Yuba Lake State Recreation Area, Utah

What's with the constant sound of big trucks!  Unfortunately, the I-15 is a short distance from the campsite at Willard Bay State Park. Yup that was it .... up and at em. I wanted to get through Salt Lake City before the rush hour started. Of all the major cities we have travelled through for the past 5 years I hate this one the most!  Seattle is next on the list.

Anyways, we were ready to go within an hour and on the road at 6 am. The traffic still was unbelievable, but it was steady going at about 65 mph for the hour that it took to get to the other side of Salt Lake City. Good thing that we were not going north ... there were 3 accidents that had that side of the I-15 in gridlock at 6:30 am!!!!! Did I say how much I hate going through Salt Lake City! Last year we got stuck behind a major accident on the I-15S that completely closed the freeway and had everyone detour over to the Hwy 215 beltway. Took us 2 hours to get through a 30 minute drive. Needless to say, neither Ray or I were happy campers that day!

After making it through, we continued our drive to Nephi and stopped to take on fuel and fill our in-house large propane tank. Diesel was $2.85/gal at the Exxon so that is where we stopped. They also had propane at $2.89 per gallon. After fueling up we went to the other side of the freeway and had breakfast at Denny's at the Flying J. (Their fuel and propane price was $3.10/gal.) After all, we needed to fuel up too as we had been on the road for  over 2  hours with only 1 cup of coffee to sustain us. I was a hard task master this morning, but so worth it to get past that huge city.

Our destination today was for Yuba Lake State Park. The turn off is only 1/2 an hour further down the road from Denny's. Driving through the park 's full hook up sites we found the few sites left were so small or unlevel and for $30, NOT!  We decided to go retrace our path to the Yuba Lake State Recreation Area to the north which is a boondock area. Arrival time, just before 10 am. Took us a short while to set up and then we relaxed outside in the sunshine.  A good rest for Ray after the longer trip yesterday.

This area is an OHV area and for $20/night you have access to garbage and if you go down the road towards the State Park you also have access to the sani-dump and fresh water. The sand dunes and OHV area were closed at this time, probably because there are minimal staff around to police it. Only one park truck drove by ... once in the morning and once at dinner time. Our kind of place. We were the only people there with a great view. Freya had a blast, managing to scare up a few rabbits to chase. There was one other camper on the beach when we arrived, but they left an hour or so later. The lake level is real low at the reservoir, allowing for lots of "beach camping" space. The main access road parallels the paved road and there are many branches leading off to the beach.  There are pit toilets everywhere along the road.  It rained a little before we arrived and some of roads were packed sand mixed with surface mud. I did not want Freya tracking all of that in the coach so we went a little further and found a good hardpack gravel road and site.

Here is an "old" unit. I have never seen a Class C with a dual axle? It sure was noisy growling coming up from the beach.

PS:  No mosquitos!

Later in the afternoon a truck and fifth wheel showed up and went down to the beach to camp. Ray and I had quite a laugh as they had 2 small kids who were running around in circles, so much  so that I thought they had dogs until I checked with the binoculars! lol Then the process of "ejaculating" all of their stuff outside from every nook and cranny so they could actually get in the fifth wheel. It sure reminded me of our early years camping when Garrett and Kristi were small and all the parafanalia that you brought to keep them occupied.

After lunch Ray took Freya down with the car to the beach to play on the sand for awhile. I did not want him to walk that far as I knew he was pretty sore and it's uphill all the way back!

I took the picture on my phone from my chair.

Just after he left this truck looked like he was going to crash the gate and come into our campsite! I think he rammed his trailer into the bank across the road to get turned around.

When he got back it was time for him to have a "toes up" as he was still recovering from our longer drive yesterday. The clouds came in and it looked like rain, but it seemed to pass us by. I put on a batch of bread in the bread machine and if it smartens up again we might sit outside again.

After dinner we went for a walk and Ray took some sunset pictures. We'd love to stay another day but unfortunately we have reservations at Ruby's Inn and RV Park in Bryce for the next 3 days. (Had to call and reserve because online it said they were all booked up and I was afraid we would not get a spot!).  Funny, their website says save 30% booking online, which shows all sites reserved, but you get a spot by calling.... hmmm.

We're still having a few problems with our satellite TV, missing channels and Ray thought it might  be the wiring again.  After a call to ShawDirect after half an hour the techie finally asked where we were, oh oh!  Turns out a bunch of our HD channels do not work here as Shaw is migrating to a new satellite, which you can't access from down here . By 2020 all of the HD channels will be moved to the new satellite. I spent a half hour changing a whole bunch of my taping to non-HD channels with no time shift to be able to record. Bummer. 

Our campsite with lots of space. The rabbitbush is all in bloom.

Our View, bit of a deluge in the back.

Destination tomorrow ... Bryce Canyon

PPS: Just looked at the Weather Network and as of Friday/Saturday Yellowstone area, the snow ceiling will drop from 9000 feet to 5500 feet. At our last campsite we were at 6800 feet. We would have been in more snow!!!!! Made the right decision to get outta there!