Road trip, Richfield, Utah to Lander, Wyoming 2026

 When we left Richfield, Utah, we headed toward the small town of Silt, Colorado.  We have stayed at the RV park there on numerous occasions because it is the closest RV park to Glenwood Springs that can accommodate an RV our size. 

The drive across Utah is beautiful and there's not much to do along the drive except stop at each rest area and marvel at the changes in scenery from one rest stop to the next.

The terrain changes constantly, and each time we would stop the view was amazing. There's not really much to say except enjoy the pictures.

After leaving Utah, we crossed into Colorado and drove through Grand Junction. Leaving Grand Junction we followed the Colorado river as it winds through canyons after exiting the Rocky Mountains.

Even though it was the end of April, the weather still thought it was winter.

We got set up in our RV park in Silt and had a nice evening with intermittent rain showers.

The next day, we drove to Glenwood Springs Colorado, where we enjoyed the Yampa Spa.  

When I was flying as an Air Attack, fighting forest fires, I spent quite a few summers flying out of Grand Junction. On my very first summer there, after working 12 days in a row, I was required to take two days off. I had made many friends with the tanker base staff, and several of them told me that I had to go to Glenwood Springs to the Yampa spa to relax after 12 busy days of flying. I went there and had a very enjoyable afternoon, and ever since then, every time we were near Glenwood Springs, we would go to the spa.

The spa complex is built around a cave that goes down into the mountain. Down at the bottom of the cave are small rooms that are heated by steaming water that emerges from the cracks in the rock.  This steaming hot water heats all of the rooms that are carved out of the mountain. Each of the rooms has large, smooth marble like slabs that form benches and tables that you can lie on.  The benches are all heated to the same temperature as the rest of the room and as you lie on them, the heat just soaks up into your body while the steamy atmosphere warms the rest of your body. The effect is amazing.

We did not want to take our phones down into the steamy mist, and so I have gotten some photos from the Internet that show what it is that you experience.  The cave is actually much darker than these photos.

It was very hot and steamy in the vapor caves, and we only lasted about 15 minutes. Then, you'd climb back up the stairs and go out onto the patio to cool off.

Even though it was quite chilly on the day that we were there on this trip, you are so hot and sweaty from the cave, that it felt great to just sit outside and cool off a little bit. When we have gone in the past, it has even been snowing, and the little snow flakes striking your skin was amazing. On this trip, there was no rain or snow while we were on the patio. After a few minutes on the patio benches, we would go back down into the cave for another round. We made three trips down into the cave, and after that, you take a shower and then put on the robe that they supply, and then go to the solarium to continue the relaxation process.

 The big white thing in the middle of the room was a giant crystal that they claim helps center your energy. I'm not sure if that works but sitting in the solarium was very relaxing after visiting the cave and this is where we waited until the appointed time, when our masseuses came and took us for our massage. After the massage, we were barely able to walk out to the car for the short, drive back to our motorhome. 

The next day, we continued our trip north out of Colorado, and into Wyoming. The drive through northern Colorado and southern Wyoming was spectacular.  The terrain varies but the overall big picture is of a huge, wide open space with stark contrast between lush greenery and dry high desert.

While we were driving, while out in the middle of nowhere, we passed a sign cautioning us to be on the lookout for wild horses.  Shortly, after seeing that sign, we saw the only wild horse for miles around, and Suzie happened to get it squarely in the middle of her picture.

It was a long, lonely highway traveling through Wyoming.

It was cold and windy on this drive, and you can only imagine what it would be like in the middle of winter in a snow storm.

Speaking of winter snows, it was amazing to see snow fence.

These are 14 foot high fences that are built back from the highway. They are designed to slow the snow and cause it to swirl and fall into a drift before reaching the highway. The drift continues to build, causing the wind to blow the snow over the top of the highway helping to keep it clear. They must work because they look very expensive and they go on for miles and miles.

Our final destination that day was Lander, Wyoming, where we spent two nights.  Our goal on this leg of the trip was to be in position to visit what we were told is an amazing museum.

That will be the next blog and if you thought this one had a lot of pictures, I was just getting warmed up.

I hope you are enjoying the blog and if you have any suggestions for us, please let us know.

We will keep you posted on our travels and we hope that you get a chance to get out here and see some of this amazing country.

Tom & Suzie

Utah 2026

We left Pahrump after 3 nice days of exploring and headed for St. George, Utah.  On the way, we stopped for fuel just north of Las Vegas because it was quite a bit less expensive than California.

It was still no fun fueling up.

As we headed north out of Nevada, we had to cross through a small corner of Arizona. This is one of the most beautiful stretches of roadway that we have ever been on, because the freeway cuts right through the mountains, following the course of the Virgin River.

