29th May 2025

First of all, last night’s dinner. As I said, we ate at the Blue Lion Restaurant in Jackson and the food was as good as always.👍

I started with the obligatory salad (there always seems to be a salad course before the Main course in the US!), followed by beef tenderloin, with crab au bleu sauce, mashed potatoes, and asparagus.

Si had stuffed mushrooms consisting of crab, cream cheese, and Courvoisier stuffing followed by the salad and then seared scallops with Sunchoke puree, curried carrots, pickled mustard seas and sesame seeds. To finish off he had the Russian cream and raspberries.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He then staggered out of the restaurant, ready for a lie down! 🫩🛌😂

Today has been another driving day, so we haven’t done much except sit in the car and admire the scenery.

We said farewell to Dornans 😔 where the temperature at 9.30 a.m.was 70ºF (21C) and made our way to Salt Lake City, where the temperature when we arrived was 86ºF (30ºC). 🌞 The drive was very easy, even though we started on small local roads before hitting the highway and took about 4.5 hours.

Our journey was hastened by the fact that some of the highways had an 80 miles per hour (128 kilometers per hour) speed limit.

We are staying over night at the same Best Western we stayed at last week on our way to the Tetons.

I’ve been meaning to say ……………… regular followers of the blog will know that we’ve always called our satellite navigation (satnav) ‘Margaret’ in honour of our dear friend Dot, who has a saying she uses when she wants her car to get a move on and that’s “punch it Margaret”,

We used to include satnav (Margaret) with our hire car from Hertz and sometimes she could be rather difficult (she was getting on in years! 👵) sending us in the wrong direction etc. Well, Margaret retired last year to the home of Elderly Satellite Navigators and as with all things, times change.

Si has free roaming on his phone in the USA (“free roaming” on a phone, in the context of international travel, refers to international roaming plans offered by a mobile carrier that doesn’t charge extra fees for using your phone in other countries) so we now use Google Maps instead. We are pleased to report that the voice guiding us now is actually Margaret’s daughter, also called Margaret in honour of her mother and who is carrying on the family tradition. Touch wood, everything’s been fine so far with Margaret 2.

Today we travelled from Wyoming, then one and a half miles into Idaho and back into Wyoming again before finally landing in Utah.

Along the way we passed through Plymouth and Weston (spooky, that used to be my maiden name!) 😳

One interesting fact is that by using Google maps we receive alerts along the way telling us  there are reports of Police ahead and then a prompt appears on screen asking us to confirm they are still there or have left. The same happens with roadworks and objects in the road! Good system! 👍

On the way back today we had to drive over railway tracks again and this time there was an actual train heading our way, thankfully very slowly. There were no crossing gates or anything telling us a train was coming so that was a little hairy! 😱

For dinner this evening we returned to another favourite eatery, Texas Roadhouse. Again, our dear friend Dot first introduced us many years ago to the wonderful Texas Roadhouse Rolls brushed with sweet honey butter and we always return there if there’s one in town.

I had the 6oz Dallas Fillet. It is a popular steak at Texas Roadhouse and is known for its tenderness and lean, melt-in-the-mouth quality and my goodness are they right! It was fabulous. All the steaks are hand cut. It was accompanied by mashed potatoes topped with bacon and cheese and buttered corn on the side.

Si started with a cup of chilli topped with cheese, followed by a 12oz ribeye steak with a mushroom topping accompanied by mashed potatoes topped with bacon and cheese plus prawns on the side.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some of you will remember that last time we tried to get a drink at the Texas Roadhouse they wouldn’t serve us because we didn’t have our Passports with us! I’m pleased to report that things have improved and they were happy to accept our driving licences instead.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We seem to have lots of pics of us eating today but I know there are regular followers who enjoy nothing more than seeing, in particular, what Si’s been eating. 😂

Here are a few more picture from our journey today.

Tomorrow we travel on to our next destination, Capitol Reef National Park in Utah. The Park covers 58 acres and there’s plenty to do there as well as hike. It is one of the ‘Mighty Five’ National Parks in Utah. The other four are, Canyonlands, Arches, Bryce and Zion.

As for wildlife, Capitol Reef has black bears who are more timid than grizzly bears and tend to shy away from people, but we still have our bear spray and will take that with us, just in case! 🤞

On a closing note, I’ll be lucky if I get this post out tonight as the wi-fi’s being a nightmare and keeps falling out! 😔

Anyway, as always, thanks for reading and we hope you’ll join us tomorrow for the next stage of our adventure.