Author: Curtis White

I am a retired software engineer and have many hobbies. I love building things with 3D printing and electronics. I also love music and am working on learning to play guitar. My longest running hobby is photography and I also really enjoy traveling.

Driving Through Utah

Life Elevated

Day 3 – 09/17/2018

Today we slept in a bit since our plan was to just drive to Grand Junction and hang out and because we had stayed up a little late.  We had breakfast at the hotel (I know, who cares?).

We finished driving through Idaho with a couple diversions from Google. For some reason it took us on a joy ride through the countryside thinking that would be the better route rather than just leaving us on the main highway where we could cruise at 80 mph. Debby decided she wanted in on the fun of going fast so she took over driving duties a while before crossing into Utah. IMG_20180917_103313-FB

She drove all through Salt Lake City, which was quite a task as that is a really HUGE city and took forever to get through. Later after having her fun she turned the driving back over to me. It was a good choice as I was not a very good navigator. Our plan was to go down Hwy 6 but due to my poor navigation skills we ended up going down I-15. It didn’t appear as scenic, at first, until we got to I-70 and then we were glad we took that route as we would have missed some beautiful scenery.

Utah Mountains

Utah Mountains

A little while after we turned onto I-70 we saw a rest stop/view point called San Rafael Swell. It was a beautiful canyon. There was a Native American there selling hand crafted items. I saw a neat little handmade Native American flute. It was a very popular spot. There were a lot of people there. I find it amazing how obnoxious people can be at these places. There were names carved into the rock and people would stand all over the rocks and didn’t really seem to care about anyone else. I waited for about 20 minutes to get a picture while some girl stood there taking a ton of selfies of herself.

San Rafael Swell

San Rafael Swell

San Rafael Swell

There were some really interesting rocks that had holes in them that look like they were carved out with water.

San Rafael Swell

Our next rest stop was at Devils Canyon. There was a little path to walk down to see it. I walked down it while Debby waited with the dogs. Then I came back and waited with the dogs so Debby could walk down and see it.

Devils Canyon

Devils Canyon

Since we were doing well on time we decided to go down to Moab and see if we could get a nice sunset shot somewhere. We looked online and found out about a popular sunset spot called Dead Horse Point. We went there for sunset and it was absolutely the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. Neither words nor pictures can come close to describing the awesomeness.

850_0772_20180917_180214-FB850_0769_20180917_180040-FB850_0773_20180917_180240-FB850_0778_20180917_180658-FB850_0782_20180917_180949-Edit-FB850_0780_20180917_180813-FB850_0788_20180917_181038-FB
IMG_20180917_193809_1-FBOnce again we got the obligatory selfie.

After sunset we fed the dogs in the back of the car and headed on to Grand Junction, CO.

Somehow either the GPS or the navigator got mixed up when going to the hotel and took us to some small neighborhood in the middle of Fruita. We had to circle around and drive back down the same highway again to finally find the hotel.

We finally arrived at our hotel around 10:30 at night. The hotel was La Quinta Inn and was quite nice. They are very pet friendly. Highly recommended for people wanting to travel with their dogs.

Heading to Idaho

Great Potatoes. Tasty Destinations.

Day 2 – 09/16/2018

Today we left Mitchell, Oregon and headed to Twin Falls, Idaho. We decided to take the route through Vale Oregon as I was curious as to what a town looks like in eastern “ugly” Oregon. Vale was actually a nice little town. I still have trouble understanding why anyone would live there on purpose though. As we endured the drive through the remaining land in Oregon, we decided to stop in Ontario, Oregon for one last gas fill-up where someone else does that glorified job for us. See in Oregon it is illegal to pump your own gas. They hire experts to do that for you so you can remain safely in your vehicle.

