Pictures, Pictures Everywhere and no where to display them, but here

We've taken literally thousands of pictures on our Retirement Road Trips over the years, with a good portion of them taken with our various iPhone models (all the recent ones were taken solely with my 2nd generation iPhone SE), so what better place to display them but in this blog.  Enjoy!

We'll start with the latest trip, Number 14, and work our way back through the years.  Retirement Road Trip (RRT) 14 took us from Reno (after picking up a outdoorsy.com-rented teardrop trailer) across Nevada to the "Big 5" Utah National Parks with a dip south to the North Rim as it closed for the season.
Here is the "rig" in RVer parlance:

Retirement road trip 14 

Saturday, October 8, 2022, Day 1: drove from home to Reno to pick up Teardrop, rented through outdoorsy.com, from a very talkative owner of the trailer, Jun.  He had six trailers in his driveway: two or three Teardrops, some new insulated small trailer, a boat...lots of toys.  We're glad he doesn't live in the neighborhood!  After we picked up the trailer we had lunch at a park with cold cuts in the Reno 'burbs close to Jun's place.  We then traveled Highway 80 to 50 with a turn right at Middlegate south on NV361 to NV844 to Berlin-Ichthyosaur Nevada State Park at the end of a five-mile dirt road, elevation 6,880 feet.  We scored site 10 in the campground of 14 first-come-first-served (FCFS) sites; $20 a night!  We pulled in late in the afternoon and got everything set up and dinner reheated and eaten by the time the sun went down over the mountains to the west of the campsite.

Sunset over Paradise Peak

We never tire of the central Nevada landscape, as "bleak" as it is. After going out many of the smaller "three-digit" roads throughout the middle of Nevada (I think after the last several trips we've probably traveled every highway and byway in Nevada!) and returning from Capitol Reef via Interstate 80, we can confidently say I-80 is a VERY boring drive and US50, US93, US95, and all the "tributary roads" make for a much more interesting road trip.  It's wonderful that we don't feel pressure to get from one place to another as quickly as possible; now that we are retired, who cares if it takes us two or three days to drive across Nevada.

We also learned from our previous "car camping" road trips to plan meals well ahead: for this trip we made large batches of an umami chili, a lentil soup with italian sausage, and a chicken-mushroom with penne dish that we froze in single meal batches.  We used two coolers: our smallish Yeti and a large Coleman.  We put "week 2" frozen items like our ribeye in the Yeti and kept it locked down until we left the Springdale/Zion hotel and we put the "week 1" foods in the Coleman with lots of ice.  The Yeti kept everything frozen until we left Zion for Bryce Canyon camping, and the Coleman slowly defrosted the dinners for week 1.

Sunday, October 9, Day 2:  After finishing coffee, we took the short hike to the Ichthyosaur part of the park.  The fossils are housed in a large pavilion that is only open for ranger-led tours, but there were good views at both ends of the building to check out the fossils found at the site as gold and silver miners chewed up the area.

Fossil Pavilion from a viewing platform

After checking out the fossil beds, we hooked the teardrop back up and headed out to the Berlin "ghost town and mine" part of the park.  As seemed to be a familiar theme across Nevada, gold and silver were discovered here and a boom town popped up and promptly disappeared when it became economically expensive to keep extracting the ore (using lovely things like mercury to separate the gold and silver from the rock).

After checking out Berlin, NV, we headed back south and east on NV361 to US95 and while heading east we saw a brand new BART car on a flatbed truck heading west in the middle of nowhere in Nevada.  FYI, "Open Range" signs mean just that;  cows lingering on the side of the road that occasionally spontaneously decide to cross the highway right in front of you.  It looks like the main US and NV highways are fully fenced off from wandering bovines but the "three-digit roads" don't seem to have fencing at all.  Heading to our second campsite, the first-come-first-served (FCFS) campground at Cathedral Gorge NV State Park, we drove on the Extra Terrestrial Highway (US95/6/93, with Area 51 bring out west of there somewhere); the routing for today was NV844 to NV361 to US95/6 to NV375 then north on US93 up to Cathedral Gorge. There were spectacular clouds all day as we drove through southern Nevada.  We scored a FCFS campsite, but were a bit dismayed by having to pay their $10 uplift for electrical and water hookup even though none existed on our tiny teardrop.

