The Road Home...for now

Pulling out of Monument Valley headed for Moab....

It's off on the "long and winding road".... that leads home.  First stop, Moab, UT, home of outdoor sports and the week long Jeep Rally.  Just two weeks before our arrival Moab hosted thousands of Jeep owners and their vehicles.

For us, it's a chance, one more time, to sink deeply into the wildness of this place: back roads, red red rocks and miracles of Mother Nature around almost every curve and corner.

A book I buy has this dedication:

For the Navajo, who have a lot to teach the rest of us about living well in this world.  Their quiet, reverential, and endurng spirit is best captured in this prayer:


Beauty before me,
      With it I wander.
Beauty behind me,
      With it I wander.
Beauty before me,
      With it I wander.
Beauty below me,
      With it I wander.
Beauty above me,
      With it I wander.
Beauty all around me,
      With it I wander.
In old age traveling,
      With it I wander.
On the beautiful trail I am,
      With it I wander.

From First Song of Dawn Boy

Off road (easy) Jeep trail - Sand Flats Rec. Area

OH, the MOUNTAINS!

OH, the SNOW!

OH, the MUD!

..and the mud solution

This night we have an early dinner at the Twisted Sisters Cafe....perfect soup and salad...and beer.  Then it's off to Arches National Park for sunset photography.

Balanced Rock in the evening

OH, the LIGHT!

Back in town at "Baja Midnight" (9:00 p.m.), we grab a cup of gelato at the Moab Brewery and home to bed.  Tomorrow, the road home for REAL.  Goal: Moab, UT to the other side of the Great Salt Lake.

Bonneville Salt Flats....before evaporation hits for August "Speed Week"

Salty?

Yes!  Mucho sal!

Zebra Mussel inspection of vessels at Idaho border!  We're clear!

The Treavelers

Sparky: "They say we're "going home"....I wonder what that campsite is like?"  

Skipper: "HOME!?  Yippeeee!"

And so on we go, from Utah to Nevada in one long day.  Making it through Salt Lake City with all the truck traffic is...well...heart stopping...almost.  Enough said.  I devise a different plan for the next time.  Nan drives the Jeep....we meet somewhere on the other side of the maddness!

Then it's up to Idaho and we pull over to the "All vessels entering the state must stop" place.  Here they check for importation of zebra mussels on boats that have been in any fresh water.  We say, oh, salt water for us....we are cleared.

Zebra mussel inspection crew

Across Idaho and into Oregon to the first rest stop available and here we stop, tucked inbetween trucks for the night.  Best forgotten.

From Oregon it's a long days drive into Washington in sustained 30k winds with gusts up to 45k!  :(  Ellensburg, WA at the bottom of Snoqualmie Pass, is a welcome site.  But what's this?  The evening brings news that the pass is CLOSED due to heavy snow and ice.  Looking at our options, it seems it's an extra 300 miles tomorrow....and two more days to home?

In the morning, it's one last look at the live cams on the internet for the pass....and a miracle!  At the last decision moment, the pass opens and all restrictions are lifted!  We're on the road in a flash.

2000 feet....climbing to the top at 3,500 ft.

Snow, snow, snow...but a clear road for us!

We make it over the pass in 83 minutes and we're suddenly "on the other side of the mountains!"  

Seattle hard rain

Marysville ...just unsettled weather

Anacortes....it's SPRING here!

On the ferry at last!

Camp Froglanding...it's still here!

We manage an afternoon ferry ride....in beautiful blue sky weather and calm seas.  Letting the dogs out the door of the RV...for the last time this trip...Sparky is waits....what's this?  NO leash?

"People" gate at the driveway invites us in!

Yep, smells right to Skipper....Sparky is in high speed gear running!

What IS this place???  I'm thinking I'm in love!

The green, green, green of the grass, trees and plants makes my eyes blink.  After the red, brown, red of  southern Utah...and the grey of Washington snow and rain...I can't get enough of the GREEN and BLUE.  Wow!

Another winter road trip wraps up.  So many days: 114.  So many places!  So many miles: over 8,000.  So many new experiences and new places.  So much deeper into familiar territory.  It has been an incredible journey.  

We are blessed to be granted safe passage, once again.

I just love those words from the First Song of Dawn Boy....

    "Beauty all around me,
            With it I wander.
     In old age traveling,
            With it I wander.
     On the beautiful trail I am,
            With it I wander."

I guess that beautiful trail is always before me...for now it's on San Juan Island.