Pandemic Diaries - Year 2, Road Trip to Arizona Part I

17 October 2021

 

As I said in our previous blog post, we left Bellingham, WA, and headed to Tucson, AZ for our winter stay.  We left on September 15, and had a nice seventeen day road trip before arriving in Tucson on October 1.

 

Yes, it's possible to drive the 2000 or so miles in fewer than seventeen days.  It's possible to drive the distance on a more direct route than the one we took.  

 

But we enjoy road trips.  The journey is as important as the destination.  And sometimes, things happen or a place looks inviting, and so we might stay a day or two just to do something special, or to spend some time in that inviting town.

 

So our route was not the most direct way to travel from Bellingham to Tucson.  Nor did we push ourselves to drive 500 miles a day.  We had a leisurely road trip, explored a few new places, and explored a few old friendly locales.

This blog is just the quick overview, and I'll write several subsequent blogs once I finish editing the hundreds of photos I took along the way.  But we have maps - I kept track of each stop, calculated the distance driven, and drew lines on each map so I could share our route and how far we drove each day.  (Yes, my lines are in rainbow color sequence.  It makes it easy to see how far we drove each day.)

Day 1 – Bellingham to Yakima, WA – 225 miles

 

Day 2 – We stayed in Yakima for a day to go through our storage unit one more time, and to spend some time with my brother and his family.

 

Day 3 – Yakima to St. Regis, MT – 327 miles

            

Just a quick drive through the Idaho panhandle, then on to Montana.

 

Day 4 – St. Regis to Missoula, MT – 72 miles

         

We made it a short drive and spent one night in Missoula so I could spend the afternoon visiting what was the National Bison Range, which is now privately owned by the Native American nations that reside in the Flathead Lake area.

 

Day 5 – Missoula to West Yellowstone – 264 miles   

 

 We encountered snow in West Yellowstone when we arrived, and it snowed off and on all night!  BRRR!

 

Day 6 – West Yellowstone, MT to Daniel Junction, WY – 233 miles

We drove through Yellowstone on a different route than we did last summer, and encountered a blizzard driving over some of the mountains in the park!!  We hoped to stay in Jackson, but prices of hotels were insane, so we drive through the middle of nowhere and found a great little motel in Daniel Junction.  Plus we saw a moose just standing in someone's yard, eating some grasses or leaves or something!  Wow, a huge moose!!!

 

Day 7 – Daniel Junction to Evanston, WY – 155 miles

 

Day 8 – Stay in Evanston, WY

 

Day 9 – Evanston to Beaver, UT – 255 miles

 

Day 10 – Beaver to Hurricane, UT – 92.6 miles

Including a drive through Kolob Canyon

 

Day 11 – Hurricane to Panguitch, UT – 108 miles

 

Drove through Zion N.P., spent the night just outside Bryce Canyon

 

Day 12 – Panguitch to Kanab, UT – 77.7 miles

 

Day 13 – Kanab to Jacob Lake, AZ – 37 miles

 

Plus drive to Grand Canyon Lodge on North Rim, and back – 43.6 miles each way - Total of 124.2 miles for the day

 

Day 14 – Jacob Lake to Tuba City, AZ – 110 miles

              In Hopi Nation land

 

Day 15 – Tuba City to Camp Verde, AZ – 133 miles

 

Day 16 – Stay in Camp Verde at our favorite casino hotel there.

 

Day 17 – Camp Verde to Tucson! – 204 miles

 

Total:  2,293.3 miles