39 nights, 4,243 miles, $1125 on gas, and many untold stories that deserve to be told.  Here are some of the stories plus a few pictures that didn’t make it on their original blog.

Our most harrowing towing experience so far, was on our first day of travel to Cedar Breaks.  Going up a 13% grade, with a 35 mph headwind.  Pedal to the metal, second gear, and we were certain the truck was going to stall.  It was scary and a bad start to the trip.  The two signs below are on the downgrade at the top.  You might be thinking, how could we be so dumb to put ourselves in that kind of predicament.  Well, we relied on the Allstays app when researching the road.  The app had the warning symbol for a steep grade in the wrong place.  A technology failure.  Next thing we knew, we were in the middle of it with no escape.  If you go to Cedar Breaks do not take the Parowan route.  Go through Cedar City.

 

 

 

 

 

One of the craziest things we saw was on the U.S. Highway 20 between Hill City and Mountain Home, Idaho.  Unfortunately there was no place to stop to take pictures.  At first we thought there were rocks all over the road.  Then we noticed they were moving, hundreds if not thousands of them.  Then we started looking closer and we could see smashed reddish bug guts all over the road.  What the hell?  Amelia texted Doña and she told us they were Mormon crickets.  Lore has it an infestation like that means a big winter.

Sun Valley to Bend is too long of a drive for us, so we decided to break it up.  We almost stayed in Vale, Oregon.  Well almost on paper, it was one of the options when we had when planning the trip, but after seeing Vale we are both glad we didn’t stay there.  Instead we spent one night in Burns, Oregon.  If Burns rings a bell, that’s because it’s the area where a bunch of militia, ‘we hate the government guys’, thought they’d take over the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in January 2016.  Even most of the locals got tired of their act, especially since the ‘we hate the government guys’ weren’t even from the area.  These things never end well.  On January 26th, in a confrontation with the authorities, the spokesman for the militia group,  Robert ‘LaVoy’ Finicum met his maker, 19 miles north of Burns on the 395.

If you are driving through the area and need a full hook spot for one night we highly recommend Burns RV Park.

 

Sometimes you have a brief encounter with someone and it just sticks with you.  While we were filling up with gas in Susanville there was this old man doing the same.  He took one look at Sara and said, “That’s a great looking Puggle.”  I said, “Thanks, you must be familiar with Puggles.”  He said yes, his brother had been raising them in Louisiana for the last 15 years, but he died last year.  As he was telling me all about his brother you could just see the sadness he was carrying around.  I let him ramble on for a few minutes watching him getting misty eyed as he was petting Sara.  It was sad.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I sampled many local beers on the trip, it’s one of the joys of being on the road.  Here’s the Top 3 IPA’s.  I’m still kicking myself for not stopping at Melvin brewery in Alpine, Wyoming.

 

A checklist is for naught if you don’t use it.  Mr. and Mrs. Fancy Pants thought they had packed everything and didn’t look at their packing checklist list when they departed, so they didn’t have their big road atlas.  We relied heavily on the iPhone maps app for navigation.  By the end of the trip I got so tired of that chick’s voice telling us to turn right, left, merge, etc, etc.  Smart phones are making us dumb.  I bet a percentage of the population would follow her directions even if she said accelerate and drive straight over the cliff.  If the Russians hacked into our navigation apps this country would be in big trouble.