It's About the (RV) Journey....: Catching up...................

Moving from Torrey, Utah to Salt Lake City a couple of weeks ago was quite a culture shock for us. We were getting used to being in rather remote areas, so as we traveled north through Utah up 15, it seemed suddenly there were a ton of cars, people, stores! It was a good way to acclimate ourselves for our trip east-hahahah.

lots of cars, houses, stores!! We haven't seen that in a while

nice mountains too

scenery is nice ..... along with civilization...hahahha

we aren't used to 5 lanes of traffic and stores and houses everywhere

So, how did we manage our visit to the east coast? (Fellow RVers may want to know....for everyone else, this will be boring)! We stayed just a night in a campground near Camping World in the Salt Lake City area before bringing the RV in for service at Camping World the next morning. We made arrangements to be able to leave our RV on the lot after the work was completed until our return back to Salt Lake. Once the RV was squared away, we stayed in a hotel near the airport with the stay/park package. We like to call this "pressing the easy button". We stayed in the hotel the night before our flight AND the night we got back to Salt Lake, leaving our car in the hotel parking lot and taking the shuttle bus to the airport. We did not want to stress over airline delays and having to get to Camping World to pick up our "home" before they closed for the day. Everything went so smoothly! The planning really pays off! Once we picked up our camper, we stayed one more night in a campground in the Salt Lake area (near Camping World) before embarking on our travel to Oregon.

We really enjoyed our visit to see our family and friends. Its been 6 months since we've seen anyone, so it was really nice for us! No pictures though....don't want to invade privacy:) It was a whirlwind, I have to say, but we really enjoyed seeing everybody and catching up in person!

Our next destination-Bend, Oregon! We traveled three days to get there, stopping early each day so we Tom could relax after all the driving. We made 2 overnight stops on our way from Salt Lake City to Bend, Oregon. We stopped one night at Village of the Trees Resort, a very peaceful and nice campground right next to the Snake River in Declo, Idaho. We could have stayed a few days...it was that peaceful. I totally forgot to take pictures though.

The next night we stopped at a small campground in Vale, Oregon. Its right over the border from Idaho and was also a peaceful campground for a great stopover. The camp host recommended a tour of the center of town to view the murals. Over the years, several artists have painted murals on the side of the buildings. We really wanted to stretch our legs, so .... we headed out to check out the murals. The center of town was just a few blocks away from the campground.

here comes the train

I never would have made it during the wagon-train era! Even with a spare tire just sitting there for the wagon wheel upgrade-haha

this is a small town, but the murals were fun to spot

some were more intricate

love this one...looks at all those ~~sweaters~~ sheep

this mural is an older one, and is starting to peel

we could not find this one...its on the second level

did we find them all?

we liked this one too...with the branding symbols along the top

No matter where we travel, there is always something interesting to see. When we are just stopping over for a night to break up our drive, we usually just want to relax at the campsite...sitting under a tree ~~knitting~~ reading. Its a bonus when we can take a walk and explore right from the campground so we don't have to unhitch our car.

We were well rested for the last leg of our journey to Bend, Oregon. It was raining for most of the drive, so my pictures did not come out too well. I have to say that the drive was gorgeous! Maybe because we've been in Red Rock Country for so many months....but the green mossy mountains were so cool! The road meandered (a lot) through the hills and it was a gorgeous drive (Rt. 20). The road was beside the Snake River for a lot of the drive.

rainy day.....the mountains were beautiful...very green

Snake River alongside the road most of the way

the colors of the hills were really nice

the winding road passed beautiful green moss-covered hills....very green here....like Iceland

so picturesque

Once we were through the hills, the winding road straightened out and after a bit, the beautiful Cascade Mountains appeared. The weather started to clear and by the time we checked in to the campground, the sun came out.

once out of the hills, the road was straight....heading to those gorgeous Cascade Mountains

beautiful views

hard to see the mountains with the clouds

We set up rather quickly and enjoyed the rest of the afternoon at this beautiful campground. Its nice to be home! Wish we could bring our family and friends with us!!