Thursday, Dec 28th

  A great start to the day with a hot breakfast in the hotel.  Scrambled eggs, bacon and the usual stuff; well biscuits and gravy as well that we did not partake of.  The breakfast room was pretty empty as most of the hotel guests must have been travelling south and the parking lot was close to empty.  Seniors are not known for sleeping in, rather they are generally early risers and almost compete to be first on the road.  Anyway it worked well for us and the weather was a balmy minus 4C and the roads mostly bare & dry.
  As most of you know, Dillon is at the north end of the dreaded Monida pass.  With the weather, this was one of our best crossings of this pass, so things are starting to go well.  We never fueled last night knowing a pit stop was in our future, so left with 3/4 of a tank.  Stopped in Pocatello, Idaho for fuel just before noon and our timing was perfect.  The weather in Pocatello was very pleasant, it was our first time in the positive temps, i.e.: above freezing.  It was a brief stop and then we pressed on to the south under a clear blue sky.
  Stopped for lunch in Ogden, Utah and managed to find a Taco Bell, one of Marg's favourites in the fast food arena.  We are reasonably familiar with the area as it has a nice RV park that we have used frequently in past years.  I like it too, but it is always a challenge to decide as we don't eat a lot of Mexican food in GP.  We both selected well and were satisfied with our choice.  When it came to a drink, I tried the sweetened ice tea, but it was too much of a departure from what we have back home so had pink lemonade.  I know, but it was good.  Having the half day advantage from an early departure we decided the luxury of an eat-in for lunch was our best option.
  By the time we got back on the road the lunch hour traffic had died down and we made good time.  We also used the HOV lane through Salt Lake City, which worked really well for us.  It takes over an hour at 70 mph to get through the metropolitan area even in the fast lane, but it was uneventful.  Again roads were in perfect winter driving conditions and they had almost no snow in the area around SLC and even less as we progressed south.  We stopped for a break in Beaver, Utah for a rest stop and Marg got a watermelon Slurpee.  If you see her FB site, she likely posted a picture of it.  Traffic was a bit heavier by Beaver and noticeably so by the time we got to Cedar City.  Probably all the Mormons going to Las Vegas as there are no casino's in Utah.
  Marg phoned and got a hotel reservation at a Howard Johnson in St. George.  I thought the exit #6 sounded familiar and it turned out to be across the road from our old RV park [Temple View], where we used to store the motorhome from the fall until we got down in the winter.  Went out and washed the truck, it was pretty much covered in road grit, fueled it and went out for supper.  I was looking for one of Marg's fav's Jakers, but it was not to be.  We instead happened on an Appleby's luckily another of her favourites.  We usually have our first meal if in St George at Crackerbarrel but if in Pocatello at Appleby's.  But to show we are not set in our ways really mixed it up tonight.  The weather, oh yeh, plus 13C here, shirt sleeve weather.  That makes 1,100 km's today and we are well positioned to arrive at our scheduled time in Apache Junction as we will spend the night in Las Vegas tomorrow.  Things are definitely looking very positive here, particularly when I looked at the weather in GP.