Home For The Summer.

 

May 19, 2023

Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area

Red Canyon Road

We made it!  Seven months after leaving our extended stay service with the Corps of Engineers at Allatoona Lake we're here.  Our experiment of traveling with a truck, trailer, SUV, and cargo trailer has been better than anticipated with the exception of said SUV going tango uniform (see previous post).  We covered almost three thousand miles as a caravan, driving separately but close enough together that a pair of little family channel walkie-talkies kept us in contact.  Even with the limited range of the little radios they were far superior to cell phones since we were traversing long stretches with no cell signal whatsoever.

From our position in southern Utah there was really only one, practical path we could take to our destination on Red Canyon Road and that was via Vernal, UT.  The mapping apps predicted a four hour drive, which means at least five hours for us.  We'll stop in Vernal at their Super Walmart and top off the fuel tank of Cyndee's vehicle and pick up enough groceries to get us by for a couple of weeks.

Coming out of Thompson Springs, UT on Interstate 70 was a little tense.  Our lumbering caravan moving along at 65 mph while traffic around us was at 80+mph caused a little stress.  But that only lasted for 28 miles until we turned north on UT 191 and began a track across good but narrow two-lane plateau top and relatively easy mountain roads.  But we earned our salt for the day driving the mountain roads between Vernal and Red Canyon Road.  LOTS of 8% grades and sharp, hairpin-turn switchbacks.  The switchbacks had turning radii that were amenable to a tractor-trailer so I didn't drop any wheels off the pavement or anything but 180 deg direction changes while pulling an 8% grade degraded my speed to less than 15mph at times.  The truck hit coolant temperatures it had never seen before.  All in all, we climbed 3,000 feet between Vernal and the end of the dramatic switchbacks in only twenty miles of lateral travel.  And 80% of the elevation change occurred over a six mile stretch.  I need a dry shirt.

After the steep switchbacks the rest of the drive was a breeze.  We rolled through some beautiful country, soaring, snow-covered mountain tops, forests of ponderosa pine and steep canyon walls dropping down to lush green valleys.  Our destination was just minutes away.  We found, and made, the requisite turns onto numbered forest roads and crept along to ever smaller and the less visibly marked road we were to take to our campground for the next four months.

We found what looked like the road we were supposed to turn on but it was very narrow and lead into a stand of ponderosa pine trees.  The trees were so thick it was not possible to see if our campground was down this road.  It looked very cramped in those woods and I was not about to go poking around with a tall, long and heavy rig.  I radioed Cyndee and asked her to go in and investigate.  She disappeared into the centuries old growth and it seemed like forever before her voice came over the radio saying that our name was on a tree next to an RV pad.  She said it was going to be tight getting there but our pad was plenty big.

  

Our rig is once again a cabin in the woods.
All dirt, picnic table and a community fire ring about 100' away.

Our arrival was on a Friday, there was one volunteer couple that had arrived ahead of us but our timing was good as this day was the first day that water had been turned on to the campground.  Over the coming weekend there would be two more RVing volunteer couples arrive.  The four of us will fill out the Interpretive Group ranks and there would soon be two more couples that will work on the boat launching ramp below the gorge dam, on the Green River.  One of the couples will be staying in a duplex that is in the volunteer campground.

Monday came around and our Volunteer Coordinator wasted no time in starting our orientation training, uniform fitting and a string of get-to-know-you introductions to the various departments supporting Flaming Gorge.  Over the next several days we de-mothballed the Visitor Center and Swett Ranch.  The Visitor Center was just a matter of dusting, sweeping and learning how to operate things like the audio/visual equipment and cash register.  But not Cyndee and I.  Our interpretive assignment was to be docents at the Swett Ranch.  We got in deep getting that place opened up.  There were nine buildings that had to be, literally, de-mothballed.  There were hundreds upon hundreds of moth balls everywhere in an attempt to discourage rodents from occupying the interior spaces during the winter shutdown.  It didn't work.  What some of those rodents left in some of the spaces would gag a maggot on a gut truck.

Everybody was gloved and masked up for cleaning the hard surfaces in the cabins and house.  The horse barn and workshop were declared a loss and entering them was forbidden without a hazmat suit.  I was somewhat spared the worst of it as I was immediately sent to the equipment shed to get new blades on a push mower and service and get running a lawn tractor.  Meanwhile Cyndee was helping haul out all the textiles that had been secured in large plastic totes for the winter.  There was a slug of quilts that the Swetts had made and were original to the property that were well preserved and put into service on the beds they were made for.  The week leading up to the  Memorial Weekend opening was turning out to be physically taxing and mind over gag reflex.  But things are looking good and we're ready.

And here is our little group.
This was Swett Ranch prep day.  Knowing it to be a difficult day 
our Volunteer Coordinator treated us to a home made picnic lunch.

In addition to our picnic lunch we were given a backroad tour from the ranch up to the paved road leading to our campground.  The road was best driven by high clearance vehicles, which we all had.  It was slow going but the view was awesome.

