Utah to Hawthorne Nevada.

We managed to leave not too much later than planned this morning, no major problems, just a little annoyance that we will try to get repaired in Redding--hopefully to be our last Freightliner stop this trip!

The slides came in just fine, jacks went up just fine, but when the "travel" or "Jackrabbit" button was pushed the suspension air bags didn't fill. Not until the spring brake was released and the transmission put into "Drive" did the air dump into the suspension and the rig start to rise. Now we had to wait a few minutes for the air pressure to build back up but while waiting for this we got the car hooked up and we were away by 8:40.

We had 22 miles back to the Utah Arizona border, then another 29 miles through the Northwest corner of Arizona to Nevada and back to Las Vegas. We again traversed the Virgin River Canyon in Arizona; this being the same Virgin River that cut the canyons in Zion National Park in Utah. The Arizona canyon is much smaller but no less spectacular--in places we felt we could reach out and touch the walls as we cruised past at 90 Km/H, a "click" or 2 above the 55MPH speed limit.

Back again in Nevada as we approached Las Vegas Gillian found a short cut that avoided the city and after about 15 minutes--including an inadvertent detour along side the highway instead of on it-- we were on Nevada Route 95 North for the long boring drive to join the I-80 to Reno two hours after our departure from the campground. Sounds like a cheap tour: 3 States in 2 hours!



The scenery wasn't much, but there were a few places of humourous interest, including our gas stop at Amagosa Valley; a crossroads with a couple of stores with an RV Park behind on the left and across the street the bright pink gas station and convenience store, complete with casino and brothel.






We were soon back on the boring drive. The scenery didn't change much from the photo to the right all afternoon. Once in a while there was curve, occasionally a hill. In early afternoon the wind began. We have never driven in such wind for such a long time. It went on and on and on, blowing the rig from side to side. Art even had to eventually slow down to 80 or 90 Km/H from our normal cruising speed of 100 and well below the posted 70 MPH (112Km) limit. The winds of course kicked up a lot of dust, at one point we had to slow to about 60 Km/H. because of the visibility.

About 2 PM we found a wide place to pull off for lunch and a short 40 minute break then were back on the road. A few moments later Art noticed that the temperature gauge was working again! We were more than ready to call it a day at 5:15 when we pulled into an RV Park in the small town of Hawthorne. They said they had had 25 check-ins today, probably because of the wind.

The park is well appointed and we have free wireless, which is why this entry is so timely! We have just finished dinner, the dishes mostly done and Trekker says it's time for a walk. He traveled better today and actually slept for a bit, the Dramamine seems to be helping. At least the wind has died down a bit, though it's still cold; only 9:oo PM and it's already down to 2.3C outside--the furnace has been running almost constantly. We'll just post a few pics on the Zion post and fill in with text and more detail later.