The route this day took us from Kanab to Mesquite, via the last GeoTour caches we needed to qualify and a lot of virtual caches. Another awesome day on the road!

Approximate time on road/out caching:  11 hours, 5 minutes
Total miles driven: 168.4 mi / 271 km
Total cahes found: 30
Total DNF: 1
States visited: Utah, Arizona, Nevada
Famous places visited: Zion National Park
Most memorable cache: GC6CT6C Utah GeoTour-Washington – Gunlock State Park
Biggest surprise: How early we arrived in Mesquite
Weather: Sunny
Highest temperature: 38,9°C / 102°F
Lowest temperature: 12,8°C / 55°F

The scenic route

We didn’t have too many caches planned along the first part of the route today, but we ended up finding a few bonus caches, as we often do. The first route took us through Zion National Park, a park we’ve visited several times before. And just as with the other parks, it felt less crowded this time.

We had one «funny» experience along the scenic drive, when the car ahead of us suddenly stopped to yell at us. When inside one of the tunnels, which require driving with headlights on, we flashed our headlights at one of the oncoming cars. This is common to do in Norway, where headlights are required at all times. So it’s just a reflex reaction for me (but only when it’s actually required 😉 ). The car in front of us did not like that. So he immediately stopped, and started shouting at us.

Second attempt

After driving through Zion, and finding a cache along the way, we stopped at GCHFNA Hurricane History. A cache we’ve attempted before, but the last time we couldn’t figure out how to get to GZ. We studied the map, satellite photo etc while planning this trip, so we had a pretty good idea how to get there this time. Our planned parking turned out to be behind a fence, but the trail to GZ started right near the fence. Perfect! This time, we made it to GZ! 😀

License plate tree

We love strange and quirky attractions, so when we learned about the License Plate Tree, we just had to include it in our plan. A nice bonus was the cache right next to it, GC45CRQ The Must-See License Plate Tree.

Virtual, virtual, virtual

The traffic in St. George was crazy, and all the roadwork didn’t make it much better… So it was nice to relax a bit, when we tried In-N-Out Burger for the first time. After getting some food, and finding a couple difficult caches, we had several virtuals and a couple earthcaches on the list. And even a GeoTour cache. We enjoy finding virtual caches, so we are glad that we got more to find during the last year.

The weather was beautiful, it wasn’t too hot and once we got out of St. George, the traffic wasn’t that bad anymore. The drive through Snow Canyon State Park was a nice surprise, we didn’t know how scenic this area was!

Yummy pie

After another GeoTour cache, we stopped at GC3YXXH Yummmmmm, Pies. And since the sign told us that this was the place, and that we had reached our pie destination, we just had to try a piece of pie! The pie was yummy, and the cache wasn’t too hard, as long as we kept an eye on all the muggles.

The last one!

A couple caches later, we arrived at GC6CT6C Utah GeoTour-Washington – Gunlock State Park. Another almost empty state park, and another GeoTour cache. But this wasn’t just a regular GeoTour cache – this was the last one we needed to complete the official requirements for the Utah GeoTour jackets! 😀

This GeoTour is by far the best GeoTour we’ve ever done! And we are looking forward to come back to find the remaining caches we need, in order to get the souvenir as well. We hope to write a separate blog post summarizing our experience with the Utah GeoTour. It has taken us three years to get here (plus the year before that, when we found a couple of the caches before they were official GeoTour caches).

Hello Arizona, Goodbye Arizona

We were a bit ahead of schedule, for some reason, so we had a lot more time to find bonus caches than we had anticipated. So we did, of course. Then we found  GC1NDMA Border Jumpers ~ Old 91, and entered Arizona. Shortly after, we crossed the border to Nevada – and jumped an hour back in time.

Arriving very early in Mesquite

Since we jumped an hour back in time, we arrived very early in Mesquite. So we had plenty of time to check out the local Arcade, the massive casino (no, we are not gamblers) etc.

The hotel room was once of the nicest on the trip, so this was probably the best day to arrive early 😛

Pictures