RV travels with Rich and Judy: Drive from Las Vegas, NV to Kanarraville, UT April 27, 2014

Red Ledge RV Park, Kanarraville, UT; April 27 to June 9, 2014

This drive was spectacular! We left Vegas, mostly flat, arid land with spots of irrigated vegetation, and headed north. We passed through the Virgin River Gorge, a 29 mile breathtakingly beautiful drive through the northwest corner of Arizona and on into southwest Utah. The photos don't do justice to the amazing scenery, with the narrow gorge twisting and turning between the mountains looming all around. After we passed through the gorge, we were in Utah – another first for me. We passed through high desert with mountains (some with snow-capped peaks) in the distance.

As we drove we noticed signs warning of invasive mussels in Utah waters, and requesting that all boats stop at an inspection station. One fellow towing a boat blew by the inspection station and not far down the road, we saw him pulled over by a wildlife officer. Apparently, this mussel is terribly invasive and difficult to kill. I saw on the Utah Department of Wildlife site that all boaters must be prepared to show certification of cleaning efforts when stopped, and they even offer professional cleaning at many locations for free. Makes me even happier that we don't have a boat :)

Once we arrived in Kanarraville and at our RV park, we had second thoughts. It was a small place, which is fine, but very small sites and the town had all of 311 inhabitants! Our concerns were for naught, and we ended up staying for six weeks! The owner, Gail, was a delightful new friend, making us feel welcome and offering a wealth of information about the area. It is obvious that the area has been hard hit economically and hasn't even begun to see a hint of a recovery. Road construction seems to be the biggest employer here about – and goodness knows, the roads need improving! There are also a good number of sheep ranches around and many homes have horses grazing in a pasture, but not so many cattle. There are a number of nice homes in the area, but sadly, there are crumbling buildings next door. Four-wheeled ATVs are very popular here – we see more of them on the roads in town than we do cars or trucks.

While in Kanarraville, we went to Zion four times, hiked part-way to Kanarra Falls, saw some great petroglyphs, visited a museum about the area, drove through Cedar Breaks just after it opened for the year, and I got new glasses (about $30 less than in Florida) and had two gold crowns (several hundred dollars less than in Florida) from a dentist I really liked (very unusual for me). I'll have separate posts of each of the side trips (but not of my glasses or crowns...).

It is quite a hike up to the falls – a hard four-hour round-trip. We only went half-way since I had to get cleaned up for a dental appointment. The part we did complete had beautiful views of the surrounding area, a steep climb up to a water tower, then lots of smaller ups and downs. We stopped at the top of a very steep decline and hadn't gotten to the first of the three falls. From descriptions on-line, there is a tree with boards nailed to it that you climb to get up to the trail to the second falls there there is a rope ladder that you climb. At some point, it is necessary to wade across a waist-deep river. Neither of us is in shape to try those acrobatics without a medi-vac helicopter hovering nearby!

We walked to an old cemetery about a mile from our RV park for exercise a few times and spent some time walking through it, reading names, dates, and epitaphs. It made us realize just how lucky we are – so many graves of the very young.

One surprise we had while in Kanarraville was the four inches of snow on the ground when we awoke on Mother's day. It was fun to see and Dickens didn't seem to mind it to much. The ash trees were loaded with leaves and the snow was wet – a bad combination. Because of the weight of the snow and the fully leafed out trees, power lines were coming down all night and when we awoke, it was cold in the RV, but we were prepared – I had more layers than baklava. The snow only lasted a couple of days, but we had fun while it lasted.

About 15 miles north of Kanarraville is Cedar City, a good-sized town that seems to be growing. Many new stores, both chains and private businesses. My dentist was part of a family of dentists – his father had begun and his children, now grown, are carrying on where he left off and doing a fine job. There seemed to us to be a shortage of reasonable priced restaurants with good food, although we found an exceptionally good Mexican restaurant where they make posole (hominy soup often with pork and julienned cabbage sprinkled on top) and is as good as we have ever eaten. Our waitress even got me the recipe! We went back several times and each time ordered a quart of posole to take home for lunch the next day!

As you may have suspected, this was our favorite area in all of our travels so far, which surprised both of us. Kanarraville sits at about 5,500 feet above sea level, so even in June, the days were a comfortable 80°, 20% humidity, and a10 mile-per-hour breeze. Rich was comfortable in shorts and a T-shirt, which was surprising, as he really prefers cold weather to hot (he goes out in 40° in shorts and a long-sleeved shirt). Just 30 miles south of us, in St. George, Utah, 2860 feet above sea level, the weather was uncomfortably hot – about 15° higher and not much breeze. I can almost see us moving to the Kanarraville area – the average maximum temperature is 85°, the low 18°, average snowfall maximum in January 8 1/2” (all the rest of the months are lower with an average annual snowfall of 37”). We definitely plan a return visit.