Not a bad view at sunrise from the back of our campsite at Cathedral Gorge

Monday, October 10, Day Three: transfer from Cathedral Gorge to Zion Springdale beautiful sunrise and beautiful drive from Panaca to St. George.  As we headed south on UT18, Janet noted that we passed by the site of the "1857 Mountain Meadows Massacre" site that was depicted in the book and mini-series "Under the Banner of Heaven."  We stopped at an overlook outside of St. George and looked it up and it's a stone cairn memorializing the emigrant lives lost outside present day Veyo, UT.  Oddly, we had just watched the mini-series and the sign barely caught Janet's eye.  It was  a bit of a detour so we continued on in to St. George.  We stopped and shopped for a few picnic-ey groceries in Hurricane, UT and ate a picnic lunch at their city park.  We were now in the mountain time zone, but the interplay among Utah, Arizona, and Navajo Nation makes it a challenge to keep up with "what time is it?"

Tuesday, October 11, Day 4: Zion--out the door at 6:30 to hit first shuttle for the Narrows.  We actually made the third shuttle due to a bunch of other people having the same idea, but shuttles came one after another so we were on our way shortly after 7am.  We were so relieved that it was  not anywhere near as crowded as two years ago (same time in October, 2020) when it seemed like everyone descended on the "Big 5 Utah Parks" after the first wave lockdowns were relaxed. Personal vehicles are also kept out of the main canyon unless one has overnight accommodations at the Zion Lodge, so it was wonderful to have the main canyon mostly to humans and a few bikes.

We finally made it to Zion's Narrows, but went no further

We rode the shuttle to the end of the line at the Narrows and walked the paved path 3.28 miles out and back.  After Janet's dunking at Prairie Creek's Fern Canyon on RRT12, we got some pictures at the main trail's terminus then caught the return shuttle to Zion Lodge for an all-you-can-eat breakfast. There were nothing but blue-hairs in the dining room, but an older gentleman had a mini-meltdown when he was told there was no toast!  After a lovely breakfast, we hiked to the three Emerald pools, which had a conga-line like experience at a few points on the trail.  Returning to the Lodge for some root beers, we were enchanted by a group of a half dozen "Road Scholars" who had a little more liquid lunch than the rest of us.  Consisting of five elderly women and one man, they were having a bwa-ha-ha good time--we saw them a couple more times the rest of the week, and every time they were having a rolicking good time.  We gotta look in to those tours when we get MUCH older (www.roadscholar.org)! 

Not too shabby of a view in the evening in Springdale, UT

We headed back to the truck at the Visitors' Center, hoping to go out the east entrance and take the Canyon Overlook Trail just on the east end of the tunnel, but the trail was closed for maintenance.  By then it was late afternoon so we popped back to the hotel (Springhill Suites in Springdale, UT) then wandered out to score some dinner.  Our preferred spot, a Mexican place close to the hotel, had a 45-60 minute wait so we kept wandering and found a table at a sports bar, where a young  "Florida Man" was doing his best to be as loud as possible yelling at the big screen showing a baseball playoff game.  But I did have my first Polygamy Porter (or two) of the trip

Wednesday, October 12, Day 5: Got a leisurely start out of the hotel, but as we headed back out to Hurricane the teardrop jumped off the hitch and hit the pavement!  I could've sworn that I checked the connection as I hooked it up this morning, but sure as shit, I'm dragging the front of the trailer along the pavement at 50 - 60 mph!  Luckily, the safety chains held and there was plenty of road to pull over slowly.  And, being an 800-pound trailer, it was possible to deadlift the trailer back on to the hitch ball and survey the damage.  The right chain connection on the trailer was bent and unusable, so we connected both chains on one side of the trailer and hoped that I had overlooked something and it wouldn't happen again.  We proceeded gingerly down to the same grocery store from previous, then proceeded up I-15 to Kolob Canyon, something we overlooked last trip.