The scenic route out of Swett Ranch.
The clearing in the lower-center is the Swett Ranch.

Okay, here we go.  Our summer gig is prepped, opening day is immanent.  Now we just have to execute.

Last Tour Before Summer Gig, With A Twist

 

We're two days away from making our last leg to Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area.  Before we go we have one more southern Utah National Park to see, Capitol Reef.  Of all the National Parks we have visited in this region it will be the smallest.  Touring it will be a short day for us compared to our other tours for the last two weeks.  Or so we thought.

Capitol Reef

May 17, 2023

Chief, our truck, had been getting in on the touring action the last couple of trips so today we switched over to Pepe knowing we were not going to be getting off the pavement.  We got an early start from our base camp in Thompson Springs, UT and breezed in to Capitol Reef by 9:00 am, 111 miles later.

My opening statement may be a little misleading.  Capitol Reef appears to be small if you are sticking to paved roads as we are.  But if you have an off-highway vehicle or really good knees there are more than 377 square miles to explore, all of it rugged.  But our time is short today, we have to get back to base camp and start getting in travel mode for our leg north to Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area, our gig for the summer.

Sticking to the pavement and seeing an abbreviated portion of the park did not leaving us feeling short-changed on "oohhs", "aahhs" and "wows".  Capitol Reef is a beautiful place and while bustling it was not crowded.  No timed entry and relatively easy parking at points of interest.

We made our obligatory stop at the visitor center and got the passport book stamped as well as a sew-on patch for the travel blanket.

This feature is right across from the Visitor Center.
Aptly named The Castle.

This park is popular with the bicycle crowd.
They were everywhere.

It was a great view but if you look closely at the bottom right corner you can see the pavement end and a dirt road begin.  We're going to break our plan and go off-pavement.

The road might as well have been paved.  It was in excellent shape and
the drive was beautiful.

There was more to be seen by getting out of the car.
Spring was well underway in this canyon.

Sure, the big draw to these Utah parks are their grand vistas.
But there is plenty of beauty to be seen in the diminutive too. 

In ancient times this must have been a doozy of a river.
Now it is a flash flood spectacle.

The sedimentary layering is impressive, eons of deposits.

This layering captured both Cyndee's and my attention.
Each layer was so fine and delicate appearing, as if it were
a flaky pastry.

A little perspective of scale.  That little blue spot is Cyndee.

A most enjoyable day but it was time to get back to base camp and start prepping for our 225 mile leg to the Red Canyon Visitor Center of Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area.  Pepe, Cyndee's 2018 Hyundai Santa Fe, had been a factor in enjoying the day, always a comfortable ride while only sipping fuel.

Pepe

But today was not to be like always.  Just as we left the entrance gate to Capitol Reef, Pepe gave a great "cough" and his check engine light came on.  It only took another few seconds to realize that he had also entered the "limp home" mode.  Top speed 45 mph.  And we were about to get on an Interstate with a posted speed of 80 mph.

It was white-knuckle off and on.  We could get a good head of steam going downhill and not be so noticeably slower than the traffic around us.  But getting up the next hill made the veins in my neck stick out.  And that is the way it stayed until we limped into Green River, UT.  There we consulted with two different garages and were given the same sickening news.

Keep in mind that the reason the news was such a shock is because Cyndee researched cars for MONTHS before she decided on the make and model she wanted.  Nowhere, at any time, was there ever a mention of what we had just heard, twice in 90 minutes.

So what did we hear?  We were told without hesitation by two separate mechanics that we had hit a limit on mileage for our particular motor.  It seems it had developed a reputation for giving up at approximately 100,000 miles.  We had just passed 90,000 on our way up from Texas to Utah.  Diagnostic check confirmed that a major malfunction was unfolding as evidenced by compressed air/exhaust escaping from the oil filler tube when the cap was removed.  Again, in both cases, we were told that it would be more expensive to fix the engine than to put a new one in, at a cost of at least $7K.  Plus, finding a new engine may take weeks or even months because they were in shortage.  I asked the second mechanic if he could reset the engine fault code and clear the limp home mode.  He could and he did.  We motored on to Thompson Springs, there were some rapid decisions and actions to be done.

This is where being a full-timer has unwanted adventure.  We had less than 24 hours to dispose of one vehicle and acquire another.  All the while being in a remote area. I suppose that there are those that do that but we're not one of them.  We ponder, research, ponder some more and then shop for a bargain.  This takes time, lots of time.  Time we don't have now.

Cyndee hit the keyboard as soon as we stepped in the rig.  She spent a long night trying to find something that met our needs and close enough that we could complete the purchase the next day.  Happily she found some possibilities.  All we had to do was get to Grand Junction, Colorado, about an hour east of us first thing in the morning.

