Tag Archives: Utah

Getting out of Vegas, and back to the wild

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Day 25:
6400 miles and counting. Woohoo! Today is the day I get to scram out of Las Vegas. My pretty girl is all fixed up, and ready to get back on the road. She just needed a rest, like every beautiful lady, she needed time at the spa. After a fresh bath a bunch of new bolts, some new sway bars, and a whole lot of TLC, Pervvie is back on the road and ready for adventure. It felt so good getting into her after a few days absence.
On the way out of town I did a few miscellaneous Geocaching things, and a trip to the food market to get restocked up. I was hoping to steal some water from somewhere too, but I have plenty for now. I am heading directly north, into the desert. I plan to drive for a couple of oldest hides in Nevada, and some other highly favorited geocaches along the way. I believe my next destination is going to be rattling around Idaho. But so far, my plans only work out 50% of the time. The other 50% of the time I end up doing something way better than I ever planned or imagined.

I drove all over, all through, and all around all of these power trails out here in the middle of nowhere. I stopped for more than I thought I would. But still very little. Just the high favorite ones, and the older ones. If I had the willingness, I could’ve had a find count of 20,000 higher than I do now. But that just doesn’t seem like having a fun. The fun for me is just driving around in the desert, getting lost in my own thoughts…not pretending I’m a mailman.
I found all the main ones that I wanted, and some others. Basically, where I stopped to pee, take pictures, sometimes both of those things.
Time to head north for the oldest one. I was in a big conundrum. The van said it has 90 miles left of fuel. I was 30 miles one way from the main road, and 30 miles from the town of Tonopah. I had to drive all the way from Golden Arrow, to Tonopah, turn around come all the way back, go to the old one north, turn around and back through Tonopah. Poor fuel planning.
As I turned left off of the main road to go north on a dirt road, I noticed “I want to kill you” weather, in the distance. Behind me was the most beautiful bluebird skies you could ever imagine. However directly in front of me was the most terrifying, menacing sky I’ve seen yet on this trip. Oh well, that’s the way I must go.
Thank you so much for bringing me to the location of Nevada’s oldest geocache. I was treated to a spectacular show of storms and skies and clouds and then ultimately rainbows. That’s right rainbows with an ‘S’ at the end.
From there I made my way to Ely, found a nice place to rest for the night. Tomorrow is hopefully north to Idaho.

Day 26:
I woke up in Ely, Nevada at a Love’s. 6900 miles and counting.
I am planning to head into Idaho. I got moving this morning not quite as early as I would’ve hoped, but after a few nights absence, I was extra cozy in my mobile home’s bed.
I changed my plans for the 10th time today and a millionth time this trip. I made a detour back through Salt Lake City. I couldn’t spend much time there, because it was during a time when I thought I needed van repairs and was anxious to get that done. I drove and wandered around an empty Salt Lake City on a Sunday. The weather was beautiful, and it was a perfect time to be Geocaching as there was no one else around to see me acting weird.
Having grown up on the East Coast, I will never understand how I am able to drive 3 hours or more, at 80 miles an hour, and not see another human being. Did they build these roads just for me to use?
From there I was going to head to the Golden Spike. It occurred to me I had a few errands, and I was in a major suburban area. So, I stopped off at the Home Depot, the Office Depot, the Auto Depot, and luckily picked a town with some really highly favorited caches and a WebCam. This detour was a lot longer than I had planned on.
After visiting a choo-choo train history spot, I backtracked to the missile exhibit. That was so much more fascinating than I ever expected. I went there for the old virtual and the letter box. I spent about 40 minutes on that letterbox. First, I couldn’t find a sign. So, I did some alternate research and narrowed it down to a couple of options. But then I was messing up on first letter second letter third letter first words 2nd word third word. There was a nice big hint in the combo description by the owner. And I still thought I knew what I was doing. I got about 10 minutes away driving, and it clicked. Turned around went back, got my name on that letterbox too.
So glad something routed me to that spot. I never would’ve made it here on my own.
Now it’s time to finally try and get in Idaho.
I made it to southeastern Idaho before I ran out of day. I was able to find the old one in Southeastern Idaho, but not without issues. For some reason I had notes that said I could drive pretty close to this one. I guess 2 miles round-trip walking is close, but it was probably also a half of a mile uphill. I was running out of daylight. Poor time management, so I had to jog the whole time up the hill and then back down to where I left my van. After that I was officially out of daylight. I found a nearby spot to park and sleep for the night.

