We were up about 7:00 am this morning, giving us plenty of time to relax, pack up at our leisure and get/give hugs from all of our friends.
Bernie & Judy from Missouri
Jay & Stella and Bernie & Judy left just before 9:00 am and we made sure to give them a nice send off.
Keith & Carol – representing Virginia!
Keith & Carol left about 9:15 am and they got a grand send off as well. Carol enticed us to come and visit them at the Vegas rally to pick up some Usinger’s Jalapeno Summer Sausage that they didn’t care for….they didn’t realize they were getting jalapeno. Usinger’s is a Milwaukee brand and since both Keith and I have Milwaukee roots we know of it’s greatness!
Bette & Lou and Trace made sure to give us a nice send off when we pulled out just before 11:00 am. Bette was even sweet enough to share an apple fritter with us that she’d gotten at the Glendale Apple Festival the day before….yum!
Thunderbird Restaurant, Mt. Carmel, UT
We had just over 200 miles to travel today and will change into the Pacific time zone so we decided to stop and have lunch before actually hitting the road. Once again, I had a coupon from Restaurant.com for $25 off of $50 or more and this time it was at a restaurant in Mt. Carmel, Thunderbird Restaurant.
LOVE me some soup!
We both ordered the Open Faced Hot Turkey Sandwich (a Manhattan to some) and a couple of soup/chili. I had corn chowder, Michael had chili. We were happy with our meals…although we’ve had better.
To round out our $50 purchase we each chose 2 pieces of pie to take home and enjoy later – a chocolate cream for each of us, strawberry rhubarb for me and apple with rum sauce for Michael.
We browsed around in their gift shop and bought some ‘Real Salt’ and then browsed through the Trading Post across the street before hitting the road about 12:40ish.
The GPS kept wanting us to take highway 9 west through Zion….we’re too big to go through the tunnel and I wouldn’t take my home on that crazy road anyway. We finally got the GPS to behave and go the way we wanted…south on 89 through Kanab, down into Arizona and then back up to hit I-15 back in Utah.
Pipe Springs National Monument
We hadn’t gotten very far down 389 when I saw a sign for the Pipe Springs National Monument and when I saw that it was just ¼ of mile off the road we made a quick decision to make a visit! Another stamp/sticker to add to our Passport Book.
Filling up the book!
Admission was $7 each but with our America the Beautiful pass we got in free. So far since we bought our pass a few weeks ago for $80 we’ve gone to attractions totaling $112.00….not bad…and it’s good for a year!
Winsor Castle
Pipe Springs was the only water source in the area for quite some distance. The Paiute Indians, a nomadic tribe, stayed in the area and used the water source for daily living. At some point, Mormon settlers came to the area and built a fort, Winsor Castle, over the spring, claiming ALL of the water for themselves. The fort was built to protect the settlers from Navajo & Ute Indians but was never attacked.
Longhorns inhabit the grounds
The Mormon’s brought sheep & cattle, built a dugout & corrals, planted a garden, an orchard and a vineyard on the land and would bring the products of their farming to St. George (a 4 day journey back then) to feed those in need.
Anita, our tour guide explaining life inside the fort
Our tour guide, a park ranger, gave a good tour with lots of information and since it happened to be just the two of us on the tour we were able ask any questions we had. A nice little side trip for a relatively short travel day.
Traveling through Mars
When we FINALLY hit I-15 (nearly 4 hours after we left the Thunderbird!) the wind was blowing pretty good and before we knew it we were BACK in Arizona for 25ish miles and it was some darn pretty/weird scenery. Kinda felt like we were on Mars…rocky, craggy, deserty wasteland.
Remember when we left Zack & Kelsea’s and we left a diesel puddle in their driveway? When we learned that Michael closed the valve between the auxiliary tank and truck tank and we experienced no evidence of leakage after that.
Today while driving our fuel started getting low so Michael opened the valve to let the fuel from the auxiliary tank flow into the truck tank and nothing seemed to happen we just watched the digital read out on the dash show that we had less and less miles until we had ‘0” miles left. Hmmm… Michael shut the truck off several times (while in neutral, coasting down the road) to restart the computer but that didn’t seem to help.
Wind was whipping sand around so much this was our first glimpse of Vegas…you can see the Stratosphere on the right.
He closed and reopened the valve to see if that helped and then turned off the truck again and that seemed to help as the gauge went from having only 4 miles left to 15 miles left. He even checked inside the auxiliary tank to make sure there WAS fuel in it….and there was.
Rather than mess with it anymore we just stopped at the next gas station and filled up the truck tank and closed the valve to the auxiliary tank. Michael will have to take some time to figure out what the issue is.
LOVE, love, love this site!
We arrived at the Desert Eagle RV Park located on Nellis Air Force Base just a few minutes after 5:00 pm (PST) got checked in and escorted to site 77 where we will be for the next 7 days. The park is very nice and we have a large pull through site.
Nevada!
We were able to add a new state sticker to our travel map today! It’s been quite a while since we’ve been to a new state so I almost didn’t remember where the remaining stickers were stored!