Ruth's Life is Good: Thursday 10-8-26 New State, Weather & Having Fun

Friday, October 9, 2026

Thursday 10-8-26 New State, Weather & Having Fun

Welcome to Utah sign

I didn't say why we left Montana a couple of days ago. We were going to spend another week or so visiting Montana's National Forests and State Parks but the weather was going to deteriorate. They were predicting temperature in the morning in the lower 20s to teens and it wasn't going to get out of the 30s. They also said they were going to have snow, sleet and rain Saturday thru Monday. So we decided we would head south to warmer temperatures.

Rain

Snow

This morning the temperature was 39 degrees at Shoshone-Bannock Casino Hotel in Fort Hall Idaho. The high in Panguitch Utah was 76 degrees.

We had a very long day of driving. We started from Buffalo Meadow RV Park at Shoshone-Bannock Casino Resort at 6:30 am and stopped at Panguitch Park at 3:00 pm, which was 430 miles. The drive was mainly I15 South until we got on Utah Highway 20 the last 32 miles. As we drove we snacked on Jack Links Beef Jerky and other snacks. Thank you Louise for the jerky. Salt Lake City was 175 miles from the casino. We drove in Idaho for 90 miles before crossing into Utah, which was 85 miles from Salt Lake City. Once the sun came up we saw a beautiful mountain range. We got to Salt Lake City and surrounding area at 9:00 am. It was very stressful for Larry driving through this area, there were seven lanes of heavy traffic. We're not use to all the traffic. Larry was glad to get through Salt Lake City but we had heavy traffic all the way to Provo Utah. The air quality in Salt Lake City was very bad you could barely see the mountains. But I was able to get a picture of the Capitol Building as we were driving. We saw a lot of rolling hills and ranches. When we got to Plymouth UT we saw five deer running through a field by the Nucor Steel Plant. We stopped at Mona UT and filled the Minnie with gas at the Phillip 66. It was lunchtime so shared a Spicy Italian 6" sub at Subway in the parking lot. Then we were on the road once more. We had another 180 miles to go. We stopped a couple more times for bathroom breaks and to stretch our legs. We exited the interstate at the Panguitch Kanab exit and drove Highway 20 for 32 miles. This highway was up a curvy mountain road and down it. It had beautiful scenery. We got to Panguitch Park at 3:00 and parked the Minnie for the night.

The mountain range between Montana and Utah state line.

Jack Links Beef Jerky

Capitol Building in Salt Lake City

Mountain range outside of Salt Lake City

Panguitch City Park is a pretty park with a splash pad, three baseball fields, batting cages, practice pitcher mount, playground and they were building a big pavilion. We are dry camping in the parking lot. We do not need any power and we have our bathroom.

We relaxed for the rest of the day. Larry got caught up with the groups he follow on the internet. He decided where we're going tomorrow. I played games. I did the Daily Challenges of Solitaire and Mahjong. I did the Daily Event, which was Event: Easy Street of 30 games. It took me 1 hour, 8 minutes and 6 second to complete, which put me in 13th place in my group.

While we were relaxing the sky started to get black clouds. There was thunder and lightening. I went outside and took a few pictures. We got a little rain but the mountains got more. The park had a beautiful sunset. So today I saw the sunrise and the sunset.