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Our travels out of Ely continued on today on Highway 50, “the Loneliest Highway in America”, until we turned off onto an “Even Lonelier highway in America”. I am thinking that the ad writers for the first phrase had missed the turn-off onto Highway 487 toward Baker, NV and the teeny burgh of Garrison, UT (where the Utah highway is renumbered as Hwy 21). This route travels through desolate, but vast ranching country. Once again, like highway 50, it occasionally rises to reach heights over a pass and then drops back down into wide basins with the road running as straight as an arrow for miles until another mountain range must be crossed through a pass. Roadkill is always problematic, but after seeing the long ears of a few bunnies (“they are just sleeping, Sandy) on the pavement, we realized that these must be very stupid hares indeed! Given the scarcity of any vehicles, they would have to either be suicidal… or fall sleep on the road, or run back and forth across the road – FOR HOURS – in order to be unlucky enough to become roadkill. (Don’t bother collecting those rabbit feet! They didn’t do the owner any good – unless, of course, it was a suicidal hare!)

About halfway down Highway 21 towards Cedar City, as we began another climb to a pass, we encountered quite a number of sheep on the road. We slowly negotiated our way through them, but as we rounded a corner, the road was completely blocked by the larger main herd.  As we stopped to let them pass, behind this herd we could see a cowboy (sheepboy? lambboy? muttonman? Okay…a herder!) on a horse steadily herding the flock past us with the assistance of 4 or 5 sheepdogs. It was great fun to watch. No other vehicles were present for the spectacle!

We fuelled up in Cedar City, and then continued on toward Springdale, and then Zion National Park arriving about 2:30. Plenty of time to locate a campsite? Wrongo! The time changed in Utah to Mountain Time, and the campgrounds were all full – an hour ago. The helpful ranger pointed us to an RV Campground in Springdale, and we found a beautiful site there – right on the Virgin River.

The mountains surrounding the Virgin River are truly spectacular, and Zion Park is one of those “must see” geological formations that seem to be so plentiful in the US Southwest! Some peaks are jagged and red, while others seem to be covered with frosting and have much gentler rounded edges. However, sheer rock faces rise extremely abruptly out of the valley below – a mountain climber’s paradise, methinks!

Today, Monday April 13, we paid our fees for exiting the Park to the east in a few days. (We must pass through a tunnel, and because of our width, traffic control blocks traffic both ways until a bunch of wide RVs are through. We have to pay $15 for this pass which is good for 7 days. We also acquired an annual Park pass for $80, as we will probably be in quite a few of National Parks on this journey.

Since there is no vehicular parking within the park area, you must visit the park vistas via a shuttle bus (free). So, we caught the shuttle bus to the end of the route, and walked up the river canyon trail with many others. Some rented dry suit pants and water shoes and continued walking up river past the end of the trail. You can continue up through several bends in the river canyon by wading in the river. Its temperature at this time of year is about 40 F. (Today’s air temperature was 82 F.)

This morning, while cruising through the campgrounds checking out the recently vacated sites, suddenly a woman in one of the most desirable river-side sites came out and stopped us to say that they would be leaving within the hour and, if we left chairs, we could have their site. (The folks at the next site wanted to interview me for suitability!) We jumped on the opportunity. Strange coincidence: it is exactly the same site that we had here about 7 years ago – the only other time we have visited Zion! We have booked our very special campsite for 4 nights. Tonight we met our neighbours from San Diego. Jack and Cici have travelled extensively in this area, and may be visiting Vancouver Island and BC in the near future.

All is well. High winds are forecast for tomorrow afternoon and evening. We’ll rock and roll, and I’ll probably think a lot about sailing!

Love and best wishes to all!

Sandy (the Quilter) and Tony (the “Quill”)