good time, I haven't laughed so much in a long time. My face and stomach was so sore from laughing all evening.

Sept 3   Today we moved to Sam's Town RV Park. We'll be staying here for the last 3 nights, $57.12. We really like it here because they have a swimming pool and good places to eat at Sam's Town. We'll be spending the next 3 days getting ready to store the RV and getting packing to go home.

Sept 5   Mom & Macolm is in Vegas so we met them for dinner. Today is Malcolm's birthday and we met them at Pasta Pirate's in the California Hotel. We had a nice dinner, the food was ono! Malcolm and I went to the crap table afterwards but didn't do too well.

California

Aug 24     Canyonville, OR to Roseville, CA     482 miles     9 hrs
It was a very long day. We used our GPS to travel and it got us lost. We were doing okay until we hit some road construction, then it took us in circles. We finally got to our destination in Roseville around 5pm. We are visiting Bob Barefoot and his wife Fran for a couple of days. They live in a gated community with a lot of rules but we got the okay to park in front of their house. Now that Bob lives in Roseville Joe don't get to drink with him that often. He sure made up for lost time.

Parked in front of the Barefoot's

Aug 25     Today we drove out to Livermore and visited

Bob, Jim, Joe

McGrail Vineyards. Jim McGrail is the owner and is a friend of Bob Barefoot. Joe met Jim a few years ago in Hawaii and they all went golfing and hung out on Joe's sailboat. Since we're in the area, we thought we'd just drop in and check his place out. What an awesome place to visit. When we got there it was pretty busy. They have a patio outside where we could sit and relax with a beautiful view. We did some wine tasting and had a nice visit. Jim is quite a character.

Fran & Bob picking up their wine

Aug 26     Roseville to Tracy     90 miles     2 hrs

Joe & Janelle in front of her house

Today we drove out to Tracy to visit Janelle & Mike. Our timing was off because today is a work day for them. We got to their house around 4 pm, Mike was home and Janelle came home around 4:30. We were able to park in their driveway for the night. They have a beautiful home in a great neighborhood and they have 2 well behaved dogs, Pono and Maka. Mike grilled some steaks and sausages and we had a nice dinner. He had to turn in early because his alarm goes off at 1 am. Joe went in kind of early too and let us have some time to ourselves. Janelle and I had such a nice time talking story and just catching up. I kept her up pretty late, I think I finally said good night around 12:30. Good thing she took the morning off and don't need to be at work until 12 pm. I'm so happy for Janelle and Mike.

Dawn & Janelle with Maka &Pono

Aug 27     Tracy to Bakersfield     229 miles     5 hrs 40 mins
We left Janelle's house this morning around 9:30 am. We're heading back to Las Vegas but today we went as far as Bakersfield. We camped at Bakersfield River RV Park. They have a Good Sam rate for $35.55. This park is located right next to a dry river but it's pretty nice. There's some freeway noise but not too bad. They have a nice pool area, Joe and I went swimming after dinner.