We're in Utah already

Okay, we're moving fast, perhaps too fast.   This morning, we left the park shortly after 8 AM, headed for a Walmart and a service station.   We found both, but the Walmart related service station (Mirastar) was locked up.  So we had to pay full price at another station.  A bummer. (Getting fuel was urgent, as the needle was bouncing on EMPTY!)

We then hit the road, I-76 into the heart of Denver, then switching to I-70 for the rest of the day.  Thanks to Sandy's navigating skills and her trusty GPS, we sailed through Denver and headed out to the mountains.   The cat engine in this buggy got a workout, but it held right in there.   About 2 hours out, we stopped for a break, only to find that parking is difficult to come by.  The welcome center lot appeared to be full plus I wasn't sure we could get around in it with our toad behind.   So it was down the road to another part of some small town.

We took a couple of additional breaks and missed a couple more.  Then we stopped at a welcome center in a small burg on both sides of  the interstate to see if we could spend the night in their lot.  Simple answer: NO.  That was a bummer, as other information we had indicated that folks had been given permission before.   So we trucked on down the road.  We were going to stop at the next welcome center and missed it.  There were no signs indicating that it was off of the highway, so we didn't exit.  Big mistake.  

Our next option was a welcome center just inside of Utah.  What a looser that one was.   There was a crossroads there, but nothing else.  The interstate sign said, "No Services".   So on down the road to the next cross road where our GPS said it had an information booth.    Well, scratch that one also.  No services.   So on down the road to where the GPS said there were some city streets.  But before we got there, we found a rest stop.   We pulled in and we shall pay for it tonight.  An 18 wheeler pulled in a little bit ago and is now running his refrigerator unit.  Of course, he parked real close to us also!

We put in a 12 hour driving day only because we couldn't find a suitable place to park it for the evening.  What little we've seen of the landscape west of Grand Junction, CO  indicates that it is pretty barren.  We shall see tomorrow and you can bet, it will be a more relaxing day.  (It was 12 hours behind the wheel and 400 miles down the road.)

Gene