After another long absence from the open road -- four years, not counting some time up on our Pollock Pines property -- I threw a hissy-fit gently suggested to Mike that it was time to consider that long-delayed trip to Zion and Bryce Canyon.  My hiking muscles are not getting any younger, after all.  We had just survived the Great Kitchen Remodel of 2009-10, so naturally it made sense to leave behind all that shiny new hardwood and granite and stainless, and live in a 30-foot tin can for a few weeks.  Also, fuel prices had once again soared to their scary 2006 levels, so naturally we wanted to take advantage of THAT. 

The omens were not good.  Our original plan called for leaving May 4, but then the date for a prior commitment moved out two weeks so we were delayed.  Three weeks before our go-date, the cops found Stanley the homeless guy living in our fifth-wheel trailer as it sat in the storage yard. THAT necessitated a bit of cleanup -- thank goodness he'd only been in there a few days.  Then Mike discovered a flat trailer tire with a big hole in it, and he decided we needed four new tires and a wheel-pack, so it's off to Camping World for the RV.  Sheesh.  

Regardless of the portents, we forged ahead with our plan.

We usually take our time on the road, trying not to drive more than three hours a day.  But Zion National Park is a hefty 700 miles away and already getting hot in mid-May, so we set a schedule to get there in two-and-a-half days of driving (roughly six hours a day for two days and then three hours the last day).

We spent our first day getting from our San Jose home to Bakersfield, Armpit of California.  (Apologies to those who love Bakersfield, demented though they be.)  I rode in the trailer with the cats for the first hour, and was shocked at how rough and bouncy it was.  The cats were NOT thrilled.  We overnighted in A Country RV Park, a well-maintained spot near the freeway but quiet.   Ginny's good nature resurfaced quickly after we bivouacked, but Peanut hid in various nooks and crannies and would not come out even to eat.  Mike set up the outdoor cat cage as an exercise, but as I predicted, they weren't having any of it -- they were too freaked out.

The next day took us through the Mojave Desert to Las Vegas, passing by Edwards Air Force Base.  Unfortunately, tours of the base are only given on specific days of the week and we couldn't wait around.  I was surprised by all the apparently commercial jets parked near the runways.  As I got out of the truck to take a couple of snapshots, I instantly understood the hundreds of windmills dotting the nearby hillsides, and had to brace myself underneath the trailer -- using head, legs, back, butt -- to get a jitter-free shot.

It was a relief to finally see the featureless desert give way to some more interesting topography.  Even the tacky casino at the California-Nevada border was a relief from the monotony.  After my many offers to help with the driving met with only the sound of crickets chirping, I finally suggested to Mike that it might be a good idea if I had some practice driving the rig, you know, just in case of some emergency situation. That did the trick, and he reluctantly relinquished the wheel for a few miles.  I kept my speed carefully under the limit, since Nevada was crawling with highway patrol; clearly they must be trying to close their state budget gap on the backs of the tourists.

While Las Vegas was our target for the second day of travel, we didn't plan to partake of the wares of Sin City -- just passing through.  My research had uncovered the Boulder Oaks RV Park, a very nice private-ownership place in Boulder City, just outside Henderson; so we chose to avoid the traffic of The Strip and turn east before entering Las Vegas proper.   Unfortunately, we didn't adequately anticipate reaching the outskirts of town so there was no opportunity for Mike to take over the wheel.  He ground down a few teeth as I ground the gears. Finally we were able switch places with a quick on-the-street runaround at a red light.  You could just hear the other drivers thinking, "TOURISTS!"

Boulder Oaks is very pretty and exceptionally quiet, with distant views of Lake Mead from some spots (not ours, we didn't pay the premium).  The only problem was the 90-degree back-in from the narrow roadway; Mike managed it with only five or six tries.  I'm sure the simultaneous conflicting directions from me and the park manager had nothing to do with it.  

After we got the RV parked, we couldn't find Peanut at all.  We finally discovered that he had crawled underneath the bed into a channel containing the motor for the bedroom slide-out.  We couldn't coax him out or pry him out, and we couldn't open the slide-out for fear of crushing him.  Finally Mike had to take the bed apart from the top down to extract him from his hidey-hole.  *Sigh*.  It's going to be a looooonnnnnng trip.

Our final driving leg to Zion would only take three hours.   To keep Peanut out of trouble, we decided to carry him in the truck cab instead of the bouncy trailer.  While it didn't help his anxiety much, it did seem to alleviate the symptoms of motion sickness he was displaying.  We could only hope that he'd bounce back to his old self after we settled down for ten days at our next stop.  We left Nevada as we had found it -- with highway patrol cars ready to swoop down on the unsuspecting motorists crossing the state line.

We took a brief drive across the northwest corner of Arizona before entering Utah.  We could only hope our RV didn't look too illegal-alien, as we weren't carrying our citizenship papers.  It was interesting to see the many retirement-oasis communities that sprouted like weeds alongside the highway.   

We reached the Zion River Resort, our home for the next ten days, by just after noon.  I congratulated us on arriving just as check-in time rolled around, but of course I was an hour off -- Utah is on Mountain time, not Pacific.   Fortunately I was an hour off in the right direction.  The resort was just as beautiful, immaculate, and welcoming as their website led us to believe.  We were eager to settle down for a while and see if the cats would ever forgive us.

Zion River Resort.