Day 27:
7500 miles and counting.
I woke up in Idaho and made my way to the waterfall earthcache. I spent much more time at the waterfall area than I ever imagined. I did a couple of short hikes, and found a bunch of geocaches. I took some pictures and I chatted with some other nice travelers. I met some motorcycle enthusiasts from Australia. They told me they drove their bikes all the way to Idaho. What I thought would be a quick in and out ending up being several hours of my morning. Thank you for that.
After a few miles of jogging and climbing around all these awesome rocks, the park filled up. People were swimming in a little lake/pond/pool area. I was hot and sweaty, and that look like an awesome thing to do. So, I did it. After a refreshing dip in the lake, I went and utilized my indoor shower. It’s a real special occasion when I use that thing.
On the way out of town I had a final of the Wherigo. I realized how I had to get there and said, damn, I just took a shower. So, I walk extra slow and tried to stay nice and zestfully clean.
My second stop for the day was out at Bruneau Canyon. Even thought it was early in the day, I knew it was where I wanted to stay the night. The possibility of amazing night skies were high at this location. If they skies stayed clear. I have my sights set on the Cache Across America Utah version, and I believe there is also a virtual there. I had a couple hour drive. I had hoped to get there, long before sunset, and set up camp. Everything worked out perfectly. I had hours to kill before photographing the sunset and night sky. There was telephone service, and I was shocked. I was able to use that and catch up on work. I put Pervvie into Work MODE!

Day 28:
7700 miles and counting.
Last night I simply stayed where I landed around mid-day, at Bruneau Canyon. I had the entire place to myself from about 4PM on. I had some telephone service, so I spent a few hours catching up on real life work. I was basically just killing time waiting for the sun to scram. The skies were perfectly clear, and I was treated to a spectacular show of the moonlight rising and lighting up the canyon inch by inch. I got some great photographs of the Milky Way before the moon entered the show. And then some super fun shots of the canyon illuminated only by moonlight.
Now it’s time for me to head towards Boise, and then ultimately all the way north in Idaho. I have a few checklist items on my agenda, but I’m also open to getting into anything fun.
As I was driving away from the canyon on my way to Boise, I noticed a couple of power trails. Yikes, I don’t have time for that. But I noticed there was a whole bunch that were challenges. I made time for some of the more interesting ones that I knew I should qualify for.
I made it into Boise to check off a few specific tasks. While I was there a few other things distracted me. I also refueled Pervvie, and restocked the refrigerator. Yes, that does include a box of Cinnabon‘s. I wasn’t there long, but I knew I had plenty of city already. It was time to start heading north and get back away from people and things. My destination was GC 26 and 27. Two very old geocaches, as evidenced by their GC codes. It would be nightfall before I got there. So, my hope is to get all the way there, and have that be what I do first thing in the morning. An absolutely gorgeous drive to start out with. Meandering, twisting back-and-forth following the river that was rushing at me. I didn’t get all the way there, so I found a nice place to park and sleep along the river, during the homestretch of my drive to GC26 and 27.

I did start an album of this trip that I am updating as I process. HERE.

Several very adventurous and off road days in a row

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Day 18:

I slept near a pet Cemetery last night. I got moving plenty early in the morning, but it’s hard to get much done when the sun rise is like they are in Utah. One direction is the most beautiful pinks and oranges lighting up the mountains. 180° the other way the sun pokes it’s head up over another set of mountains. I’m trying to get things done, Mother Nature, and I keep having to stop and take pictures. Very inconsiderate.

I did a short trail of letter boxes. I got through them quick, no opposing traffic, perfect weather, and a van with a side door that I could just leave open, getting in and out like a mailman. I found all that I looked for, a couple of them were originals, a couple replacements, and I found a couple completely cracked and destroyed and left behind new film canisters. From here I have the half day trek to get to the Beaver hide.

During that drive I saw people living life the way I grew up. I passed a guy going the other way on a four-wheeler. He had his small daughter in front of him, holding her, letting her steer, and a beer in the other hand. Perfect.

I wish I could have a do-over on today, or at least the 2nd half. I wasted at least five hours trying to get to Beaver. Or I wish I had done some more research ahead of time. I did a lot of due diligence planning for this trip, but I guess I slacked or failed on this one.

First, I ran up one road and hit an absolute dead end with a gate with a lock on it. After that I rerouted and ended up in places that I should not have been. I made it through, probably breaking everything about Pervvie, poor girl. And then I had to spend an hour just getting back to some sort of civilization to reroute. I read some old geocaching logs about route 6 and French Creek. I found that area on Gaia, and off I went. Another 4 hours, man, I really put on a lot of rough, off-road miles today. About 3 times more than required. But Beaver did turn out to be a park and grab. I did finally get to the top, the view was amazing. Truly unbelievable. I was so proud of my Pervvie. I gave her the honors of a photo with the ammunition can.

