Comfort Inn Richfield

... with pink-coral branches. It's hard to image any range cows managing to live on this range and yet there are fences and cattle guards so something must be living out here. We've driven through more hills and come out into another valley, and at one side of it there is a low hill with an outcropping of rounded, beige objects. Now this hill is at least a mile from where I am on the road, so these objects are really large but look like children's ...

... of Fish Lake made for quite a beautiful landscape, as you can see from the pictures. The area is part of the National Forest land, and once beyond the lake area, there are many forest roads leading to solitude and beautiful camping areas. And lots of free range cattle! Mike chauffeured us in his SUV around the area, through the mud and snow, to get a look at the ...

Today deciding that we'd had enough laziness (not really) we went for a hike. Nice enough until I made the decision to go up this huge steep hill. We walked along while I wondered how I'd get back down that huge hill. After another series of small hills we figuered we'd hit the other side of the mountain and we'd be able to come back around on flat terrain...No. The ...

... or hike trails to get up close. Underneath the area is large amount of salt which over the years has led to the development of the unique formations. We did a combination of hiking and viewpoint photo-shoots. The hikes were anywhere from 2 miles to .5 miles round-trip. All that walking and climbing will certainly effect our weight gaining plan, plus we had barely eaten up to that point. But the views were worth it. The park was an incredible sight; nothing ...

A few more bus jobs for Neil, more laundry and blogging for Mel. Another nice dip in the pool for Mel, first one of the trip for Neil, then just chilling out really! Distance travelled: 0 miles Total distance travelled: 3103 miles Days on road: 32 States visited: 6 National Parks visited: 6

Not a lot to report today. Beautiful weather. Nice clean camp site. Mel's been doing laundry and blogging and Neil's been doing all kinds of things to the bus like replacing the paper-masking tape joins in the electrics with proper electrical connectors! Nice dip in the pool for Mel, nice dinner, chilling out, beer and "24"! Distance travelled: 0 miles Total distance travelled: 3103 miles Days on road: 31 States visited: 6 National Parks visited: 6

Awoke to blue sky and this time it looked set to stay for the day. After a couple of hours drive north, following the Sevier River along the valley floor, we arrived in Richfield, a sizeable town. Much to Mel's delight, there was another all-singing, all-dancing, Asda-like Wal Mart. So after stocking up on groceries and Chip having an oil change (yes they even do that) we found a camp-site that we can park up at for a few days. It's a KOA, which are usually quite expensive, but ...

We put a lot of miles on yesterday as we continued our westward journey. Utah was suprisingly beautiful. We did not anticipate the splendor of the mountains and vast array of colors. It was pretty desolate so we drove further than planned. We ended up stopping at the Butch Cassidy Campground. It was not as "foo foo" as our last accomodations, but it was clean and the people ...

... and is 550 ft square, 10 foot high and 3 ft at the base. It was rapidly completed to protect the Mormon settlers during the Black Hawk Indian War when the US Army couldn't protect then because of the Civil War in the East. Once again we were the only people there. Considering the hasty construction and the primitive building materials it is very well preserved - as much a testament to the dry desert landscape as much as anything. As we came into ...

We visited both the Arches NP and the Canyonlands NP near Moab in Utah. The views from the canyon rim gave us an indication as to what the Grand Canyon would be like. The various 'arches' at the Arches NP were incredible also. Amazing how these were formed and how they have remained intact for so long. The drive from Moab along the Colorado River was similarly spectacular.