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Wednesday, June 8, 2022
Having finished with Utah our choices were go East to Colorado or go West to Nevada. We didn’t want to go too far because we still didn’t know if I had to return to Las Vegas for jury duty. We decided to head West and spend a few days at Great Basin National Park in Northern Nevada. One of the park’s main attractions is the cave tours. The park offers a 30 minute, 60 minute and 90 minute version. We had tried to make a reservation for the 90 minute version a few weeks ago but it was sold out for many days in the future. This morning we logged on to their website and were able to get a reservation for the 90 minute tour at 12:30 pm on June 10.
The trip from Bluff to our hotel in Ely was expected to take at least eight hours. We decided to do the trip in two parts. Today we went to Natural Bridges National Monument and stayed the night in Moab, where Arches National Park is located.
Natural Bridges National Monument is fundamentally similar to Arches National Park – just smaller. We took the scenic drive. In addition to the many hiking trails it takes you to three of the largest and most famous bridges. We had intended to do some of the shorter hikes but the heat was so oppressive that we decided against it. We were a little underwhelmed by the park. There are many canyons and high buttes to see but the issue is that the rock is mostly just white, Navajo sandstone. After seeing so many parks with very colorful, stratified layers of sandstone this one seemed a little plain. Maybe we’re just spoiled.
After touring the park we drove North back to Moab, where we stayed when we went to Arches. For lunch we went to Canyon Pizza Co and ordered a medium sized pizza with pepperoni and onions. While waiting for the pizza I checked my emails and low and behold I’d received an email from Clark County Jury Services. It contained just one line…
“You are not required to report as summoned, and your service is now complete.”
What a relief! Our time was once again our own. Now we’d be able to make some concrete plans. The first thing we did was to order some camping equipment from Amazon. We’re having it delivered to our hotel in Ely. When we were in Cedar City we found the rest of the items we wanted in a local Walmart. If we can’t find what we want in a Walmart along our path to Ely we’re planning to divert to Cedar City to get what we want.
Since we still had about an hour before we could check into our hotel in Moab we decided to go to Crystal’s Cakes & Cones for ice cream. Once there we changed our mind and ordered two large, chocolate malts. They were damn good – so good, in fact, that we neglected to take any pictures!
Thursday, June 9, 2022
We had a brainstorm. We went online to see if the Walmart along our route had the items we wanted. It didn’t. We ordered (and paid) for the items we wanted at the Walmart in Cedar City and specified that we’d pick them up later that day.
It was past lunch time when we got to Cedar City. We headed directly over to Culver’s. Since we’re leaving Utah it might be a long time before we get to indulge again. We split an order of chicken strips and then ordered some of their wonderful custard. It was too good an opportunity to miss.
Over at Walmart two of the items we ordered were unavailable. They substituted another item that we didn’t want. Seriously folks? We drove an hour and a half out of our way to get these items. We actually bought and paid for them in advance just so we wouldn’t have this kind of issue. The System told us that they were in stock. How the heck can you treat customers like that? REALLY ticked off. We also stopped by the Cal-Ranch store and got some stadium seats. Many years ago we bought some for about $7.00. Now, if you can find them at all, they are around $50.00. Amazon was a bust. Cal-Ranch had them for $25.00. I think I heard my credit card groan.
The morning’s drive was on I-70 and I-15. They are boring roads with nothing interesting to see. They hardly even have any billboards to read. The three hour drive from Cedar City, UT to Ely, NV was much more enjoyable. It was on smaller, less congested roads and we passed by some interesting scenery.
Our hotel room was on the fifth floor but the elevator was unavailable. It was being used to transport beer kegs. We were told we’d have to wait 5-10 minutes before we could use it. We decided to put the time to good use and have some dinner. None of the nearby restaurants interested us and we really didn’t want to get back in the car so we settled for the Denny’s at the hotel. Our experiences with Denny’s in the past have been less than satisfying but we actually had a good (and inexpensive) dinner. We shared an order of their loaded nachos. It was laden with cheese, onions, and chili. Deborah also had a cup of their loaded potato soup and I had a mixed green salad.
Tomorrow is the cave tour. Deborah was concerned that her well worn, no tread left sneakers would be inadequate for the wet and slippery conditions. Cal-Ranch came to the rescue again. She found some nice hiking shoes with deep treads. Yesterday we put new batteries in our flashlights. I think we’re all set for the caves now.