Journey from Las Vegas, Nv to Rapid City, SD., May 11 - 13, 2011

After much trepidation and preparing, Katie and I were able to leave Las Vegas, Nv at about noon on 5/11/2011. After counting our blessings and giving thanks to God, we headed north on I-15. We arrived in St. George, Ut to dine at one of the best eateries in St. George, the Cracker Barrel. This restaurant was recommended by Katie as she said that the Presbyterian Women from First Presbyterian Church (FPC) stop here often on their way from Las Vegas, Nv to Cedar City, Ut. Having just ate there a week prior after the FPC Camp out during the last weekend of April, we knew that it was good food and felt that it'd be a great way to celebrate the start of our journey. After dining there, we hit the road again continuing north on I-15 in search of the exit for I-70 to head east hoping to get to Richfield, Ut before the sun went down. There was some road construction along the way which made for some interesting "squeezing" in the reduced width lane, but we made it through ok. Once we hit I-70, we started climbing in altitude. The summits weren't all that high in comparison to the ones we were gonna hit the next day, but they were high enough. All in all, we were satisfied with how our motorhome performed. We arrived in Richfield, Ut. about 7:30 and after supporting our hosts, parked in Wal-Mart Corporate Parking Lot (WCPL for you people who love acronyms) for the night.

Had a pleasant nights sleep and woke up to find 7 other campers dry camping in the WCPL. Obviously they knew the value of a dollar and probably supported the host also. And why not as it was very quiet there were pastures right next to Wal-Mart even though it was located on the main drag in town. People were friendly, the air was clear and clean, and the scenery was great with snow covered mountains all around the valley that Richfield was in. Definitely gotta go back there sometime in the future.

Found some interesting rest stops along the way, one being at Sand Bench, Ut. Had a deep canyon just below it with great views from the rest stop. I thought this was a real bonus to the rest stop even though we didn't need to stop, it was just a great view. There were other rest stops with great views from them as well. We stopped at one other one, but had to keep going as we wanted to be past Denver that night. Didn't really wanna travel that way, had planned to keep our travel time to less than 200 miles a day, traveling every third day at the most. If it weren't for family in Rapid City on May 14th, I know we wouldn't have done that much traveling in one day.

We got to Colorado and went over some really high summits. The incline on two of them was so steep that I eventually had to shift into 1st gear to make it up those hills. The summit for Vail Pass was 10,617' and the summit for the Eisenhower Tunnel (which is also where the continental divide is) is 11,158' so some of the problem may have been lack of oxygen for the engine. Maybe... I dunno. Although it was in the low 40's, there was still lots of snow on the ground. But it was good to get over the top of the mountain and head for Denver and points beyond up north on I-25.

It took a couple of hours for us to make it to Denver, but we passed through a couple of quaint little villages, one of them being Georgetown, Co. We didn't stop there, but it just looked like a place that we'd be going back to sometime, and reading a little from their website (http://www.town.georgetown.co.us/), leads me to believe that we'll be for sure going there.

We stopped for the night at the WCPL in front of Sam's Club in Thornton, Co. Realizing we needed various things that Sam's Club didn't have in smaller amounts that a moho might be able to use, we went to the Wal-Mart next door. For me this was the cleanest Wal-Mart I've ever been into, and the people were very friendly. Kudos to the manager there not only for that, but for the table of hand lotions found in the Men's Room, which I've never found in any other Wal-Mart or other big box stores.

After another pleasant nights rest, we headed north on I-25, eventually going into Wyoming. When it was time for lunch, we pulled off at the rest stop next to Chugwater, Wy. This is a little town of only 200-some people, but there advertisements along the freeway telling of the Chugwater Chili Cookoff in June of every year. After lunch, we ventured into the little town to find that it was like a lot of other little towns that had been hit with a reduction of people over the years, meaning that some buildings weren't occupied anymore, or they were in kinda bad shape. Not uncommon in little towns at all. But the name and the atmosphere of the community kinda hooked me, and if we had the time, we would've stayed there and possibly had something very tasty to eat at the Chugwater Soda Fountain (http://www.chugwatersodafountain.com/).

We continued up north on various highways going through Lusk, Newcastle, Custer, and Hill City before finally getting to Rapid City. But by the time we got to our campground for the night at America's Mailbox in Box Elder, SD, it was 8:30 PM and we were beat. We found a place to set our rig up and crashed for the night. It'd been another long hard day, but we were glad we'd done it and that the moho had made it through all the rough road that we covered. What a journey our first three days was. Unfortunately, it was done way too fast. I can hardly wait to go to those spots in the road again.