Sunday, October 13 to Friday, October 18, 2024 (Travel to Moab, Utah)

We woke to another cold, frosty morning Sunday (Oct. 13), luckily our water hose did not freeze though. We are leaving Cochrane today but first Steve braved the cold and went out with his drone to take a couple of pictures of the campground ...

We pulled out of Bow RiversEdge Campground just before 11:00...Dave and Leslie in the lead...

We passed through Nanton, AB and the Bomber Command Museum of Canada. I bet Steve wishes we had time to stop!

The fall countryside of southern Alberta...

Train trestle just north of Lethbridge...

Our destination today was the Warner RV Park, in Warner, AB...

We are set up door-to-door...which is really nice when you are travelling with others...

Cheers! As our travel south officially begins...

Monday (Oct. 14) morning, with all tanks emptied on both rigs, we pulled out of the RV Park just before 9:00. Check out this tiny car parked on the street with the big boys as we left Warner...too funny!

In about 25 minutes we were in the border line up at Coutts, Alberta...

With only one lane open it took darned near an hour to get through into Montana...now that put a real damper on a very long travel day we had planned! But we're on our way! The landscape got very flat for awhile...

Then a little more interesting...

Our first mesa...

Then we were in wildfire smoke...

A real change in landscape the further south we drove into Montana ...

Missouri River...

The views were incredible!

Michael John MacKinnon Memorial Bridge...

Our original plan had been to stop in Butte for groceries and continue onto a spot about another hour and a half further south. That hour border crossing this morning helped us make the decision to stop at a huge truck stop just on the southern outskirts of Butte, Montana instead. We both fuelled up and then found a nice corner to set up for the night. Dave unhitched his fifth-wheel and we all went in their truck for groceries.

The sky has been quite smokey due to wildfires in the area...it made for a beautiful sunset tonight...

Dinner was in our trailer tonight...

Tuesday (Oct. 15) morning...and another gorgeous, but cool start. That's us tucked back into the corner...

View from the back. Steve tried to clean the windshield with Rain X but it froze on contact so had to wait for the windows to warm up before he could wash all of the bugs off from yesterdays drive. 

We were on the road about 9:00 again...

Sixty miles down the road was Dillon, Montana where we stopped at a glass shop. One of the emergency window latches on Dave and Leslie's fifth-wheel had broken and they wanted to see if they could get it fixed before they lost the whole window.

With it all fixed up we were on our way back to Interstate 15 south...

Another 30 minutes down the freeway we were taking the exit to Clark Canyon Reservoir...a nice short travel day today! That's a spillway on the right...

We all pulled over before continuing down into Beaverhead Campground...yup, looks good...

So we carried on down and picked 2 sites for the night...

An absolutely beautiful spot! And the weather was perfect! Oh...and it's free!

After getting set up and having lunch, we all climbed into Dave and Leslie's truck and went for a drive across the dam to check out the other campgrounds along the reservoir...

So calm but smokey...

Camp Fortunate Overlook...

Our rigs in the distance...

Almost back...

Back home, I worked on a blog while Steve decided to take his drone out...

A 1:09 360 degree minute video...

Just before 4:00, Leslie said they were all ready to play 10,000...we finished up what we were doing, poured drinks and headed over to their site. Pretty darned nice setting for our games! We played girls against the guys...Les and I won the first game, Dave and Steve the second...and Dave and Steve the tie breaker. All great, close games!

As we were finishing our last game, we watched this bad boy come in...WOW! Not only carrying a Smart Car, but towing a Jeep pickup too! (The following day we passed each other a couple of times giving a beep beep as we passed.)

Wednesday (Oct. 16) morning we said goodbye to Dave and Leslie...they have a lot going on back home so decided it was best to return. We were disappointed but totally understood...we will miss our travelling buds! Well, we at least had a great 5 days together! Safe travels guy!

Steve and I pulled out of our beautiful overnight spot...hard to believe we had temperatures into the high 20's C/low 80's F yesterday but a big winter snow storm is on it's way for tonight and tomorrow. Time to get outta there!

