Our plan for travel was quite simple. Fly from Calgary to Salt Lake City, rent a car and drive to Green River Utah and stay at our favourite budget accommodation the Budget Inn. Upon reflection our flights were my second biggest mistake of the trip. In an effort to save some money, which is always a good idea, instead of flying direct to Salt Lake City, I chose a cheaper option which involved flying to Phoenix AZ first, then back up to Salt Lake City. Considering we arrived at the Calgary airport 2 hours before our flight and it is a one hour drive from home to the airport, by the time we touched down in Salt Lake City at 1 pm we had been traveling for 10 hours!
After landing we had to gather our luggage and get our rental car. I would be surprised if we were on the road before 2 pm. We were traveling as if we were backpacking so minimal fresh food and mostly dried food. We stopped to get supplies from a grocery store and then Cabela’s in Lehi to stock up on camping food plus fuel and matches for the stove. There was a Five Guys Burgers and Fries near the Cabela’s so we stopped for a greasy delicious dinner of burgers, fries and pop. The song “Sweet Caroline” was playing on the on the radio at Five Guys, I started singing along and apparently Siobhan recorded it and shared it with her friends back home via social media. I heard about it from many of my students when we got back to school! I have a picture of Siobhan waiting in line at Five Guys the time stamp is 3:30 pm it was still just under a 3 hour drive to Green River.
We had purchased dry bags to keep all our stuff dry on the trip. We spent the evening in the motel repacking. We had to be in Moab at Tex’s Riverways by 8 am so we made an attempt to get to bed early as it was still an 1 hour drive from the motel to Moab.
Good night from the Budget Inn, Green River, Utah.