West Lafayette to Willard, UT

We left home on May 19 — headed west to visit our daughter in Bend OR.  We decided to take I-80 west as it is the route we have taken the least in the past for our western trips.

The trip has had many weather events.  Part of Illinois and most of Iowa it rained — sometimes very hard.  In western Nebraska and all of Wyoming we had to deal with strong, gusty southerly winds.  The mornings weren’t bad, but the afternoons were horrendous.  

One of our stops in Wyoming was in Rock Springs Wyoming.  A town we had stopped at 30 years ago.  At that time it was a pretty quaint, western town.  We loved the downtown nestled up against the mountains.  Today there is much more sprawl with a Walmart and the usual chain restaurants.  Still a nice quiet town, but not the place we remembered.

From Rock Springs we headed through beautiful canyons into Utah.  We had plans to stay at Willard Bay SP which turned out to be very pleasant, but they wouldn’t let us check in until 3:00 so we drove to Brigham City to see the new temple built there in 2012 and the old Box Elder Tabernacle built in 1876 but rebuilt in 1897 after a fire.  The latter is an amazing structure and very beautiful.

After driving around and seeing some of the peach orchards and mountains,  we went back to check into the state park.

After checking in for our campsite we walked a few miles along the nature trails in the park that skirts the edges of the Willard Reservoir.  The water here is amazingly warm — felt warm to the touch — and is not salty as it is higher that the Great Salt Lake to the south.  

We enjoyed a dinner of grilled lamp chops, an artichoke, and a Salad.

Tomorrow we head further north and west.  Janet will get to drive through Idaho for the first time.  My 49th state.

-- Janet (text) and David (photos)