Friday, April 17, 2009

Back to Malheur


View Summer - 2009 in a larger map
Sorry about the long delay - at the refuge we only get dial up speeds. Not fast enough to post blogs! Here we go on a couple of catch up posts.
We left Tucson, reluctantly, for our trip west and north. Driving past Phoenix, we saw an area called Sun City. It is a retirement community started in the 1960's by Del Webb. We were realy impressed by the golf carts on a four lane highway!

Passing through Nothing, AZ
We drove a long first day, and the trip took us over Hoover Dam. It is a massive structure. If you are headed there, we suggest you do not drive it in an RV. There are no parking spots close by for large vehicles. We were disappointed not to be able to walk across and take close up pictures, but it still was worth the drive.

View of Lake Mead behind Hoover Dam

Crossing the dam - half in Mtn time zone and half in the Pacific

Front side of Hoover Dam

New bridge being built over the dam
From Hoover Dam, we headed for Las Vegas to pick up Interstate 15. As we got into town, we were hit with the fact the exit to I-15 North was closed and we should take a detour. We followed the signs, but they were placed in spots that did not allow recovery if a mistake was made - and of course we made one critical error and missed a turn. We were probably laughed at by locals, and there was a lot of frustration on our part, but we did make it through.
Snow in Utah
We stayed the night in a rest area on I-15 just into Utah. The wind picked up overnight. It proved to be to difficult to drive in, so we pulled over in a truck stop and waited it out. After sitting off the road for three hours, we slogged our way to Salt Lake City. We drove through some snow and a little wind to just south of town and took a long supper break. We chose to get through town so we would not have to face rush hour traffic the next morning. We finally stopped at a truck stop in Ogden, UT.
Next morning, we awoke to find the area was without electricity. It had snowed a little but people appeared to take it in stride. We waited until about 10 am to start our day - up and over the Utah Idaho border. The trip was another difficult day because of wind. Once again we pulled over to wait until about dark to finish our trip in Boise. We stayed in a Walmart parking lot and stocked up to head to Burns. The wind is not a new found difficulty, but this strong a wind really slowed us up (and made the gas mileage terrible.
But we got "home" to Malheur NWR.

No comments: