Dispatch from the Road 2024

  Our home for the next two weeks Sunday June 23, 2024 We arrived here in Los Alamos on Friday and have the RV set up at Kamp Kolman. The truck is still rolling, but it’s very easy to determine which wheel hub is bad. I have spoken with the local repair shop and will take the truck to them on Monday morning. Wish us luck!   Ironically, it was just a week or so ago I told Millie that the truck has 125,000 miles on it and the next preemptive work I will have done on the truck will be replacing the front wheel hubs. I would rather have had it done at home, because I have a repair shop in Myrtle Beach that I trust. (West Auto) Dave and RaeAnne have had work done at the shop here in Los Alamos and have been satisfied with their experiences. At this point I just have to hope for the best. Life goes on in the Kolman household, Dave and RaeAnne both work, the kids are out of school for the summer, Evan has a summer job at the community center, Marcus is taking the summer off, except for his we

  Our one night stop Wednesday June 19 2024 We left Spanish Trail RV Park at 9;30 this morning, our destination for today is HTR Durango Campground. This is a corporate owned campground and to be honest I expected it to be better than what we found it to be. A creek front site as pictured on their website The staff was nice and the office building looks new, but the campground is old. The sites are small with gravel and weeds, some have water/30 amp electric and some also have sewer. Our site is very narrow and backs to a small creek, but we can’t see it for the weeds. Us backed up to the creek The ride down from Moab was pleasant. There was not much traffic and the occasional passing lane made it easy for us to let any traffic by.  The first half of the trip was on new to us highway, well it was highway we haven’t been on in over ten years. We turned east in Cortez and retraced the route we took earlier this trip. We have another malfunction with the truck that has manifested itself t

 Tuesday June 18 2024 Arches National Park has instituted a timed entry for 2024. We had purchased our pass and arrived at just a few minutes before our scheduled time at 11 AM. When we turned into the park there were two lines of vehicles, at least 25 cars in each. When we got closer to the toll booth I could see that the attendant was scanning phones for the pass and then getting entry payment. I guess that means I wasn’t the only one with the 11 AM entry? One of the many natural arches in the park I had purchased an audio tour of the park to play via my phone. I purchased it thru Trip adviser, all they do is take your money. They did give me a confirmation number, but it was useless. I had to find the actual seller of the app tour on my own and when I did they wanted a password. None of the numbers from Trip adviser worked as a password. I said screw it; they’ll give us a map at the toll booth.  Long range view The moral of this story is if you purchase an audio tour, do not do it t

  Presently in Moab Utah Monday June 17, 2024 We’re in a series of two day stays so it is moving time again this morning. Don’t take that as a negative, we enjoy the journey as much as the destination, sometimes more. Our trip today retraced the route through Capitol Reef National Park on highway 24. Highway 24 thru Capitol Reef   The national Park section of the route was mile after mile of uplifted plates from the earth’s core. Further on it became almost a moon scape, the entire route from Torres to Moab was a variegated changing pattern of colored rock formations.  Downtown Moab Moab has changed a lot since the last time we visited here, with many new modern hotels. There are lots of restaurants, brew pub’s and gift stores. That’s not to say the focus of the tourism industry has changed. Moab is still strongly oriented toward off road adventures. You can rent motorcycles, UTVs and jeeps. There is pretty much any activity that will put sand in your shorts! Lots of businesses in town

  Sunday June 16, 2024 As I stated yesterday, this is a very rural isolated area, the Capitol Reef National Park is about the only point of interest as far as I can tell. And so it is that we have but one event planned, a mostly driving tour of the park. We were disappointed to learn that the eight-mile scenic road is closed for the entire 2024 summer season. We soon found that Hwy 24 which runs through a valley in the rock formations is quite spectacular.  Not having seen the park controlled scenic drive I can’t say for sure, but I can’t imagine it being any more picturesque than Hwy 24. If I let my skeptical side rule, I’d say the park service created their scenic drive just so they could charge you to drive it. Just sayin! The geography of the park was created though natures plan very similar to all the other parks we’ve visited. Over 250 million years the sea’s, swamps and rivers rose and fell depositing sediment across the land. 50-70 million years ago the uplift occurred when ear

  Wonderland RV Park, Torres Utah Saturday June 15 2024 Our two-night stay at Ruby’s Inn and Bryce Canyon is done and we have moved north again. Our new campground is called Wonderland RV Park in Torrey Utah. Its about 100 miles north of Bryce Canyon. It’s a smallish RV Park, right in town. My vibe-o-meter tells me it was an old park that recently has gotten new owners and they have totally renovated the business. The most remarkable thing about it is every site has green grass. You don’t see a fine green lawn much out here in the desert southwest. Bryce Canyon NP to Capitol Reef NP I can’t say we took the road less traveled to get here, there’s only two roads from Bryce to here. I can say our choice was a good one, it was a two-lane country road. The first half of the way was 40 mph speed limit through open range land. (We only encountered one cow who had ventured onto the road) On the upper half of the day’s journey the hills started to rise on each side of the road. Eventually they

The main lobby at the lodge  Friday June 14, 2024 We pretty much just relaxed around the RV this morning. We did ride over to the main complex to check it out. The main Lodge is very impressive, the very large is building is constructed like a log cabin. Prices of everything seemed very high to us, I don’t think this was all inflation, I suspect there is some price jacking because of the remote location. I filled the truck at their gas station at $4.35 a gallon. The Yankee and the Virginians After lunch we drove to Bryce Canyon Scenic Tours and met Kevin our guide and the other couple on our tour. Bob and Wanda Coulton (I think I got that right) are from Virginia. Their roots are from Clarksville Virginia, not far from Millie’s farm and of course they had a common connection. This happens all the time, I think Millie knows or is related to everyone in Virginia. Wanda worked with Millie’s husband’s 2nd cousin's daughter. I think that’s the way it went. Hodo's in the chasm Our to

  Always take the road less traveled! June 13 2024 Nine AM and we were on the road again. Instead of the direct route from Zion to Bryce Canyon we went up interstate 15 to Cedar City. We turned east on Highway14, this way would be a few miles longer but it follows the Cedar River thru beautiful Cedar Canyon and over a spectacular mountain pass that may or may not be called Cedar Pass!  Once over the mountain range we reconnected with Hwy 89, the road to Bryce. Bryce Canyon City aka Ruby's Inn Our campground reservation is at Ruby’s Inn RV Park in Bryce Canyon City. That’s kind of a misnomer, there is no city or even a town. Bryce Canyon City is a conglomerate of every needed amenity located just outside the park entrance. Hotels, campground restaurants, general store , dinner theater, pizza/sandwich café, fuel station, car/rv wash, several gift and souvenir shops, shuttle bus parking and a rodeo. All of this is owned by the descendants of Rueben C. “Ruby” Syrett who started the bus

  The only way into the canyon June 12 2024 It was evident from early on that the day would be as hot as the last two. I had hoped to get Millie into the park today so at least she could say she’d been there even if it was just for a trolley tour.  Millie was adamant that she did not want to go, reason being the scorching temperatures and the crowds, I was turned off more by the flood of people than the temperature, but it was an easy decision, she didn’t care to go and neither did I.  We decided to ride back into the town of Hurricane. There are two thrift stores and a Habitat for Humanity ReStore there. The continuous stream of traffic heading toward the park reaffirmed our decision to write off the Canyon Scenic Drive portion of the park.  We browsed the 2nd hand stores, I think we bought one audio book, We donated a grocery bag of books and DVD’s to the church thrift store. Next we moved to the edge of town  to the Walmart. We spent about fifty bucks for food and supplies, it all f

  The canyon that is Zion Tuesday June 11, 2024 Well, the morning didn’t go the way we thought it would, but we had a plan B. We arose early and were on our way to the park entrance a little after eight. It was looking better than yesterday as we pulled up to the toll gate without having to wait in a line of cars. We entered at no cost using our America the Beautiful pass, the attendant asked if we wanted a map, but she never said a word about parking.  Both lots, the RV lot and the vehicle lot were full. There was not a space to be found and even if someone vacated a spot, there were dozens of cars circling the lot. We decided to drive back outside the park, find a public parking lot in Springdale and take the bus back into the park. There we would rejoin the throng of people waiting to board one of the shuttles that take you into the canyon. They need more parking at Zion. We drove the length of the one street village that is Springdale and didn’t see any available parking. By now I’