Made it to Utah

Hurricane, Utah High 72 Low 48

Last night we got some pictures of some cactus blossoms in the cactus garden at the RV Park. They had some interesting flowers. Someone told Cindy that the flowers were 2 weeks earlier than usual.

I also got some more sunset pictures, but there wasn't a lot of color. I guess there were too many clouds. I won’t be able to put pictures on until we get better internet.

We left the campground at about 9:30 and headed toward Las Vegas and then to Utah on I 15. The ride to Las Vegas went very smoothly. After we turned onto I 15 there was some road construction, which slowed us down some, but nothing major.

We got to the Virgin River Gorge, and I remembered reading something about the construction in the early 1970’s. Arizona had built the freeway from the Nevada State line to Littlefield, about 12 miles. This part of the construction was completed in the mid 1960’s. The highway has little importance to Arizona, but was vital to Utah for being able to get to Las Vegas and Los Angeles. The highway through the Gorge was very hard and work on it progressed very slowly. Part of the problem was flash floods and quick sand destroying machinery. Strong winds crashed a helicopter, killing the pilot in October 1969. The Virgin River had to be re channeled 12 times making it the most expensive rural freeway in the nation at a cost of $10 million per mile (equivalent to $49 million in 2007 when the article was written). Even before its official opening in December 1973, it was heralded as the most scenic Highway in the State of Arizona. The Gorge also had road construction, which made a little bit of tight travel.

We are boondocking at Wal-Mart in Hurricane. We had been staying at the St George RV Resort (now KOA), but for some reason they won’t take longer rigs with Coast to Coast. We stayed there on January 2^nd, but I guess their spaces must have shrunk. LOL We are fine with boondocking here for one night, and will be home tomorrow.

Thanks for visiting.