Morning on Smith Mesa was stunning. All the mountains woke up around us. The campers around us were quiet. Some got up and took off. We got up slowly and took off leisurely. Pam filmed the ride down the hairy road. At the bottom of the road we found a nice turnout and checked the cell signal. Good to go! I had a few lessons to teach and I dropped Pam’s bike off the rack so she could cruise around while I was teaching.
I had been pretty good about finding spots to teach along the way. This was a good one but, when I logged on, no-one showed up. As it turns out, my phone calendar was updating and changing google calendar appointment times to the current time zone. My computer does not update automatically so it was showing me east coast times. On top of that, there are two time zones in Utah. I don’t know if the multiple time zones had anything to do with it but I screwed everything up and missed everybody today! What a drag. I was scratching my head about that one for quite a few miles until I realized what happened.
We packed up and headed for North San Juan. However Googletta was going to take us was the way we were going to go. We drove through Virgin and then La Verkin again on the way out. Then we hopped on 15 south. The drive took us through Washington and St. George and then, shortly after we got into Arizona we started to drop into the Virgin River gorge on route 15. This was highway driving – 2 lanes, 70 miles an hour – through ANOTHER Canyon! What a trip. The mountains were tan colored – no more reds pretty much – but they are huge and there’s a frigging interstate highway running through the river canyon. What a drive! The rig held its own with all the trucks no problem. Some of the truckers were hauling two trailers and everybody was getting along just fine! Tons of campers too.
After we climbed out of the Canyon on route 15 things started to get flat and straight. The scenery was just as stunning but different in that there were a lot of flat, wide open space between stunning mountains. We pulled off 15 in Glendale, Arizona and started to look for some food. It got rural very quickly so we turned around and went to a Mexican restaurant just off the highway by the Arco station.
The place was pretty empty. We ordered some food to go and ate in the parking lot with the generator running and the AC cranking. The food was not bad. Not great, but not bad!
Back on the road we started to head north in Arizona towards North San Juan. Pammie was having a hell of a time finding a campground for tonight so she picked one and booked a spot. Done! Let’s drive. We’re heading northwestish on route 168. There ain’t much around but dusty, scrubby hills and roads to nowhere off the main road. There’s an old pickup behind us but it keeps it’s distance. I’ve been thinking a lot about old pickups on this trip. How they are a totally acceptable vehicle out west because they don’t rust out like they do in the east. They’re gas pigs, for sure, but we’ll probably need one eventually to get the hacienda up and running, right?!
We drive by an oasis on the left hand side with green grass, trees, a lake. It seems totally out of place in this area. I assume this is “the desert”? I’m probably wrong but it’s damn hot and there’s not much around but rocks, sand, scrubby plants and more dirt and rocks. This oasis look pretty incredible out here in the middle of this stuff. Eventually we come to Coyote Springs and take a right on route 93. There’s an equally out of place golf course in Coyote Springs. Just sayin.
Route 93 is pretty much a straight shot. We go past another oasis at Pahranagat Lake. It’s a lake in the middle of the desert that goes on for quite a ways. There’s a ton of water, beautiful trees, swaying grass. It’s quite a sight in the middle of all that dry, tan, rocky, nothingness. The oasis on the left goes clear to Ash Springs. We turn onto NV-375 and then bear left to stay on 375 – the “Extraterrestrial Highway”. We pass the Alien Research Center on the right and then head out on one of the bumpiest, straightest, nothingest roads I’ve ever experienced. Well, not really though. The distant views are stunning with mountains coming up out of the desert. It’s like another planet as far as we’re concerned.
We stopped a couple times on the Alien highway to take pics and one time to do a shot of tequila because we were nearing the end and it just felt like the right thing to do. The hills where we stopped the second time reminded me of Devil’s Tower in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Coincidence. Alien Highway, tequila, and all.
After that we hammered to Sunshine Valley Campground in Mina, Nevada. Taylor called along the way and said his friend told him about some nice camping areas nearby with hot springs but we had already booked the spot at Sunshine Valley so that’s where we headed. With Google telling us we were 10 minutes away, we started to see construction signs. One said, prepare for up to a 30 minute wait. Then the traffic stopped and then we waited, and waited, and waited. They were sealing the road. It was hot and there was no shade. Everyone was getting out of their cars and rubbernecking. We sat for the prescribed half hour. I didn’t time it but I’m pretty sure it was all of 30 minutes. The guy in the semi behind us had time to walk to the back of his trailer, walk back, walk out into the road. Come back to the front, passenger side of his rig and start digging at his front tire with his knife. Pammie messed around in the camper getting ready to land at Sunshine Valley. Finally, they let traffic start to go. Google said 5 minutes to arrival. And then, right next to the highway, just outside of Mina, was a campground – RV park – with a bunch of gravel, drive-through, “campsites”. Pam did the check in and then we drove to a spot we liked – there were plenty of open spots, most of them were open – and we tried to hookup. There was some confusion on my part because the electrical hookups were on the back of the pole, opposite the sewer hookup. We were tired and hot so I backed it in the wrong way and plugged into the wrong site plug. Oh well. Nobody cared. We had water and electricity and we would dump in the morning. We put out the awning and had a beer outside under the awning and we listened to all the trucks slowing down to drive through the main drag of Mina, Nevada.