We had a busy winter; we had a sad winter. We got to know some new friends better; we lost a few old ones. I played a lot of pickle ball and a little ukulele; Jim played a lot of ukulele and a little pickleball. At the end of last week, that all came to an end, and we said our goodbyes.

Monday was our planned day to be back on the road, hoping to reach Page Arizona before nightfall, but our time was uncertain because we had an early morning appointment to have a spark plug replaced on the motor home and we had no idea how long it would take or how much it would cost. We dropped it off at 8:00 a.m, walked the short distance back to our park, stopping at the little restaurant to have some breakfast. By the time we’d gone to the park office to check out and pay any remaining fees, and chatted with a number of friends and neighbours that we ran into along the way, Jim got a call that the motorhome was done and the cost was only $96! We were off to a good start.

That soon changed when we found ourselves sitting on Highway 17 with many others, including several motorhomes, waiting for an accident way up the road to be cleared. An hour and a half later, we were moving again. We’d taken advantage of the stop to grab some food out of the fridge and cupboard for a light lunch.

It was smooth sailing from then until we were making our way into downtown Sedona where we were in awe of the different view of the red mountains from our previous trips through from another direction.

Suddenly traffic was stopped because of another traffic accident, but that interruption lasted only ten or fifteen minutes. We decided to walk around the upper part of town, joining the many other tourists. We’d never done that before.  It took a while to find a place to park the motor home, and we ended up taking a chance by parking in a fifteen minute parking zone.

We walked both sides of the street and took many pictures before finding a casual little place to have something more to eat before striking out again. It had some humorous signs on the walls.

The idea of reaching Page was long gone. We settled in a KOA in Flagstaff instead. We were both tired.

Jim spent some time trying to find us a spot at a campsite near Zion National Park for Tuesday night, the first major stop on our bucket list. He went to bed disappointed. I was disappointed too, not only for that reason, but because the hinge on the kitchen drawer broke completely and now the silver-ware drawer rides on the floor under the table. 🙂

In the morning he had better luck. By 9:30 we were on the road once more, our destination St. George, Utah, just a short drive away from Zion.

We had a good trip and were amazed at the colours and formations of the rocky terrain we witness as we travelled up Hwy 89 and 89A through Arizona and into Utah.

We saw several signs telling of Cliff Dwellers, but this is all we saw:

We stopped for lunch at this quaint little place that seemed to be in the middle of nowhere, in the desert, but it was popular and served us a delicious lunch of homemade soup and chicken wings.

And the further north we went, the more interesting the landscape became, right into Utah.

Then we were climbing up, up to 8,000 feet or more and began to see the leftover snow on the sides of the tree covered hills.

It was all very exhilarating.

We bypassed Page and went straight into St. George to find the RV Park. Driving through the city was the most tiring part of the day, probably because it had already been a long day. We were happy to find that it was a good spot, although we got the only remaining site and had to choose between being fairly level or being able to connect the sewer hose. We decided we could live without the sewer hose for one more night and chose to be level, unlike the night before when it was very difficult to walk without tipping backwards or sideways.

The next morning we were up early and on the road to Zion National Park.