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Home, sweet home. We drove almost 500 miles on Sunday, Oct. 13. Total trip mileage - 8,106 miles. All in all, another great trip. We are so......lucky.
Comments from Eldon: I love my high ceilings and flushing toilets. Oh, and I was getting tired of dumping the tanks. All in all, the trip was marvelous.
Comments from Harry: I can actually run now - I love my house. All in all, it was a good trip. As long as I'm with Cindy and Eldon, I'm a happy camper.

Shut out of Rocky Mountain National Park compliments of the federal government

Way past time for a quick update. So, not believing the government would actually shut down the national parks, we headed for Rocky Mountain National Park. This would have been our 17th national park/monument of this trip; but unbelievably we were shut out. We spent the night in Steamboat Springs, a nice ski town for sure. Tuesday, the 2nd, we drove north around Rocky Mountain Park, with the plan of going to the town Estes Park. It was a beautiful drive, probably similar to the park, but we'll never know (well, not this trip anyway.) When we get all the way around, we discover two of the roads into Estes are still closed due to the massive flooding. We spent the night in Longmont, CO. There is another road to Estes, but the weather was supposed to be super cold and snowy and the park was still closed. So, we threw in the towel for Rocky Mountain. We moved up our visit with nephew, Chris, and family from the 5th to the 3rd. After a nice visit with them, we have since been slowly heading east. A pleasant trip, but not too eventful. Spent 2 nights in Fort Morgan, CO. It was so windy and some snow, we decided not to battle the wind the 2nd day and stayed put. Overnighted after that in McCook, NE, Lincoln, NE, Ottumwa, Iowa, Peoria, IL and Monticello, IN.And here we are in Canton, OH for Nick and Jill's wedding on the 12th.

1,000 year old graffitti - Dinosaur National Monument

We spent Saturday walking around Park City. It's a nice, historic town even without snow. Sunday we went to Utah State Natural History Museum and spent the night in Vernal. Today we went to the Dinosaur National Monument since we were driving right by it on Rt. 40. Neither one of us are into the dinosaur thing, but it turned out we spent the whole day there. Besides dinosaur bones and fossils, there were a lot of petroglyphs ( thus the 1,000 year old graffitti) . We are back in Colorado - Dinosaur, Colorado to be exact.
Comments from Eldon: The drive from Park City to the Dinosaur National Monument was a pleasant drive - basically stayed on summits and quite majestic. The petroglyphs were a lot more interesting to me than the dinosaurs. Apparently this was one beautiful valley for hundreds of millions of years. This is the second time, the other being at Capitol Reef National Park, that we saw petroglyphs drawn by the Fremont people - apparently they liked to travel to.
Comments from Harry: I missed my nap today because I rode up front with Cindy & Eldon - so I'm going to take one now.

Salt Lake City

We stayed in Salt Lake City an extra day because it was snowing in the Wasatch Mountains. Didn't want to deal with that! Cold and rainy our whole time here. Oh well, can't be winners all the time. We took the campground shuttle down town to Temple Square. The temple is huge and ornate - it took 40 years to build. It was time for an oil change and we had time to kill yesterday. Wouldn't you know.....when the kid drove our camper into the bay, he forgot to check that the door was all the way up. Duh......we now have a new air conditioner cover courtesy of Jiffy Lube. On our way to Park City today.
Comments from Eldon: The weather hasn't been cooperative the last few days. We drove into Salt Lake City battling heavy side winds. In Mormon words, we were seeking sanctuary.
Comments from Harry: The sun is finally out today, and its not windy. I'm ready to get out of the city and back on the road again.

Bonus: Great Basin National Park

While on the Lonliest Road (yes, it was pretty lonely) on our way to Salt Lake City, we were going to drive by the Great Basin National Park. Never heard of it; but of course, we had to stop. There is a term for us I'd never heard before - "Parkies". It is the 9th least visited national park in the country; but what a treasure. A scenic 12 mile drive straight up Wheeler Peak to 13,000 feet, a nice hike, and a 90 minute tour in Lehmann's Cave.
Comments from Eldon: My favorite thing on the Lonliest Road was the Fed-Ex truck we saw going the opposite direction - that would make him the lonliest Fed-Ex driver. Great Basin NP was extremely pretty with the aspens just starting to change color to yellow.  Lehmann Cave is only the 2nd cave I've ever been in - far superior to the Wind Cave in South Dakota. Remarkable formations as you can see in the picture.
Comments from Harry: It's been cold and windy. Very windy. Too windy to go outside.

Lake Tahoe & Virginia City NV

Lake Tahoe is beautiful. We had a camp site about 100 yards from the lake. Nice pines all around with mountains in the background. We have been across the Sierra Nevada mountains 3 times now. The drive to Tahoe was stunning - with lots and lots of 10 - 20 mph switchbacks. Today we took a short drive to Carson City (didn't really spend any time there) and Virginia City. The downtown is nicely preserved with old buildings from the gold and silver mining days. It is COLD. Just turned the heat on in the camper. For fans of the old western TV show, Bonanza - Virginia City is Ponderosa country. Heading East on the so-called "Lonliest Road" tomorrow.
Comments from Eldon:  Spent a night on the San Andreas fault - not even a rumble, but there were mules braying and wild turkeys roaming. Once again, we toured the Sierra Nevada mountains. They are about 9,000 feet - not a bad drive and very beautiful. I love the pines. Green is good. The aspens should be colorful when we get to the Rockies. Tahoe was relaxing - its always good to be near the water. I don't mean to complain, but wish it was a little warmer - not Death Valley warm though. Virginia City is a step back to my childhood TV days - Sunday nights watching Bonanza with Grandpa and Grandma - I was expecting to see Little Joe and Hoss any minute.
Comments from Harry: Donkeys are cool - turkeys are dumb. I got a new collar today - my old one was too small. Guess I need more exercise.