It's Big Trip Time! Part 7 - Back to Utah We Go

WAIT!  Don't read this before Part 6!  It might not make sense if you don't read Part 6 (it might not make sense anyway, but that's neither here nor there).

Bye, beautiful green land!

Back to the red and brown bits for us!

Waking up on our final morning in Gros Ventre Campground (and Wyoming in general), we realized that neither of us slept particularly well the evening prior.  It had rained through the night (no big shock there, given the weather so far during the trip), but it was really pouring in some spots.  While everyone talks about enjoying the sound of rain on a tin roof, the sound of a heavy deluge on the tin can in which you are ensconced is a bit different (of course, the roof in question was only a foot above our heads, too). Since we wanted to get moving, and it was still lightly drizzling outside, we prepared a cold breakfast of yogurt/blueberry/granola parfaits, and after using up the last of the water in our tank (showers and dishes), it was time to hit the road.  After a quick dump station visit before we left the campground, we were underway around 9:30 or so.

One of the larger burgs we drove through on our way south - 

Wyoming is big on antlers.

As you can see in the blurry route image below, once we made it out of Grand Teton, we hugged the Idaho/Wyoming state line pretty closely, and we did the same thing with the Utah/Wyoming state line as well.

With just a few stops (Cokeville, WY, for gas and to eat the rest of the pasta salad - finally done! - and Coalville, Utah for gas and bathroom breaks), we did the 309 mile drive in just over 6 hours, and we pulled into Lakeside RV Park in Provo, Utah around 3:30pm or so.

Shots from the drive:

We're in Idaho!

And now we're back in Wyoming!

Are we staying in Utah this time?

Ooh!  A tunnel!

Bridal Falls, just a short distance from Provo

Our check-in at Lakeside was quick and easy; we had a full hook-up pull-through site I'd reserved about a month in advance (spot B-5, $46 before both taxes and a veteran's discount).  After getting all set up, we headed to downtown Provo for the essentials - a visit to the nearby liquor store to stock up on local brews!  Since Utah was founded by (and is still closely tied to) the LDS, liquor laws in Utah can be a bit different than in neighboring states.  Ordering a drink in a restaurant or bar comes with its own set of rules, and buying alcohol in a store can be odd, too.  While you can find some items in grocery stores and gas stations, if you want a Total Wine/BevMo style experience, your only option in Utah is a set of locations known as "State Liquor Stores" (when I originally Googled this, I thought that was the name of the store, but they're actually owned and operated by the state).  Our visit to the one in Provo was easy and without issue; there was a good selection of local and national brews on hand, and we stocked up for the next few days.

While we were driving around, we figured we should check out the downtown area; honestly, we picked Provo since it looked like a good, roughly halfway point between Gros Ventre and our next stop, near Zion National Park.  We didn't really have any expectations for the city or know much about it, other than its main claim to fame is being the home of Brigham Young University.  Overall, we found it to be pretty quiet, but clean and cute.

Also, they had good ice cream!

With snacks in our bellies and beer in our hands (well, beer in the back seat of the truck, safely and fully sealed), it was time to head back to Arlene and chill out for the rest of the evening.  On our drive back to the camper, we passed an Indian place that looked amazing, and when (a few hours later), we both confessed we were still craving Indian, we placed an order on Uber Eats.  It was a fun experience to figure out how to enter our "house" information into the app while being in a camper, but our food was delivered perfectly, and it tasted great (we even schlepped the leftover chicken tikka all the way home and had it for lunch a few days later).

Mmm...tikka and samosas!

We spent the rest of the afternoon chilling under the trees, watching the fluff from the cottonwood trees float by (we were both blowing that out of our faces for DAYS afterward), reading, and observing as the robins in the RV park pulled worms out of the grass patch between spaces.  This last pastime brought me no small amount of joy; the robin would hop around, hop some more, listen to the ground, then drive her beak into the earth and pull out a 3-4" earthworm.  It was incredible how they knew just where to peck to find these dudes; it was also highly entertaining to see the worm streeeeetch and then snap out of the ground into the bird's clutches.  

Eventually, someone came along and

parked on the left side of us here,

but since the hookups were on opposite sides of the trailer,

we never really saw them.  It was a good setup.

The park was about halfway full (at least in our area),

so we had an empty pad and two green areas

between us and our neighbors whom we could see.

Looking back toward the group camping area,

the dumpster, and the entrance to the creek

(which ran behind the park).

Hunting for worms...

OMG, the sun!

It was a pretty quiet evening, overall, and once the sun went down, we crashed pretty hard, since we were tired from the rainy night prior.  On the next blog, we keep heading south in Utah to our final destination - just outside Zion National Park!

Later!

Amy