Wells to Provo to Green River Utah

The stay in Wells, Nevada was a nice rest for us after the grueling trip over the mountain. I’m healing nicely, in case you’re wondering, and looked forward to getting on the road heading east. We did that yesterday and made it to Provo, Utah without any incident, as far as I can remember.

Here are some photos of the Wells stop:

Oh, wait! The RV overheated a few times on that trip because we climbed a lot of hills (mountains) again. Went down a lot of them, too. Kind of evened things out. The end result was a long trip across the Great Salt Lake Dessert where the Bonneville Salt Flats reside. It was an hours long trip on a I-80 that goes straight like an arrow all the way from Wendover, Nevada or Wendover, Utah (take your pick) to Clive, Utah. Actually, there’s a curve out of Wendover, but after that it went straight for the next 50 miles. Or so. The entire way we were surrounded by salt flats that kept a history of all the people who had driven off I-80 for one reason or another. My suspicion is that the tire tracks and ruts we saw were made by folks with 4-wheel drive vehicles who needed to see if they could get in and out of all that salt.

After the Clive exit the road gets a little more interesting to the point where we figured we’d entered Freeway Hell as we entered the outskirts of Salt Lake City. The traffic is incredibly bad there and gets worse, the deeper one goes into the city.

Thankfully, we turned south on I-215 toward Provo. Our destination was Elks Lodge 849 where we hoped to score 3 of the 5 RV spots that have full hookups. Sadly, after navigating some of the worst afterwork rush hour(s) we arrived a wee bit late, and they only had 2 remaining. We were leading the pack so missed the entrance to the lodge which wasn’t very well marked.

When we arrived Cliff and Terry, who didn’t miss the entrance, were hooked up and we were prepared to spend the night dry camping. But, Cliff had a better idea. The spaces were long enough that we could park two RV’s in one spot so we got permission to double up. The lodge manager agreed and that’s what we did.

It was imperative that we get electric, at least, because our fridge decided all the sudden that it wouldn’t work with propane. It needed AC power. So, we ran our generator most of the way to make sure our food wouldn’t spoil. We were also looking at running it all night, too. Cliff saved the day.

We spent the evening in the lodge, which is quite nice. Actually, it’s hands down the nicest lodge we’ve ever seen. It has an elevator and lives on a few acres of city center property.

We would have had dinner there but there no cook. So, we got permission from the bartender to get something from Wendy’s and bring it in to eat. After that we retired to our vehicles and had a restful night. While waiting for our orders to arrive, one of the customers showed up with this …

This morning we had planned to leave at 9 am but didn’t leave until 10 am. Or later. First stop was a Love’s refueling depot for fuel. As you might expect, I got confused about how to get into the pumps and didn’t make it until Terry and Cliff were finished. As we were finishing up, Terry showed up behind us at the pump and followed us out. Thinking he and Cliff were coming along behind us, we headed for I-215 south to the exit toward Green River, Utah (our next destination) we learned that Terry had pealed off to wait for Cliff and Susie who were at the nearby Cracker Barrel for some reason. We were already committed to entering I-215 so chose to continue on and let everyone know we would wait for them at a likely turnout, or rest area on up the road.

We made it a long way out of town and wound up on a lookout overlooking the windy road we’d traversed to get to the top. Setting up some chairs we lounged comfortably behind a barrier, searching for our friends as they climbed the mountain.

Even Max took his turn as a lookout.

We were surprised when everyone showed up fairly quickly. Once we were joined up we sailed non-stop into the Shady Acres RV Park in Green River, Utah.

The landscape made a dramatic change as we travelled, revealing a little of the scenes we looked forward to seeing on a grander scale. Our plans for tomorrow were hashed out over a wonderfully spaghetti dinner at the Unger abode. By the time the girls were done talking it was dark and we were looking at a scary walk home. It was only about 40 feet, but it was scary. Just ask Diane. We had to use my phone flashlight which revealed that ants like to work at night. There were many of them trotting around our feet on that short trip.