Kolob Canyon butte

Kolob Canyon, a far northwest corner of Zion NP, was a real surprise; more stunning vistas driving out to the road's end, then all along the short "overlook" hike (about 1 mile).  This large two-family group was uniquely interesting in that two late teen girls kept taking selfies and photos of each other and while looking at the results, kept announcing at every picture, "you're Super Cute!"

We invited many comments and conversations from passers-by in the parking lot by cooking our lunch at the back to the trailer (reheating our Umami Chili with fritos).  "Wow, nice set up!"  "How do you like your rig?"  Stuff like that...  Speaking of which, we both certainly felt a different "vibe" on this trip versus the 2020 Utah Big 5 trip--everyone, everywhere on the trip people were happier, more friendly.  The Pandemic Brain affecting everyone had been lifted.  This was a much more relaxing trip, right from the outset.  Everyone we encountered in 2020 seemed on edge; not this time.

From Kolob Canyon, we continued a short way up I-15, after much bouncing on the hitch to make sure the damn thing wouldn't pop off again, then we headed east on Utah Hwy 14, another spectacular drive just to the north of Zion's Canyon.  Graced for mile after mile of golden aspen groves interspersed with deep green conifers made for much pulling over and slowly taking in the vistas.  While pulled over at one point after a lane closure, a pickup was stopped in the opposite lane with 3 perfect dogs standing in the truck bed: 2 yellow labs and a herding dog.

Incredible vistas on Utah Hwy 14, and three pups

We rolled in to Bryce campground about 4, dropped the trailer, and drove out to the end of the road to Rainbow Point to catch the sunset.  Janet was able to score two nights at the North Campground, albeit at two different spots.  Appropriately, out set-up and tear-down of the "rig" was much easier that another camper with a massive 5th wheel trailer and diesel mondo-pickup...we listened to his truck idling for what seemed like an hour as they dinked around with getting the trailer just right and set up.  I have a good suggestion for the new Interior Secretary: how about banning generators from use in all NP campgrounds.  They are already restricted to no use after 10pm or before 8am, but come on, people, you come to National Parks for NATURE...there are plenty of RV parks outside of parks, so if you must have your home "conveniences" in NATURE, go stay there and not a National Park.  The constant thrumming of gas generators is definitely a Chi-buzzkill.

There is a big overflow parking area below the campground which empties out about sunset, and, since it was far enough away from any lights, we got some quality star-and-Milky-Way gazing in that night.

Thursday, October 13, Day 6: I awoke early, so rather than standing around in the cold waiting for Janet to stir, I took the 2 mile hike out to Sunrise Point to catch the sunrise.  I got a good, but windy/cold, spot on the rim at 6:45, with only another person or two out there.  But as the actual sunrise wasn't until 7:30 or so, I watched as about 40 people trickled in for those 45 minutes until the top viewpoint was full..I stayed about 20 feet lower on the trail.  Of course, the sunrise was glorious as it lit up the red rock hoodoos in the amphitheater on either side...truly a bucket-list worthy event!

Bryce Canyon amphitheater ablaze at sunrise

and Janet somewhere along the Navajo Trail

Janet was up and coffee was made when I got back to the campsite, and after breakfast we moved to our second night site then packed up for a proper hike down into the canyon on the Queens-Navajo Loop after hiking back out to Sunrise Point.  A good number of people were on the trail, but no massive conga-lines.  Nothing but indescribable sights and vistas all along the trail, and we popped in to the camp store on the way back to the site.  The store had a shower room next door, so we had our afternoon $3 for an 8 minute National Park shower.  After we cooked dinner, we spent another night star-gazing in the parking lot.

Friday, October 14, Day 7: We have started a new Bucket List category--it's increasingly difficult to score a room or dinner reservation at a National Park Lodge, so the new category is "eating a meal at a National Park Lodge."  Our first score on this trip was the Zion Lodge breakfast and we hit the Bryce Canyon Lodge for their buffett breakfast.