Nuevo Vallarta, Mexico

All the rush to make it back to Sacramento was to get to our next destination. We make it back in time to spend a little time with family, get our luggage out of storage, and put the RV into storage. The night is spent in a hotel before we catch a 6:00 AM flight out of Sac International to Nuevo Vallarta, Mexico:

Sunrise from the plane

When we land in Puerto Vallarta, we grab our ride to the Bel Air Vallarta in Nuevo Vallarta to catch up with our lovely friends from Elk Grove, Paul and Louise Gumbinger. They have a timeshare there and had arranged for us to spend a week next door to them. What a fun time!















The Bel Air is a beautiful property right on the beach that is inhabited by numerous iguana. (It was really a treat for me to share their space.) There was a fabulous infinity pool with a swim up bar and many a happy hour was spent there.

Beach at the Bel Air

One of the residents of the Bel Air

Bel Air pool

After week of great dinners, shopping, and time spend relaxing pool/bar side, Paul and Louise headed back to Sacramento, and Tom and I headed next door to the Villa del Palomar Flamingos. The Villa del Palomar is a newer, but unfortunately noisier and more crowded hotel.

Our balcony at the Villa del Palomar

View from the balcony

I do have to include the picture of the one visitor I saw on the steps outside one morning...freaked me out some when I first saw him.

Yes, it's a bat

The hotel restaurants and market were convenient, but we still liked the walk up the beach into Bucerias for breakfast and shopping.

Beach walk to Bucerias

Breakfast at Karen's

Tom with his eggs benedict

Before we left, we got a chance to tour old Puerto Vallarta. Old town is beautiful. We saw beautiful churches with spectacular masonry and artwork.

We tasted (and bought) tequila at the Don Tadeo distillery.

Don Tadeo tequila distillery

Don Tadeo tequila distillery

The ocean becomes clearer and bluer and the beaches more beautiful the further south you go...

Lunch at a small village south of town.

All too soon, it's time to leave and head back to Sacramento as Thanksgiving is rapidly approaching.

New Frontier RV Park - Winnemucca NV

Today, we're headed another 165 miles west to the New Frontier RV Park in Winnemucca NV. We're making good progress; we will make it back to Sacramento by November!

Along the way, we did run into one small oops "you were supposed to remind me we needed gas" moment about a mile and a half from Battle Mountain and the next gas station... It's a good thing we tow...

This was enough...

...to get us here.

You know how you can look back at some adventures (sometimes mishaps) and laugh... well we weren't to that point yet!

We finally make it to the New Frontier RV park. It's a large park, but not many campers were there, which was nice. Note for future reference: The park was clean, and the price was great too.

Loved the pull-throughs! They were exceptionally long. It was nice that there was also a roadhouse restaurant within walking distance, so we didn't have a need to unhook the toad.

Welcome Station RV Park - Wells NV

Just a short jaunt today, about 75 miles westward to the Welcome Station RV Park in Wells, Nevada.

With the trees and grass, it's an oasis in the Nevada desert and looks idyllic and peaceful. However, it's just off the highway, so not very quiet. The park itself is small with only a few full hook-up sites and no amenities. It's not in town, but a good layover on our way home!

Cattle ranch at the back of the RV park

Full hook-up site were not all level. We had to ask for another site.

Bonneville Salt Flats

Homeward bound...~170 miles west, are the Bonneville Salt Flats. There's BLM land just north of the Flats where we'll stop for the night. As we make our way off Leppy Pass Rd, we only pass one other occupied campsite. Looks like we'll have our pick of any site. Before we arrived, we saw pictures of people boondocking in the area. They had margarita glasses rimmed with salt from the flats, so we thought the campsite would be on the flats themselves. It wasn't, which, as it turns out, was probably a good thing.

We found a nice spot behind a rock outcropping. Across the road were some rocky hill just waiting to be climbed, and Tom and Tank were more than willing to oblige.

There were no people, dogs, or cars around for miles, so while we were here, we let Tank have his freedom.

He took full advantage of this, disappearing for long stretches of time. His coloration was perfect for blending into the dirt, rocks, and brush, so at times, we did get a little worried, but he always returned a tired but happy pup.

The next day, we stopped at the Speedway on the way out. There was still water covering parts of the flats. When things dry out in the summer, the BLM prepares the salt flats to be used for speed racing. Despite the water, we did pass lots of tire tracks in the salt along the way.