Eastern Oregon

Shortly after we left Ontario, we decided to listen to music on my phone. We were entering Idaho, where even plants refuse to grow, and really wanted some nice music to go along with the beautiful scenery. Suddenly the stereo decided to go along with the scenery and just shut the volume down to level you could barely hear. We drove a few wonderful miles down the road and decided to do a factory reset on the stereo. This worked like a charm except now our phones were no longer paired with the stereo and it would not allow us to pair them while moving. It refuses to allow either the driver or passenger to be distracted. So a ways down the road we pulled off into a rest stop and paired our phones and allowed the dogs to do their business. Now we were good to go again.

After an eternity of driving across southern Idaho, we finally arrived at our hotel in Twin Falls. It was called Sure Stay (owned by Best Western) and was a pretty nice hotel.

After did my workout for the day, carrying in our bags (the only thing missing was the kitchen sink), we went to see the Perrine Bridge. It is a large bridge that crosses the Snake River Canyon. It’s fascinating.

Perrine Bridge

While looking at, and taking pictures of, the bridge, we saw some base jumpers getting ready to jump from the bridge. I got the camera focused in on them and got some shots of them jumping from the bridge. It was really cool but they are insane.

Base Jumpers

 

 

Base Jumpers

While watching the base jumpers I started talking to a very nice man and he pointed out to me the ramp that Evel Knievel used when he tried to jump the Snake River Canyon. That was really cool.

Evel Knievel Ramp

The twins statue standing watch of the Snake River Canyon was absolutely beautiful.

Twins Statue

Next we decided to go try to see the Perrine Coulee waterfall. We found the top of it but could not figure out how to get to the bottom. We figured it out later but by then it was getting late and we wanted to go see Shoshone Falls. So we scrapped the plans for this one.

We then navigated to the Shoshone Falls to see this mind blowing waterfall that everyone talks to highly about. It appears it has been a very dry year as there was almost no waterfall at all.

Shoshone Falls

But it was quite interesting that there were some base jumpers jumping off the cliffs around it. Those cliffs are really high. Those guys are even more insane than the ones who jump off the bridge. I wasn’t ready for this so didn’t get any pictures of it. So instead I just grabbed a sunset picture of the canyon where they were jumping. Note the small island in the river. That is where they were landing.

Snake River Canyon At Sunset

The Journey Begins

Thank you for joining us on our journey! I hope I can bring a little fun and enjoyment to your life by sharing this wonderful part of our life.

Day 1 – 09/15/2018

Today is the big day! We are leaving on our 4 week sabbatical trip. We are excited to be visiting 8 states over a 4 week period and sharing it with you. The plan is to see more of Oregon, Idaho, Utah, Colorado, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California and then back up the Oregon Coast. We plan to spend almost a week in Colorado seeing family. Then we will be spending several days in McKinney Texas visiting my sister, Julie, and my mom. Then we will start our return trek through New Mexico, Arizona, California and finish it with a 3 day drive up the Oregon coast.

850_0536_20180915_175845-FB

The day started off great except for the part where we planned to leave by 6am and missed that mark a little over an hour. The plan was to drive to Mitchell Oregon and get there early enough to get some sunset pictures of the Painted Hills. After driving for a while we stopped to fill up with gas and get some snacks. I went to open the back tailgate on the car. Since I rarely drive it any more I didn’t know which button to push. In typical “guy fashion” I just started pushing buttons hoping one would work. Eventually one did and the tailgate opened…..about 12 inches. Apparently I had pushed the memory button and set the tailgate to only open a little. We struggled through that and got back on the road while Debby took up some leisurely reading of the owners manual. After fixing the tailgate, everything seemed to be going well again until our next stop. The dogs were begging us to give them a drink of water so we found a nice little park and stopped to let them all have a drink of water. They thanked us profusely and ran around and did their doggy business. As soon as we got back in the car, Drizzt thanked us again by throwing up all the water he had just downed along with his entire breakfast, all over floor of the back seat and everything we had stuffed into it. We proceeded to clean up Drizzt’s gift and headed down the road again. We finally reached Mitchell and the rest of the day went smoothly. We got some nice pictures of the Painted Hills as hoped and then spent the rest of the evening relaxing in a very nice AirBnB home. Thanks again Larry!!!

850_0498_20180915_165721-FB