Day 12: Red Cliffs Lodge to Jerome, Idaho. (521 miles)

There was a beautiful sunrise against the red cliffs and the river.  The moon was still out and shown brightly although not full now.  A beautiful setting.  We got up before 8am, took a short walk and had breakfast in the lodge over looking the river,. Then we packed up for a long travel day.

Teresa had researched tanking what looked like a shortcut to Salt Lake City (highway 6 which makes a diagonal track to Salt Lake through the barren lava hills that make up dinosaur country then through the mountains just east of the city).  She found that this stretch of highway used to be one of the most dangerous highways in the US.  That is, until they made recent improvements including adding some passing lanes and counterintuitively INCREASING the speed limit.  In addition to this information we found that in this case the Interstate "is the most scenic route."  So we hopped back onto Interstate 70 and off we went.

And it was scenic.  We followed the road as the twisted rock rose from about 4000 ft. to 7000 ft. This area is referred to as the "San Rafael Reef" and continues for about 70 miles north to south which created quite a barrier for passage through for settlers.  Even today, there are few roads that traverse the reef.  Once we were at 7000+ feet the "mountains" were called "knobs."  We passed through the San Rafael Valley and stopped at the Salt Wash viewpoint again. Then the knobs turned into mountains and the red rocks turned into a landscape resembling that of Zion again.  

We got off the Interstate at Salina and headed north on highway 28 to Nephi. We passed through farm country and small towns as we took this shortcut to I-15 north.  Back on the Interstate, the traffic and lanes increased as we got closer to Salt Lake City.  When we encountered the HOV lane and numerous trucks we knew we were in for a long big city drive.  We stayed straight in the middle lane mostly (as the road increased to 5-6 lanes).  Teresa was a trooper.  It took several hours but we finally left the traffic and trucks behind and crossed into Idaho at 2:32pm.

This is a desolate stretch of highway with no services to speak of until you get to Burley.  The Idaho clouds were spectacular.  We saw many formations.  The sky was like an art canvas.

We finally stopped just north of Twin Falls in Jerome.  Actually the motel was across the street from the Walmart we stopped at before (the one with no photo equipment.)  The room was down the hall from the pool, but seemed to be humid and warm.  We were suspicious when we saw the previous guests had set the air conditioner at 65.  We had to open the window several times and I didn't need an extra blanket here.

We should arrive in Bend early tomorrow afternoon.  The last leg.