We made one more trip back to Atascadero, CA, to visit Chad, Crissy, and the 2 granddaughters Hailey & Ellie. Another week at the Elks Lodge there, we managed to donate some blood at the Elks blood drive, babysit Hailey & Ellie while mom and dad had a date day at the day spa, and loaded up all to go see the Strawberry Festival in nearby Arroyo Grande. And, of course, Hailey got a little more fun time staying with Oma and Opa in “the camping bus”.

But when it came time to flee Kalifornia once again, it was “pedal to the metal”, “east bound and down”, or any other famous quote you care to apply to it. Hwy. 58 through the Tehachapi Pass was our chosen pathway of escape. Our destination was St. George, UT, but we did not wish to do the long distance dance, so Jeanne found a nice OHV recreation area in the Mojave desert, the Jawbone Canyon OHV Area just north of California City and right off of Hwy. 58, just a short jaunt up Hwy. 14. It was easy access paved road into the area, with large open areas and plenty of room to keep the toad hooked up while maneuvering around into our chosen site for the night. We overnighted all by our lonesome in a large canyon, then headed out bright and early the next morning. 

We chose to do one more overnighter enroute to St. George, so we picked Buffalo Bill’s Casino in Primm, NV. They allow overnight RV’s and truckers out in the back lot (no charge). From Primm, we finished the drive into St. George, where we stayed at the Temple View RV Resort. The mountain views were very nice, as well as the Temple’s tower (this would be the Church of Jesus Christ & Latter Day Saints, St. George Temple).

St. George is a very nice city in Utah just over the border from Nevada. Only 90 minutes or so from Vegas, they are very outdoor oriented here. We took Woody on a walkabout around historic old town and the Temple. St. George has a lot of art scattered about old town as part of a program called, “Art Around The Corner”. Brigham Young’s winter home is here as well, which they give tours through but we passed on the tour. There are bicycle trails all over the place whether you like city trails or trails along the Virgin River. We made use of about 14 miles of this trail, stretched from St. George to Bloomington, just enough for my butt to regret it…

Jeanne found a slot canyon trail to torture me on, the Kanarra Falls slot canyon trail just outside of Kanarraville. We loaded up our mini backpacks and headed out. I don’t know how far you can go on this hike, the common hike takes one to the second set of falls in the canyon, some say it is a 3-4 mile hike. The “fun” part is the trail zig-zags across the Kanarra Creek and then the creek becomes the trail through the canyon. Currently, the flow of the creek is pretty strong with snowmelt, gets to about knee-high depth, and just to make it interesting, the water is about 48 degrees! We waded our way to the first waterfall in about 2 1/2 hours. At that point my feet and shins were fully numb and I found myself stumbling too much. That made our decision for us…time to turn around. It made it easier to accept the decision in that Woody had to be left behind at the bus (no dogs on trail) and because of that our non-Woody excursions are usually limited to about 5 hours.  Even though we were forced to cut it short, this was a very scenic and well-worth-it hike. The hike requires a purchased permit ($12 person/ 150 permits per day only) which is easy to do on-line and then the kid at the kiosk just scans it off your phone.

Our time in St. George gave us an opportunity to further evaluate the area as a possible “landing zone” for when we make that decision. There are quite a few small suburbs to St. George, we really liked a few of them, and you never know, St. George might just beat out the Boise, Idaho area in our search for a “final resting place”. And, for those of you “literal vocabularians”, no, we are not searching for our gravesites.

This has been a true test, trying to plan out and get RV spots along our path to Glacier N.P., especially since the time encompasses the 4th of July holiday period and since many of the RV parks in this area of Montana are booked already. It seems here they have short seasons just as the northeast has. For those of us who try not to operate on the reservation system, it can be nerve-racking in certain parts of the country at particular times. But, hey, we persevere and plug along…That about catches us up for now. Until next post…