Sunday, July 25, 2021 - From Utah to Nevada; with Beautiful Scenery to Share

Sunday, July 25, 2021 - Utah to Nevada and Lots of Scenery to Share

Before I get started on today's travels I wanted to share a few pictures I took last night between 10-10:30p.m.  When we arrived at Aspen Grove RV Park on Saturday they told us that the area was under a high fire watch and that we could not have any open fires.  That was fine with us....at 102 degrees who wants a fire.  We just wanted air conditioning.  Lol!

We never thought about that again until about 9:00 or so where fireworks started going off left and right all around us.  We were surprised they were allowing fireworks if they were under a high fire watch.  We remembered everywhere we traveled yesterday there were signs saying Extreme High Alert for fires.  

Finally at 10pm or so I stepped outside to see where the fireworks were coming from - well, it didn't take long to see why they were so loud.  They were practically in our backyard - just down the road a bit from the RV Park.  I believe it might have been a community event.  When the fireworks quit lots of people started cheering and clapping and then it was over.

The fireworks were pretty though.  We were just tired and ready to retire for the night, and that's exactly what we did when they were finished.

I was up near 5:30, so I started the coffeepot.  Dean joined me about the time it was done, so we enjoyed our coffee together.  We weren't in a big hurry this morning.  According to RV Parky it was less than 200 miles to our next stop in Wells, NV.  We decided to take I-89 and I-15 south so we could go around the Great Salt Lake. 

Pictures of our park - this is across the street from us - you can barely see the mountains in the background due to the heavy smoke in the area.

Bentley

The area behind us.

As we left - I had to quickly snap this picture of the American flag behind the RV Park's fence.

It was 9:53 Mountain Time when we left Tremonton, UT and it was already 75 degrees.  Fortunately the traffic wasn't too bad.  We were anxious to see the Lake, and was beginning to think we would miss it altogether when I finally got a few pictures.  I was disappointed we didn't get to see anymore than what we did.  The water was so far away from the highway I only managed a few glimpses of it.

These are our views of the Great Salt Lake.  If we happen to come back through Salt Lake City, we may stay for a few days so we can check out some of the sights.

We were both surprised how long we drove along the highway with white salt either side of us for miles and miles.  

Cargil Salt Operation

The Tree of Life - read more here:   https://utah.com/bonneville-salt-flats/tree-of-life-sculpture

A close up as we drove by. 

We saw several sculptures in the sand along the way as people stopped to walk and play in the salt area.  This is the only one I managed to get a picture of. 

It was almost 1pm when we arrived at the rest stop right next to this large salt flat.  It was already 92 degrees.  Several cars were driving and people were walking out on the salt flats.  I walked out to scoop a little bit of salt up into a cup I had.

We continued to see salt either side of the road for several miles.  The scenery began to change a short while before we arrived in Nevada.

We enjoyed seeing these hills and greenery again.

We are not sure what this tunnel was built for.  There is fence from the bottom of this structure all across the top and down the other side.  Any ideas why?   

We made it to Nevada!

We arrived at Mountain Shadows RV Park in Wells, Nevada at 1:30pm Pacific Standard Time.  After we were set up for the day/night, I made us each a sandwich.  While we were eating, I noticed our thermometer said it was 79.3 in Bentley.  We have reflective insulation in all of our windows and I think it has helped keep it cooler inside.  It was 93.4  outside.  It doesn't take too long for the air conditioner to reach a comfortable temperature once we are parked and hooked up to electric.

When we were finished eating, Dean wanted to get fuel so we set out to find a gas station, and I was looking for things to do while we are here in Wells.  I found a couple of interesting things to visit today.

The first was Angel Lake.  All I can say is WOW.  Here's a map of our drive.

We started at the top right, making our way down to all of the squiggly lines through the mountains to reach Angel Lake.

Here are the pictures - it is overload I know, but it was just too beautiful not to share these:  

That is the road winding around to get to this point, you can see it from the back and moving toward the grassy area.  There is still a lot of smoke coming into the area.  It gets a little worse as we move further west.

When we reached this area - it looked as if God had just thrown a few small boulders here and there.  (The white spots up on the green hillside).

And the grand finale:

Angel Lake
It was fun watching all of the families out on the lake.  There were a number of kayaks, kids floating, etc.

Now, it was time to start our way back down the mountain!

It looks like the road just ended.   Coming up the hill, with me on the outside, I told Dean this felt worse than when we were at Pike's Peak.  I'm sure this road wasn't as wide as the one at Pike's Peak.

Lots of smoke 

Beautiful vistas everywhere we looked - even with the smoke it was gorgeous.

One last look back where we had been.

And then we had surprise visitors!

We made our way back to I-80, making a quick stop at the RV so we could use the restroom before we headed out on the next adventure.  This was another drive - Clover Valley Scenic Drive.  Here's a link giving an explanation of the drive and its impact on the area.https://www.exploringnevada.com/scenic-drives/clover-valley-scenic-drive.php

Here are a few pictures we took as we drove this route.

See the colt on the right side.  We saw a couple more at another location but I wasn't able to get pictures of them.

Quite a bit of cattle in this area.

Most of the farm homes along here had these large trees around their homes, barns, corrals, etc.

Looking back at the Humboldt Mountains.

It was almost 6pm when we returned to Bentley.  I made sandwiches for our dinner.  Dean has spent the evening watching TV while I work on this post.d

It has been a great day!  We were pretty disappointed we didn't see more of the Great Salt Lake, but the drive to Angel Lake more than made up for it.  

Tomorrow is the last leg of our trip to reach Winnemucca, Nevada.  We are looking forward to seeing Brett and his family for a week.  In the meantime, we'll be trying to decide where we will go from there.

Thank you to all of you who are following along.  We would love to hear from you, if you wish to comment.