Ogden Utah to Rawlins Wyoming

We got on the road early again today.  The angle of the sun cutting across the landscape drew out the dramatic rock formations, mountain landscapes and coloring of changing leaves as we started through the canyons east of Ogden that Interstate-84 travels in a serpentine fashion.  The roads were quiet.  The coach pulled easily through the climb as we continued to advance through the Rocky Mountains.  Utah is beautiful.  Utah is impressive.

Well before lunch we were into Wyoming.  The terrain changed dramatically becoming flat and high desert in muted shades of gray, gold and whites of rock, grass and minerals.  We passed signs proclaiming the Continental Divide twice.  And prone horn antelope-lots of them.  Unlike earlier this summer when we saw three or four, today we saw a hundred.  These creatures blend into their surroundings and one must search diligently for them to see them much less photograph them.  Alas, I have no good, close-up shots for you. 

We stopped for lunch in a place called “Little America” which is really a glorified truck stop.  A nice break from driving.  A good hamburger.   Then we power up the RV and continue on through a town called Green River where we see some interesting geological formations.   There is a huge railroad presence here that follows the Interstate highway and we see train after train for the rest of the day.

The day ends at Rawlins.  This is the only RV Park for miles in either direction.  It is also the only “town” which consists of about a dozen businesses, some hotels and a restaurant or two in the middle of an otherwise very remote area.  They have done a good job with the park.  Some decorative wooden moose near their sign are cute and a beautiful sunset finished the day.  Tomorrow it is on to Colorado!

Mountain Home ID to Ogden UT

Today we drove from Mountain Home, Idaho to Ogden, Utah crossing the flat plains of lower Idaho in the reverse direction of our earlier summer travels.  As we climbed the on-ramp early in the day, we saw onions again on the side of the road again and several onion trucks passed us going down the road in the same direction as we were traveling.  Like California, the production and transport of food is impressive to me and makes the reality of what it takes to get that onion onto a grocery shelf a much broader concept.

It was a relatively benign travel day until just before we reached our stop for the night.  A huge plume of black and white smoke with visible flames beneath the smoke could be seen rising just off the Interstate Highway a bit north of Ogden.  We have no idea what caused it or what was being done to fight the fire.  It did not appear on any news we watched.  After a summer of wildfires, it is sobering to see anything like this with everything so dry.

On these travel days it is hard to catch our routine naps.  Some days they get delayed to late in the day.  Snoopy accommodates naps whenever they occur however.  He travels mostly under the couch going down the road.  But overall, he’s been a trooper for this long summer of work.  We are all looking forward now to getting back to Florida and out of the RV for a while.