Off we go! The first thing we had to do was to leave home, so we did. Driving the motorhome with the Jeep in tow, we drove through the city streets of Folsom, Granite Bay, and Roseville to make our way to I-80. City driving is no fun. I-80 in Roseville is at the base of the Sierras, our first stretch was the climb to the top of the Sierras. We like to stop at the Donner Pass rest area (where the Donner Party got stuck on their way west; you know the rest). But, the rest area was closed off with emergency vehicles and a helicopter. It looked like it was being used as a staging area for a search and rescue. So, we wondered why, and then pressed on.
Just past Reno, we left the comfort of I-80 and headed south toward our first's night stop in Hawthorne, NV. BANG!!! Just as the first day seemed to be mostly uneventful, we came to a dead stop (okay, not with a bang) about 12 miles from our destination with traffic at a complete stop. I walked ahead and found a trucker that heard on his CB that a tractor-trailer had overturned and was blocking both lanes of the road. Well, all we could do is wait, I laid down on the coach and rested. It was only about 45 minutes and then traffic was moving in the other lane past us and about 10 minutes later, we were on our way. No big deal. We made it to our first night's stop and had a good evening.
The second day, we drove east across Nevada without issue and the third day we crossed over into Utah and arrived at our first destination, Bryce, Utah, one mile from Bryce Canyon NP.
We learned we crossed three geographies on out way to Bryce. The Sierra Mountains, the Great Basin (the desolate area between the Sierras and the beginning of the Rockies), and the Colorado Uplift which is, ah, the uplift heading into the Rockies that covers parts of Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona.
Our plan is to tour south Utah, Grand Teton NP, Yellowstone, and south Idaho over a 30-day period in May. Below is a snapshot of our route.
Snapshot of our planned route |
Road block, tractor-trailer overturned up ahead |
The exciting end to our travel through the Great Basin |