IA/Utah/Vegas/Utah/IA

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Last week of April, wife and I got Sporty out and headed west/sw. Hadn't seen my Uncle in Vegas in years and though it would be a perfect turn around point for the 9 days we had avail. As always, 10 hours ANY DIRECTION from Iowa to get us started on any adventure ...headed on 4lane as far as we had to...made it to the Lincoln Memorial (of Wyoming) rest stop our first night (been there many times heading W, perfect stop from DSM, IA to crash)...then up to Provo on our first 'real' night out. Wife is a HUGE essential oil head, so we needed to go to the Young Living factory and then farm to get that taken care of. Stayed the night in a PERFECT state campground on Provo, right next to the airport there. It was on the marsh end of the freshwater lake, but no skeeters this time of year!! From the Young Living Farm/Mona (s of Provo) we headed west on HWY 6 to 36 close to Dugway before taking the Dugway/Geobed Rd to the Geode beds. You travel along an old Pony Express route, with an occasional marker and and old building site. Pretty smooth gravel....as always, looking out for the sharp rocks at times.. Was able to average 40mph (though)....made it to beds area before sundown. Didn't head back into grounds, thought we would wait till A.M. great boondocking area and found a great pile of split geodes somebody else thought wasn't good enough, but GREAT for us! The next morning, traffic to the beds was insane! Truck after truck, then cars (which I can't believe were trying, and then the camper came in WTF?!) so we took the ones we found and headed on down the road! It was Sat, so I am thinking mon- Wed next time. Got back to HWY 6 /2 lane and FINALLY stopped at U-Dig Trilobites (after driving by 3x in the past). Really smooth 20+ mile dirt rd. drive to quarry...would have spent days there! got some GREAT fossils and headed down the rd. Did some more boondocking after a tip in the Utah Gem Hunting book...found a couple more really nice leaf fossils and found out/reminded that the SW is SCORPION country!!! I was picking up some white shale and notice a decent sized bug wandering off and realized it was a small scorpion (the worst) had to yell at the wife to look out...we saw more but were now on guard...after that landed in Vegas late afternoon and wanted to make sure to hit a Seafood buffet. Rio was/is still the one everyone agrees is it (and we are giving it up/buffets, but that's another story) We pulled into Rio and they guided us to the "back lot" where oversized etc park. MAN WHAT LUCK!! We were on of about 8 total vehicles and it faced the back of the strip! The back entrance was close to the business center, so awesome bathrooms to the right, Starbucks and the casino to the left....staying there again anytime we are out there!!! After seeing Uncle Bill the next day, we were back off heading home. We stayed at a few state parks on the way back heading to Zion, Choral Pink Sand State park (that is a MUST for campground camping, related to an awesome site), and finally boondocking by Goblin Valley State Pk (LOTS of BLM land just outside the park)...woke up and got on the four lane (I-70) to head to head back east. Stayed in Denver that night on street behind the hotels by the old airport (we gave up on Walmarts when we needed a quick pit stop, too many loud trucks stopping by all night presumably taking pics, but waking us up!!) Pics and some more pics coming! 1. Provo area St. Pk 2. hour or so down the gravel at the Pony Express monument 3. out of order, Young Living MFG site 4. Road to Geode beds 5. Map