After arriving at our RV park in St. George and setting up, we were hungry and headed out to find some place to eat dinner. We came across a barbecue place called Dub's BBQ that looked interesting. We knew we had arrived at the right place, because when we got out of the car, we could smell that really good odor of wood barbecue. We weren't disappointed and we had a great barbecue dinner that we shared. The portions were so large that we took half of it home.  My plate is already full and the big plate in this picture is what is left over.

The next two days were spent driving around the beautiful mountainous Utah countryside. Words can't really describe what we saw so instead, I will just show you some pictures.  Some of the pictures look a little washed out because sometimes we had to shoot through the windows of the car or motorhome and we got some glare.

On our second day of driving around, we went to the south entrance to Zion National Park. This was on a Friday morning. We were shocked to see a line at the entrance gate. There were four lanes of traffic, and they were all backed up five or six cars deep. When we finally made it to the kiosk, we were happy to be able to use our America The Beautiful senior citizens pass to get into the park for free instead of spending $35 per car.

Immediately, after entering the park, we headed for the visitor center so that we could get a good overview of what we were about to see and so we could use the bathroom. This was the beginning of the realization that most of Utah must come to Zion on Friday mornings.

The visitors area parking lot probably held 1000 cars and every parking place was full and each of the driveway rows that went to the parking spots were bumper-to-bumper with cars trying to find a spot to park. It took us almost a half an hour just to get out of the parking lot and back onto the roadway into the park.

We came to the entrance of the first tunnel along our route into the park.

We had traveled on this road once before in our first 39 foot diesel pusher motorhome, which was 13 feet tall.  Our current motorhome is 13'6" tall.

On this trip, when we entered the park in our car, we saw a sign that said that no vehicles taller than 13 feet were allowed into the park. That caused us to remember our first trip through the park in our old motorhome.

On that trip, as we drove on the road, we came to this first tunnel. There was a checkpoint set up prior to entering the tunnel, where we spoke with a ranger, who was manning a handheld stop sign. The ranger told us that the sides of the tunnel were too low for our motorhome and the only way we can get through the tunnel is to drive right down the centerline.

He then called the other end of the tunnel and told the ranger there to stop traffic. Once the tunnel was empty of oncoming traffic, we were allowed to proceed. It was really scary trying to stay exactly in the center of the roadway and not scrape the top of the motorhome on the curved edges of the tunnel.  On this trip, the ranger was still there stopping traffic when necessary so that motorhomes that met the height requirement could get through as we did, driving right down the center of the tunnel.

As we continued into the park, we still both needed to make a pitstop, but we were unable to find any place to park.

Every pull out or wide spot in the road was jam packed with parked cars. We never saw any people around these parked cars and presume they had gone hiking on the numerous hiking trails. After driving several more miles into the park, we finally found a place where we could turn around and head back to civilization where we could find a rest room.

As we approached the area where the tunnel was located, we got trapped in a line of stopped cars. After about five minutes of stop and go behind these cars, we came to a vault toilet at a turnout.  There was still no place to park, so we continued to wait in the line of traffic. It turns out that the traffic was backed up for almost a mile from the mouth of the tunnel and the reason traffic was stopped was that there was a motorhome coming through from the opposite direction so the tunnel was closed for traffic in our direction. As soon as the motorhome was clear of the tunnel, our traffic began to move smoothly.

We finally found a place to park at the Park Headquarters, which was closed to the public, but there was a restroom a short walking distance away and that finally brought smiles to our faces.

    

As we drove out of the park past the entrance gate, we saw an unbelievable line of traffic waiting to pay their $35.00 to get in.  The park people seemed happy to be taking everyone's money, but they must have known that there was no way that the facilities inside the park could accommodate the crush of people that were already inside, and that these additional visitors were bound to be disappointed.

The previous picture doesn't do the line of cars justice and when we realized just how far the backup was, Suzie made a video.

After leaving Zion national park, we began to drive back to St. George.

Just outside of the park in the town of Virgin there are a whole bunch of tourist attractions and we stopped at one to see what kind of goodies they might have.

Suzie made a pitstop and came out with a photo of the facilities. She said it was barely wide enough to turn around in, and she's not sure how some of the larger ladies would have made it.

They had all kinds of interesting things for sale, and one of them was this wall mounting of a Utah Werewolf for only $900.  We did not get it!

We don't have pictures but we went back to Dub's BBQ for dinner again and came home with another full meal of leftovers.

Now, we are in Richfield, Utah in a rain storm and will be at this RV park until Monday when we head off on the next leg of our adventure.

We will keep you posted on our travels and we hope you will stay in touch,

Try to get out there because there's a whole bunch of things to see and they're a lot better when you see them in person.

Tom & Suzie