The road to Yellowstone

Thursday October 1 2015

Despite several of the blog readers telling us to take the train from Durango to Silverton we have decided to leave today. We are frequent visitors to northern New Mexico and will surely come back to Durango someday and will do the train then. 

We departed westward and stopped by the four corners monument. It's on Navajo land and costs $5.00 per adult to enter. The bronze disk has become or maybe always has been a backdrop for pictures. Everyone visiting taking turns standing on the only spot where four states meet. Ironically, the fact that the marker is about 1 ½ miles east of the actual point doesn't deter anyone from taking the photo-op.

The Navajo's have surrounded the false four state corner with a bazaar structure from which native Indians market their hand crafted jewelry, arrows, food, etc. Some people may wonder what this has to do with the survey marker, but they're not doing anything that entrepreneurs don't do at tourist destinations everywhere. It's free enterprise, good for them for working for a living.

We continued west on state road 160 until we got to SR 191, which we took up through Utah to I-70 and the Green River State Park where we spent the night. On the way north on 191 we passed though MOAB. Located in the middle of nowhere but surrounded by accessible desert, hills, and mountains, MOAB has become a mecca of sorts for riders of trail bikes, off road motorcycles, ATV's, and UTV's.

UTV's or Side by Side Utilities vehicles as they are called are the most interesting of the off road toys, imagine something halfway between dune buggy and a jeep. They are everywhere out here, we've seen more of them than ATV's aka quads or quad runners.

We refueled before going to the campground at a truck stop in Green River. While at the checkout counter I heard the following conversation. Truck Driver asks for lottery tickets, the counterman reply's “Utah doesn't have lottery tickets”. Truck Driver says “No I mean powerball or mega million”. Counter man, “This is a Mormon state, I can sell you some watered down beer and you can have as many wives as you want, but Utah has no lottery tickets”.

Fuel, Ute Mountain Indian reservation $2.27 gal, 48 gallons, $111.73 total

Green River State Park campground=$28.00 for one night W,E good OA TV, 3bar 4G Verizon

End of day millage=66705, miles driven today=346

all meals eaten onboard, cost=$0

Friday October 2 2015

Today is another travel day as we work our way north to our destination of Yellowstone National Park. The reason I decided to drive straight through from Durango to Yellowstone is cold weather comes early up there. All the campgrounds in the park are already closed for the season and the commercial RV parks in the town of West Yellowstone close by the middle of the month. 

We drove Utah highway 6 to I-15 at Spanish Fork, which is just south of Salt Lake City. There is a Costco there and we stopped for provisions and lunch. After lunch we continued north on I-15, the highway was typical urban congestion as we passed through Salt Lake City and it's outlying communities. We will return to Salt Lake on our return from Yellowstone to visit the Mormon Temple Complex.

The terrain flattened out some north of the city, but we always had mountains in sight on the horizon. Crossing the state border we traveled 43 miles into Idaho before stopping for the night at McCammon RV Park. It is one of those overnight stopping spots, not fancy but serves our needs for the night.

The terrain changed many times as we traveled the 700+/- miles through Utah, varing from wild prairie to arid desert or wooded mountain, there was a spectacular sight over every rise of the road and around every corner.

Fuel, Green River Utah Pilot, 29.2 gallons, $2.99 per gallon, $86.25 total

Lunch at Costco $5.50

Fuel, Ogden Utah, Flying J 32.2 gallons, $2.60 per gallon, $84.00 total

McCammon RV Park, $29.15 for one night. FHU, good over air TV, good Verizon signal 4 bars 4G

end of day mileage 67021, total miles driven today=318