I was dreading the process.  I have no love lost for dealerships and their sales people.  I thought the day was going to be miserable dealing with both.  But we watched the sun rise as we drove to Grand Junction and rolled into Western Slope Automotive as their first victims, uh customers of the day.  Boy, what a surprise, the used car dealer we were contacted by actually listened to what we were looking for and he knew his inventory and was able to get us narrowed down to three choices in a matter of minutes.  Cyndee and I spent what seemed to us a rushed few minutes looking over the three choices.  One didn't have the needed tow package and we settled on one of the other two to take on a test drive.

The salesman tossed us the keys and described a circuit to drive that would take about 15 minutes.  It included city blocks, a section of interstate and a construction zone with rough, tore up road.  We took turns driving the circuit and both of us concluded we had found the right vehicle.  Me more than Cyndee.  She didn't appreciate the larger displacement engine and its commensurate acceleration as much as I.  Now came the hard part, writing the check.  We had to take money earmarked for a litany of projects and other future spending but it is necessary.

On the morning of May 18th we were happy as clams with our Pepe.  By 4:00pm on May 19th Pepe was history and there was a new vehicle in our stable.

There it is, the replacement.
2022 Ford Edge

Most of our time in Grand Junction was spent signing documents, transferring titles and prying the check out of my hand.  Cyndee made me drive a circle around the office on our way out so she could see Pepe one last time.  Letting go is hard.

As soon as we arrived back at base camp I had to get to work getting the hitch set up and connecting the trailer for tomorrows drive through steep mountain grades and a multitude of sharp switchbacks.

Look out Flaming Gorge, here we come.

I Love the High Desert!

 

It's true, I do.  Cyndee, not so much.

Don't get me wrong, Cyndee is okay with the desert, she's just not as enamored with it as I am.  She has thoroughly enjoyed our arches and canyons tour.  Which brings us to today's adventure, Canyonlands National Park.  It's a big park so we're going to spread our visit out over two days.

Island in the Sky, Canyonlands National Park

May 9, 2023

Like the post about Arches National Park, I have lots of photos and narrating them with our travel story would probably come off boring.  So enjoy the pics and a few descriptive blurbs.

The above is Shafer Trail.  It hugs the walls of Shafer Canyon and drops 1,400 ft over a small distance.

Shafer Trail continues down the canyon floor and provides access to the White Rim Trail which is 100 miles long.

The white rim of the White Rim trail.  Our son drove it in its entirety last year.  Made it through some very narrow passages and rock crawls, coming out the other end without having banged up his truck.

Check out the petrified mud in these next two photos.  It is amazing to think this was the floor of an ancient shallow sea.

Off-roaders at a pull-out on the edge of the White Rim Trail.  Can't see them?  See next photo.

Zoomed in on the off-roaders.  The vastness of this place is awesome.

Air quality is an issue in Canyonlands.  There are signs about it in several places.

The white-rimed canyon kept drawing my attention.

Chief was in on the action for our Canyonlands tour.

It was a great day in the Island In The Sky part of Canyonlands.  And as is our usual practice we acquired embroidered patches from the visitor centers of the places we visited.  These patches are eventually sewn on to our "travel blanket" to chronicle the places we have been.  We'll accumulate patches for awhile and then for efficiency we'll get out all the sewing gear and attach several patches at once.  This time when we got home and added the day's patches to the holding bin it was a bit of an eye-opener.  I guess we have been pretty busy this past few months, that bin was bulging.

So out came the sewing machine and we set up a little sewing center in the rig and got busy.

Something else we noticed was that our blanket was getting pretty full.  It was difficult to find spots big enough to fit in many of the patches.  It is a blanket made for a double bed but we've run out of real-estate.  Thought about turning it over and continuing on the other side but that means stitching through the patches on the other side.  Don't know how that is going to work out.  We'll give it a try and see.

The Needles, Canyonlands National Park

May 10,2023

The Needles didn't have an entrance sign like Island In The Sky did, or at least I never could find it, so this story board is a substitute.

And Yep, The Needles look just like the story board says.

I began this post explaining that we were breaking this park into a two-day visit.  It's really big, 527 square miles big.  And another thing that makes it at least a two day visit is that the park is divided into two sections; Island In The Sky and The Needles, which neither one can be accessed from the other by any kind of road.  From our campground base in Thompson Springs, UT it was a 42 mile drive to the visitor center of Arches NP.  To Canyonlands Island In The Sky it was 48 miles.  But to get to Canyonlands The Needles it was 112 miles, just to get to the entrance.  We certainly had to plan for these long days but it was no inconvenience, the scenery everywhere we looked was just stunning.

  

It's May 11th in the high country and barely warm enough for this
fellow to come out and get a little sun.

Again with the ancient, petrified mudflow.

Signs of spring can be found in sheltered, south-facing features.

And of course Chief had to get in on the picture taking.

I have hundreds of pictures from Canyonlands but this is it for this post.  Next up, Capitol Reef.  It will be our last tour of southern Utah before departing for our summer gig in North Utah.