Roxie’s choice

Time to leave SLC for our meetup.  It was also time for Roxie to find and reserve some spots for us.  One of the issues when full timing, especially in the summer, is finding camping spots on short notice.  I gave her some tips, like using Allstays, Campendium, RVParkReviews, and maps.  She did very good with all of them except the maps.  Roxie does not like maps as much as I do.  I usually use the map to figure out how far we want to go and then figure out where to stay.  She found two locations, one was a state park and the other a county park.  The latter was close to Idaho Falls where we had some business to attend to.

Our first stop, for 2 nights, was at Massacre Rocks State Park.  I vaguely remember seeing the park last year as we drove by it.  We found a spot in their campground that had water and electric and reserved it.  When we got to a park, a fire had just started across the Snake River.  We determined that our site was level enough to use and changed to another.  By this time smoke was filling the air:

The fire kept burning, more up the river as that is the way the wind was blowing.  There was a cabin across the river and in the way of fire but on the slow fire line:

Here is our spot and what the fire looked like at night:

The next day the fire had burned quite a bit more, we will discuss that later.  We took a drive to Register Rock where many travelers inscribed their names on this specific rock.  There was also some artwork that one person created:

The people in Idaho that were managing the fire across the Snake River from the campsite really dropped the ball.  The aforementioned historical cabin was not protected in any way and succumbed to the very slow moving fire:

It would have only taken 2-3 firefighters to stop that advancing fireline.  The bulk of it was grass and it was burning into a very strong wind. It is disappointing to see the lack of concern for historical items.

We moved on to our next destination.  This site was the Jefferson County Lake Campground in Rigby ID.  It wasn’t too far from our current spot or from Idaho Falls.  Here was the view from our trailer:

On our way to the lake, we stopped at the Potato Museum in Blackfoot ID.  It was very interesting, we ate a couple of baked potatoes, and saw the world’s largest potato crisp:

We spent some time in Idaho Falls to shop, pick up packages and, most importantly, find a location to store our handgun.  We knew we were heading to Canada and they don’t particularly care for handguns, let alone Americans bringing in handguns!  We found a wonderful place to take care of our guns, Guns n Gear.  They were very helpful and reasonable in their fee.

We also did a small purchase in Idaho Falls.  We got a couple of kayaks.  We have been looking at them for a while but were waiting for the right time.  It was right:

Alas, we were unable to try them out at the lake right next to us as it was so windy.  I am sure we will find opportunities soon!

We had finally worked out our meeting time with the Chen’s.  It was the day we were leaving so we were right on schedule.

 

SLC

We had 11 days before we were meeting the Chen’s in Montana and we were heading closer there and trying to hit the target just right.  We wanted to take care of some travel business (laundry, packages, etc.) so we thought Salt Lake City was a good option.  We opted to stay in the North Salt Lake area at the Pony Express RV Resort.  This spot was OK as it was close to everything we wanted.  The spots were really close together and we had a tight parking area for our truck!  They had some nice amenities though and were a gated park.

We were able to take care of all the needs and some extra.  We went to see a movie there.  Went to Trader Joe’s to stock up my breakfast cereal.  We also took a nice drive up to Park City and back around through Guardsman Pass.  There were a few dicey parts of the pass but the drive was beautiful!

One of the best amenities had to be the Jordan River Parkway that was right next to the park.  A total of 40 miles of walk/bikeway through the SLC area.  We were at the north end and would do a 2-mile walk each evening.  The wildlife along the trail was amazing, both good and bad!  The mosquitos were horrendous.  One day that wasn’t that windy, we forgot to use bug repellent and paid for it!  The other days we remembered and had a great time.  Here is some of the wildlife we saw:

 

Ducks and ducklings

Deer. One day we also saw a fox there.

Beaver. We saw 5-6 each day.

Chevron has a refinery nearby and has sponsored part of the trail.

SLC was starting to get hot the last days and we spent 6 nights there, 5 to go for the meetup.  I had been finding the last camp spots and I asked Roxie to find the next two.  She did a very good job and we will see them next.