A Utah Adventure–Getting There, Part 1

Monday dawned bright and inviting. It had been a hectic few days. Ginger’s place of employment celebrating 25 years Friday evening; the Church’s dinner/auction Saturday evening; Mother’s day Sunday; visiting some people including Eunice and her family; all the while packing the RV and getting it and the pickup ready for the road. But is was done. What a great day to begin our trip to Utah and the 5 National Parks plus other places along the way. We planned to get underway by 9:00 and actually made it out the driveway at 8:45. Perfect!

Twenty-seven miles up Highway 22 Joyce asked so innocently, “Did you get your computer in?” Computer? Ohhhhhhh noooooo. Well, did I really need it? I could check e-mail on my phone. I could do a little research on places to see on my phone – to some extent. But I could not blog and I had promised you my loyal followers lots of words and pictures. So I found a place to leave Joyce and the RV and made a quick 54-mile round trip back to the house. And THEN we were off. Our intended destination for day one was Summer Lake Hot Springs down in the south central part of Oregon. This map shows our journey even though you can’t see the words very well.

After crossing the Cascade Mountains we arrived at Bend and Highway 97. Then south to Highway 31 just south of LaPine. Summer Lake Hot Springs is on that road. I circled it in yellow. More about that later. From 31 it was down Highway 395 to 140 just north of Lakeview. From there we followed 140 into Nevada to Highway 95 and down to Winnemucca on I-80. That was an interesting section. Some of the road was good, some narrow, no guardrails, some steep (one 4-mile grade was very steep), and some a little rough. I don’t recommend it for RVs. But we made it okay. This was a part of Oregon I had never seen. I’m still not sure I’ve seen it because there isn’t a lot to see. It is high dessert with plateaus, depressions, alkalie flats, a few trees, a couple creeks, and lots of sagebrush. I’m glad we did it – once! The map above shows Bend in the upper left and Winnemucca in the lower right.

Summer Lake Hot Springs was an interesting place. This is the wonderful, well-weathered and occasionally maintained sign which greeted us at the highway. It gives you some idea of what is to come.

Right down there is an RV Park, a hot spring pool, and some semblence of civilization.

Yes! They do have a hot spring pool. It is inside this building. Built about 1920.

In back of the building are three of these cute little “soaking pools.” All in all, not too bad. They had a funky little shower building with a shower every bit as good as the high enders (but more rustic).

So we parked right in there and enjoyed the good life for a night. Then it was hit the road at 9:00 the next morning.

The trip over 140 was tiring and even though I’m not fond of freeways I admit it was nice to reach I-80. We dieseled up in Winnemucca at a Flying J. Interesting experience. A couple ladies in the RV diesel lane locked themselves out of their pickup so that lane was closed until a locksmith arrived. I had to do a loopdy-loop in the parking lot and use the other lane. Then the pump decided not to work and I had to go inside and leave my credit card so they could start the devise from there. It worked and 40 minutes later we were on our way.

It was then east on I-80 to Elko, Nevada. We are camped at the Iron Horse RV Resort. Nice. Tomorrow is a little sight seeing around here and then on our way east.