Taking the road trip less traveled can make all the difference

Talk about your perfect mood-setter. Turning off Interstate 15 onto the Great Basin Highway (aka U.S. 93), cowboy yodeler Wylie Gustafson started singing on KNPR radio about "a rootin' tootin' six-gun shootin' yodelin' cowhand." My three-day 520-mile road trip through rural Nevada and rural Utah was officially under way, starting with that straight undulating road that was peaceful, hypnotic and, with increasing speed, became a form of flight from Las Vegas, the city I love, but also love to escape.

Often, it seemed as if my car was the only one on the road. On a Sunday morning in bright sunshine, it was soothing and relaxing. Probably too quickly I had traveled 100 miles to reach the first pit-stop worthy town -- Alamo -- in the lush, green Pahranagat Valley, normally a fun place to fish and look for birds. But I was on a mission. So I stopped only to eat at the Windmill Ridge Restaurant & Bakery and gawk at "A Cowboy's Dream Bed and Breakfast" and wonder about those $500 rooms.

On to Caliente for a hurried stop at the restored railroad station, then a quick drive to the springs at the Kershaw-Ryan State Park before starting interviews in Panaca about the 100th anniversary of Lincoln County High School, my excuse for this road trip. Until the high school anniversary, which wraps up today, made it my destination, for me Panaca had existed only as a green patch a mile off the highway.

I have fond memories of this drive, memories of heading north to Great Basin National Park, the spectacular but least-visited national park in the national system, where the Lehman Caves never fail to fascinate. But this trip was to see places I'd never seen: Panaca in Nevada, Kanab in Utah, Colorado City in Arizona.

I also saw two other worthy stops I'd always blown by: the Kershaw-Ryan State Park in Caliente offering shade and a wading pool, and the Cathedral Gorge State Park near Panaca where erosion created a dramatic maze worthy of a murder mystery.

When work was done, it was drivin' time again from Panaca eastward toward Cedar City, Utah, then on Highway 14 through the Dixie Forest, then on to Kanab. Another easy drive, just 160 miles between Panaca and Kanab.

A few miles outside Kanab, I overshot a sign pointing to Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park -- a place long on my "must see places" list. I thought I'd spend some serious time there. Except it takes wind to create sand dunes and the dunes are more popular with off-roaders than a hiker who doesn't enjoy grit in her eyeballs. A quick photographic stop was satisfying enough.

Onward.

Whoops. Another sign of interest overshot. Best Friends Animal Sanctuary. (If you want to know about the sanctuary, check out Monday's column.)

Kanab is known as "Little Hollywood" because of all the movies and television Westerns filmed there. The spirit of John Wayne was everywhere. The 78-year old Parry Lodge plays up its connections to the filming of countless Westerns, even showing a free Western every night in a barn and naming certain rooms after stars. (I stayed in the Ruth Roman room. Remember Alfred Hitchcock's "Strangers on a Train"? That wasn't made in Kanab, but she was in a boatload of Westerns that were.)

Kanab is a great home base to see the surrounding parks, but this was a short road trip. After touring Best Friends the next morning I headed home via Arizona State Route 389 in order to cruise through Colorado City, Ariz., and Hildale, Utah, two adjacent polygamous communities.

Didn't want to just stop and stare, nor was I third-wife material. Instead, I entered the one spot I thought I'd be welcome -- the pizza joint -- and sure enough, the woman who helped me wore fundamentalist garb. (Pizza is universal, even when it's sold by a woman wearing clothes seemingly from another century.)

This loop north through Nevada and south through Utah wanders through marshland, flatland, farmland, ranch land, forests, canyons and deserts.

Three days traveling three states with one common denominator -- easy-driving roads going to mostly unfamiliar places, a perfect road trip. Often, I drive with purpose taking the interstate. But Robert Frost's whole road less traveled concept is worthy of your consideration for a fall frolic.

Chucking the interstate in favor of state roads is real traveling.

Jane Ann Morrison's column appears Monday, Thursday and Saturday. E-mail her at Jane@reviewjournal.com or call (702) 383-0275. She also blogs at lvrj.com/blogs/morrison.