Our route to Southern Utah would be on Interstate 15 through Las Vegas. We had to cut east through California to pick up Interstate 15 in Barstow. We were not planning to spend a night in Barstow, but it just so happened we were there when it was time to stop. What to do in Barstow, CA? It actually turned out to be a pretty cool stop for us. The town itself was nothing, but we did two interesting things. Del Taco is one of our favorite fast food restaurants and we always eat there when we see one since they left the ATL market. Well, Barstow, CA is the location of the very first Del Taco restaurant in the US! Then as we were pulling into our campground, there was a Drive-In movie theatre across the street. Could it be? Was it still open? We have been looking for an old Drive-In movie theatre our entire trip. We sure lucked out as it also met Dick’s criteria of not driving in the dark. The theatre was literally 200 feet from our campground. Out we went. Got our Burrito Supreme at Del Taco and then headed to the Drive-In movie. It was really cool, though not the true experience from the “old” days. Instead of the old sound box that hooked on to the driver’s side window, the audio was broadcast through a radio station in the vehicle. But…you could not beat the price - $6.00 for two movies and $3.00 for a large popcorn and $2.00 for a chili dog. There we were, sitting in the truck, watching the movie (Taken 2), with our girls in the back seat, and eating popcorn. Nostalgic.The movie was stupid, but the experience was great! We decided to skip the second movie and headed back to the campground.
As we passed through the Mojave National Preserve before leaving California, we noticed a bunch of airplanes sitting out in the desert, off in the distance. I did a double take. What on earth? Then it hit me. It was the airplane “graveyard” where planes that are retired from service go, or where planes that are temporarily out of service can be housed until they are needed again. Sure was a strange site to see!
Driving through Las Vegas, we saw that Elton John was playing at Caesars Palace. It would have been great to go to his concert that night but my driver said “no, we’ll fly out one weekend”. Not a place to leave dogs in the camper. You know he will be held to that promise....
After leaving Nevada, there was about a 30 mile stretch of Interstate-15 that passed through the north west corner of Arizona. This had to be the MOST BEAUTIFUL DRIVE we have ever been on in all of our interstate driving across the US, all our trips combined. Around every corner, every turn, there was more beauty to see. The red colors and unique formations kept getting better.
St. George, UT (15 miles north of the Arizona border) was our stop for the weekend as we hunkered down for the Georgia-Florida game. It was a beautiful city, situated around beautiful red mountains. This being Mormon country, and Utah having strict alcohol laws, made it difficult to find “spirits” for game day. We found beer in the supermarket, but Dick had to go to the state run liquor stores to buy wine. We drove around to visit the city and got ready to watch the game the next day. What a game! All was good, as Georgia beat Florida! We had to shut the camper door, to be respectful to our Mormon camper neighbors. Dick had quite a bit to say when Georgia made some “mistakes”. Because we were on Mountain Time, the game ended around 5pm. Dick did too much celebrating and headed to bed right after the game. Fun night for me. Time to make Christmas cards.
Since we had already visited Bryce Canyon and Zion National Park on our first cross country trip, we planned to visit Arches National Park, in Moab, UT this time. The park contains the world’s largest concentration of natural stone arches – more than 2,000 sandstone arches are scattered throughout the park. The most famous is the Delicate Arch, depicted on Utah’s State license plate. To actually get up close to the arch, is a full day round trip hike. Dick would never hike for five minutes, no less a whole day. I compromised and took a 30 minute round trip hike to a viewpoint where you could see the arch at a distance of about one mile. It sure looked small! There is also a Balanced Rock formation the balanced rock is the size of three school buses. Arches National Park was a very unusual place to say the least.
We’re movin’ on to Colorado next.