The salt flats are actually very pretty to look at; the water is very blue and the salt sparkles in the sunlight. Because of how pretty it is, it was surprising to read about how harsh crossing the salt flats were for the pioneers and their animals. Crossing the salt flats was one of the obstacles that made the Donner Party late for crossing the Sierras.

Tank further confirmed the harshness of the flats by starting to limp almost as soon as he stepped out on the salt (he had run all over kingdom come the day before, until his paws were raw). Not to worry, we got him off the salt and washed off his paws asap. So in retrospect, it was good that our campsite was on dirt, not salt.

Mountain Valley RV Resort - Heber City UT

Next stop? Heber City, 223 miles northwest of Moab, nestled in Utah's Heber Valley between Sundance and Park City. It's a small town, population right around 11,000. The Wasatch Mountains on the northwest separate it from Salt Lake City. I gotta admit, I've been looking forward to this area. A couple of years ago, I saw a TV show that featured homes in Park City, which is not far from Heber City. The skies were so amazingly blue, I was looking forward to coming to Utah and seeing for myself.

We're staying at Mountain Valley RV Resort, which is located slightly south of town. It's a pretty nice place, well-kept with great views of the Wasatch Mountains. Nice laundry room (one of my favorite amenities) and they have a couple of dog runs. One's pretty large, which makes Tank happy, and has a nice green, mowed lawn with no mud holes, which makes me happy (have I mentioned that Tank loves to run through mud?) Cell signal was good, which was nice because we were finally able to get on the internet and make arrangements to store the RV while we are in Mexico. Let me tell you that finding short-term storage for an RV is no easy feat!

Look at the sky!

Scouted out some homes for sale while we were in the area. This is not the place that you will find a cozy home to retire in. Houses around here are meant for BIG families (seemed to average 3000+ sq ft). Someone recommended the town of Midway about a half a mile west of Heber City. There's some nice biking roads between the two towns. The homes in Midway were on more acreage, had a good little more upscale county home feel to it.

Took a short trip north to visit Park City UT (my dream blue sky town). Park City is a very popular ski area, but no snow right now. As for the town, it's a lot of condos all close together. Sunday downtown in the off season is pretty empty.

Moab UT

Our calendar tells us we have to move on if we want to see any of Utah before we head home. We drive 178 northwest to reach our next destination, Moab Utah. The drive into Utah has some pretty interesting rock formations. Utah's nickname is the beehive state. This formation looks like a beehive to me, but we're told it's called Church Rock.










Once we reach Moab, we check out Yellow Circle dispersed camping, the ACT Campground and Environmental Learning Center, and the Sand Flats Recreation Area campground, none of which have much of a view. So we take the long, dusty, bumpy drive to the Willow Springs Trail, which is known as a popular dispersed camping area.

Very popular; felt like being in a campground...

A view of the line to get in (after we had gotten in)

Our retirement life philosophy seems to have become: "we'll get there when we get there", and we don't let common sense (like getting started early to beat the crowds and enjoy the cool morning) intrude on our days. As usual, we weren't in any big hurry to get going (aka slothlike). Arches was about a twenty minute drive from our camping spot. By the time we got there, there was a pretty long line to get into the park. It took about 1/2 hour to file into the park. We were surprised by the number of people visiting the park, especially since summer vacation was over, and most kids were back in school. Once we got thru the entrance, the traffic thinned out and the crowds were not that bad.

Our first stop was at Balanced Rock. There was a nice easy trail that circled the rock, so you could get up close and personal with it and see it from a 360 degree perspective.

We then continue north up to the Devils Garden area. This area has a campground, which was closed due to road improvements that affected the entire park. All park visitors had to be out of the park by 7 pm each evening, but I digress. The Devils Garden area is home to a number of rock formations, among them are: Tunnel, Pine Tree, Landscape, Partition, Navajo as well as others. 

Tunnel Arch

Landscape Arch

We spend a good deal of time there hiking up and around many of the arches before moving on.

Pine Tree Arch

Navajo Arch

From there we head over to the east side of the park to see Delicate Arch, which is the iconic picture you always see as the symbol of Arches National park. I'm not going to show a picture of it, since we decided not to take the trail to it and have only distant viewpoint pictures. 

On Wendy's insistence (this time), we have one more area to view which is on the east side of the park called the Windows Section. In that area you can see: the Parade of Elephants, North an South Windows, and Turret arches, just to name a few.

The sun was going down and we needed to start heading for the park exit and back to camp.