Cedar City to Home
A somewhat lazy morning; walked over to the Grind for a morning coffee and a bagel. Departed around 10.00am taking I-15 south, a familiar route to us after so many years driving to Moab and Denver. This being our last day we decided to make one more sightseeing trip and cook our lunch in a state park. Valley of Fire State Park in Nevada was a place we’ve never visited before and it was small, but spectacular, with red rock dominant and a rainbow of color created by the varying shades of sandstone, limestone, shales and conglomerates. It was 104 degrees, so we abandoned plans for an extensive hike and simply visited the balancing rock near the visitor’s center. We then drove to White Domes and had our lunch at a covered picnic area; we got the Coleman stove out for the last time and cooked tortellini with pesto sauce. We then rejoined I-15 and turned for home, getting back to Woodland Hills around 7.00pm.
http://parks.nv.gov/parks/valley-of-fire
In 30 days we traversed 22 states (California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee, Georgia, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Utah and Nevada) and drove 8,178 miles. We saw the headwaters of two of America’s great rivers; the Mississippi and the Missouri. We saw four out of five of the Great Lakes. We crossed the Great Plains in both directions, a thousand miles apart. A breathtaking, epic road trip.
In this terrible year of COVID it was encouraging to see many, many people wearing masks and businesses being careful; the exceptions were rare. Politics intruded, how could it not? We drove through rural America and the Trump lawn signs were out in force. Pickup trucks with large Trump flags. Someone in Idaho Falls selling flags at the side of the road; confederate and Trump flags side by side.
