Leg 1 Calif to Utah

This blog will chronicle our '09 trip planned to Grand Teton National park, Yellowstone, where we will meet 90 other Hitchhiker owners like us, Minneapolis, to visit friends, back through the Midwest to the Colorado Rockies and home, taking 3 months.

Tons of planning, oogles of loading, trailer and truck are screaming "no more", we are finally ready to go! Roxy says good by to all her great friends in the park and we are off.

First stop is Calico Ghost Town, easy first day run and we though a fun spot to stop. Our friends Ruth and Lyle decided to accompany us, so the 4 of us, plus Roxy and Kane (Ruth and Lyle's boxer) arrive 6/5. Great camp site, but very rustic. In the dirt, but isn't that "real" camping and electric hook up only. Windy as the Dickens, but that keeps it cool and blows the critters away. If you have never been to Calico, it is near Barstow, Ca and was a real booming silver mining town. I think it is much more interesting and fun to visit in an RV than just a day drive up because you can visit when you want and as much as you want when camping.

We would just walk in to the town whenever we wanted, before it opened in the morning, in the day and at night if we wanted. Fascinating place, lots of history, amazing country. The town is very open, you can wonder where ever you please, on or off trail.

The opening image is just one of the streets in town, the image above is the one room school house on the edge of town. Can you imagine going to school when it was 100 degrees out, as it often is in the summer?

Ruth and Shelle decide to try the Chinese bath! Wonder if they spent a nickel or a dime?

While walking around the back part of town we discovered several resident Chuckers, a great upland game bird. I went on an early morning safari to capture a couple of these great birds.

We drove into the town of Yermo, Calico's mailing address town, and had to stop at "Peggy Sue's" diner. A great back to the '50s place, very well done and great hamburgers, recommended stop.

From Calico we shot up the 15 into Vegas to Stay at Sam's Town, an off the strip casino, hotel and very nice RV park. Next morning off to Hurricane Utah, just north of St. George. 15 goes from California into a little bit of Arizona, through a really interesting mountain cut, very picturesque drive. There is a new reservoir near Hurricane, completed in 2003, called Sand Hollow and they have a really nice RV park there. Plenty of room and great scenery. Couple shots below.

One day we were able to visit with a couple of our Hitchhiker friends staying in a near by park, Gill and Alan Sarge. Very pleasant visit and so much fun to run into friends at remote locations.

Of course we had to take a day to visit near by Zion National Park. Just the drive up to Zion is spectacular but Zion is awesome. Virtually indescribable. BIG and RED come to mind, it makes one feel so very small. Lots of red rocks, red sand, even the highway is red. Drove through the park, through the mile long tunnel, and decided to just keep going, which turned into a big adventure, we only went about 100 miles out of our way! But really worth it. Lots of high country horse ranches with gorgeous verdant meadows, through the Dixie National forest (I hadn't heard of it either) over a 10,000 foot mountain pass and ended up in Cedar City, Utah.

Here are a couple of shots of the lake:

And here is a shot of our site:

And the view out the back:

And of course, some sunset shots:Our rig and camp site in foreground. Here is another sunset shot:

Sometimes we like to take the road less traveled, here was a side trip we took on the way up to Zion:That's our little white truck out in the "toolies".

This is the road just inside Zion. Without lots of time (we plan to come back and do a Zion only or Zion focused trip), maybe even with lots of time, Zion is a photographic challenge, it is just so big and awesome it is hard to capture it in a picture.

And then on the other side of Zion, cruising down the really cool byway, we spotted a heard of buffalo. Here is mom and baby:And this ol' boy (does he look like a nickel?)