The long road ahead...

Utah!

Then came Salt Lake City...well, the 8-lane freeway starts well before the actual city and OMG, it went on and on forever! Miles and miles of heavy traffic and terrible roads...it renewed the reason why we hate taking this route south and will never do it again!

I found a Walmart on the south side of the city that wasn't far off the freeway, so we managed to make a quick stop for a few things...and get out of the truck for a bit of exercise!

Steve had found Flight Park State Recreation Area just north of Provo...that would be our destination for the night. Note to self...don't always believe Google Maps directions, follow the road signs instead. After a bit of a wild goose chase way up a mountain into a residential area, Google Maps said we had arrived...at the end of a dead-end road...so back down to take the turnoff up the mountain where the sign had been! The campground is on that plateau just below the mined mountainside...

Home for the night. It was super windy though!

This is where the hang gliders and paragliders jump from. Steve missed getting a photo of a couple of them during our dinner. Looking towards Lehi and Utah Lake...

It's $15 a night but all we had was a $20 so the difference goes to the State Parks...

Daytime looking towards Salt Lake City...

Same view at night...

We are being chased south by a winter storm that is coming through, so we carried on to our final destination...Moab, Utah...Thursday (Oct. 17). Unfortunately, we woke to heavy rain, so a very rainy start to our travel day. After fuelling up at the Maverik Truck stop, we continued south on I-15 and then took the exit to highway 6 that goes southeast. This was the first time we have used a Maverik trucker fuel stop and discovered that their prices are lower and they have propane and sani dumps. It was a beautiful drive through the mountains...just too bad the weather hadn't been better. 

A very scenic drive...

Looked like an old mine shaft ahead...

Vehicles coming our way through a dust storm. We've had so much wind lately!

We hit I-70 and continued east...Green River...

Onto Highway 191 south, the final leg of our journey to Moab...

As we approached Moab, we took highway 128 to check out Goose Island BLM Campground, hoping for a site. The drive is lovely, along the Colorado River...

Unfortunately, it was full, so we headed back to highway 191...

Next choice was Sand Flats Recreation Area...which meant we had to drive up a very rough, windy, steep road, only to find a campground full sign. Gee, why couldn't they have put that down at the bottom of the hill?

Moab is absolutely packed! The amount of traffic and people is incredible...and it certainly has changed a lot since we were last here around the same time in 2011. So after a long drive and not having any luck at 2 campgrounds, we decided to check out private RV parks. They are mega expensive here...no, not going to pay over $100/night...so we called one that sounded "more reasonable" at $44-$69. With no answer on the phone twice, we decided to just drive to Moab Rim Campark and hope they had a site available. They were fully booked but could put us in their overflow lot at $35/night which included access to water, sani dump, garbage disposal, showers/bathrooms, and wifi...we'll take it! We paid for 2 nights...big rain is in the forecast for the next couple of days.

It was windy when we arrived and started raining lightly off and on as we were getting set up. It wasn't until a little later that the wind and rain really kicked up big time!

We woke to rain Friday (Oct. 18)...so we had a pretty lazy start. After breakfast, showers and dishes, Steve edited pictures and then I got started on this blog. The rain let up and it brightened up quite a bit, so we went out to get gas for the generator, and run a couple other errands. 

After running our errands, we tried to find a spot to park Buster on a side street so we could get out for a walk around the downtown area and visit the Moab Visitors Center, but that was a "no go", as it's bumper to bumper traffic and no parking anywhere for larger vehicles. So we went home where I continued to work on this blog.

As the clouds rose, Steve noticed the fresh snow on the mountains. We saw a Facebook post from an RV'er in the Salt Lake area where we were yesterday in the snow! 

According to the weather forecast, we should be back into full-on sunshine and temperatures reaching 20C/70F's by Monday and continuing up for at least the next week! Looking forward to some sightseeing and trail hiking!