This is a memory I will never forget. Probably because my butt cheeks will never unclench from this experience.

After I made it back to civilization, I drove to Potters. What a beautiful drive it was. I got there and got settled, planning to spend the night here. I decided to go do a headlamp hike as the sun was setting, take some pictures of the lake, and do the loop for the old hide.

I found everything I looked for except a trail. I’ve done a lot of dumb things on this trip but bushwhacking around in the pitch black for a couple of miles maybe now at the top of that list.

 

Day 19:

I slept at the old hide, Potter’s last night. I got on the road early, I would’ve liked earlier, but I was extra comfy in my mobile bed this morning. I had about a 2-hour drive where I was going next, a Little Creek Stash.

I came off the mountain, fueled up, got a sandwich, and headed where I was going. As always, I was distracted by other geocaches right in my path.

The first old one this morning was the least dramatic so far. No problem at all, parked close and made a short trek to the find. I didn’t break myself, my van, or anything on this one.

Next was to get the Cache Across America Utah version. I saw where it was and it would be easy, looks like it’s in the middle of a power trail. No time for that, but I did make time to find a bunch of the nontraditional‘s, letterboxes and multis. Geocaching power trails are very popular. They are endless amounts of geocaches along the roadside. People increase their find count by many thousands, even tens of thousands using these power trails. I do not think hell exists, but if it did, I would be forced to do power trails. The secret about hell is that you don’t even know you are there, that is how bad it is. Such an unappealing way to spend the time.

I visited the state house in Fillmore. It was perfect, I needed to re-up on water, and they had a spigot out front. It is as if I needed something, and the universe provided for me. Either that or I just stole water from a municipality.  I found out later I could’ve waited and just stole some water from the graveyard I would have to visit.

Boy, do I love Beaver! Had an amazing run-in with an adorable family at the multi. I was struggling terribly, they noticed a geocacher in distress, and came to save the day! I was hoping they were going to invite me along with them camping, but we ended up parting ways.

Time for Wah Wah next. My notes said no problem. My notes were wrong. I started all wrong by entering from the east side. I spent about 4 hours getting nowhere, dead ends, and unpassable (by us) roads. I finally flagged down an ATV’er, and they set me straight. I ran the main road all the way through the forest, then doubled back to where I was already within 3 miles of, but not good enough. Once here, I had probably 30 minutes wrapped up in the find. The coordinates do take you to a brand-new fence. At least mine did. I had no service, so no access to images. I scoured the obvious area 3 times before spotting it. I was going to be so bummed, but it is there, in the obvious place. And all the names before mine are on the log sheet, no matter where it was located.

I then chose here to spend the night. I wanted a shower, dinner, and to take pictures of the night sky, with the awesome foreground of those broke down shacks across the road from the ammunition can. Those photographs turned out amazing! Glad I stayed here. Did not see another human for over 12 hours at least.

Day 20:

I left where I slept, right at the Wawa Stash, not so early in the morning. My intent was to get somewhere near the Utah/Arizona border. I would spend the day and night there, as I have a bunch of personal and work things I need a hotel to catch up on.

I wasn’t originally going to go try for the old one at Lake Powell.  My plan of what I was going to do has changed 20 times over the last two days. But as of right now the plan is to try to go to Lake Powell. A lot of the morning was focused on just safely getting myself out of the forest. Some of those forest roads are deathly terrifying.

Nontraditionals catch my eye more than anything on this trip. I saw a multi not too far off my road route. So glad I decided to take the time for that one. Quite a lonely cache, had not been found in over 6 years. Awesome little side adventure. My favorite thing about road tripping is finding the weirdest things, like a single site graveyard in the middle of nowhere. I can’t wait to sit down and figure out what that’s all about.

I passed through the town of prehistoric Parowan Utah. I spent time finding a few fun geocaches here. I wish I was passing through during this county fair, I bet it’s awesome. The signs everywhere said it was coming up soon, but not soon enough for me.

I took the scenic route. I passed through and over the town of Brians Head in Utah. I’ve never heard of it before, but it was beautiful.

Today was mostly about driving through southern Utah, the mesas and the views and the amazing colors and formations. I didn’t get much done today recreationally as I was doing my best to get into a hotel quickly, for a conference call, and then catch up on real life work and responsibilities.

I got checked into my hotel in Page, had a pizza, and partially caught up on the real world. Back to nonsense tomorrow. Jet ski nonsense!

I did start an album of this trip that I hope I will remember to update. HERE.