Richfield, UT to Ely, NV

After sitting out a rainy day yesterday in Richfield we woke up to sun and just a little fog which quickly burned off.  Left the campground at 10 a.m., fueled up, and made the 243 mile trip to Ely.  Arlyene and Linda both drove today, all on good road but only two lane.  As before when we crossed this route we could go for many miles without having another car pass us in either direction.  There is a good reason why highway 50 is called, "The Loneliest Road In America."

 This is the second time we have passed by the entrance to Great Basin National Park.  I have been intrigued by this park both times we have gone through this area and I hope to get to visit the park on a future trip.

On arrival at the Ely KOA campground we were assigned sites side by side with this view out our windshields.  (Click on the picture for a larger view.)  Our route to Twin Falls, Idaho tomorrow will take us up the valley in the left portion of this photo which is a merge of four individual pictures.

For tonight we are back on Pacific Time after having been on Mountain Time for over a week.  Tomorrow, when we enter Idaho we will be back on Mountain Time again for a few days. It is all soooo confusing.  At least our cell phones keep track for us.....

Moving On

With a fresh forecast full of rain and thunderstorms we elected to end this trip to Capitol Reef National Park a day early and avoid driving to Richfield, UT (our current location) in the nasty weather.  We are now settled in to the Richfield KOA and the promised thunder is in the distance and the rain and wind are already here.  The good news is that we are back in the land of internet and TV so we have plenty to do and catch up on.  We will stay here tomorrow and re-provision before heading on to Ely, NV on Friday and then Twin Falls, ID were we hope to visit the Craters Of The Moon.  I guess that will depend on whether the bad weather follows or not.

I have done a couple of catch up postings with photos which precede this one.

So far all the machinery and technology has performed perfectly for which I am very grateful.

Tuesday's Hike

With a day that promised better weather, a very small chance of rain, and with the Scenic Drive now open we were able to make a trip deeper into the park.  The good Jeep roads to the places we wanted to go were still closed but with the main, paved, scenic road open we could drive to the end where the closed, gravel road was and hike from there.  We were just not able to get as deep in the canyon as we could have otherwise.  As Larry talked about imagining Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid along with the Hole In The Wall Gang hiding out in places like this we hiked one canyon trail/road as far as we cared to and then back again.  I have posted more than the usual number of pictures here just to show the contrast and the texture of this geology.  You can almost see faces in the rocks.

Arlyene and Linda outside the Visitor's Center

Monday's Jeep Trip

With many of the good sites still closed we took a Jeep trip into the hills behind the campground on Monday.  It was all on higher ground.  Good if you are concerned about flooding.  Not so good if you are concerned about lightening.  As you can see from the pictures we made a pretty decent climb and ended up on top of the mesa looking back towards the campground.  Got to one point where I chickened out and did not want to subject the Jeep to more torture so we parked it and hiked the remaining distance which also fulfilled our goal of getting some exercise.  I think the lady's also got enough thrashing around in the Jeep to last them for a while.

Overhead view of start and end and route

This is the approximate point we ended up looking back from and where our photo below was taken,

Somewhat closer view of above area.

Along the top and along the way.

Looking back towards the campground.

Weather Complications

Due to the storms that have been passing through the area,  several of the places we have planned to visit are currently closed.  The weather is improving however the trails and roads are still soft.  We are hoping they will dry out and get open again but hard to tell what will happen.  

Today we traveled to the other side of Capitol Reef on the main highway which is not closed.  The geology here is quite different.

This is a combination of four photos merged together.

Fish Lake

I managed to sneak out one more photo on our 18th century internet connection.  This is a picture Larry took of us on our outing yesterday to the local fishing mecca named, oddly enough, Fish Lake. It is a very pretty lake located at about 9,000 feet.  It was a good day trip with all the threatened rain but we managed to do the whole thing and beat the rain back here to the campground.  Woke up to thunder this morning but skies are clearing and so is hope for some touring in Capitol Reef NP.  There are lots of places there where you WOULD NOT WANT TO BE in a rain storm.

That's it for now.

Campground View

It took a while but I managed to upload one photo of our current location near Capitol Reef.  This is the few from our campground.  This is all I am going to attempt today.