Surprises keep coming (5/26/2014)

With the “threat” of heavy Memorial Day traffic and high temps, we decided to get an early start this morning. Luckily, the heat broke overnight and it was pleasant this morning. We were hitched up and on the road by 6:45 AM. We had a short drive (15 miles) to the Valley of Fire State Park. We hadn’t heard of this before this trip, but were glad that we did. It is about 10 miles of some of the most spectacular Navaho Sandstone formations we had ever seen. The scenery literally took your breath away. Since we were there so early, we had the park to ourselves. Once we reached the end of the park, we continued onto I15 out of Nevada, through a short stretch of Arizona and then into Utah. I’m not sure when I15 was completed through the mountains of Arizona, but what an engineering feat it was! It seemed like they had taken a can opener and spread the mountains apart to squeeze the road through. Once in Utah, we stopped at the visitor center to pick up some brochures and basic plans for what we would see. Then we headed over to our next campsite – Snow Canyon State Park. Again,  another park that sits in the middle of fabulous scenery. We hooked up, turned the air on, and sat down to lunch and to begin rerouting our trip. After a couple visits to talk to the ranger in the office, we had a really interesting route to take through Utah. We decided to stay camped @ Snow Canyon and spend tomorrow visiting Zion NP without the trailer. After spending time discussing options with the ranger, we have decided to replace SW Texas with Utah. We know we will be getting back to Texas to see all, but right now, we are sitting with about 3,000 miles to home. We are glad that we came into this trip with flexibility as every decision we make just seems to add to what we will do and see!