Home away from Home

 

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 hear a bad front wheel hub. 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 weekly violin lessons.

 

I have been getting acquainted with the Kolman Kats. Yesterday I was upstairs assembling a desk and both cats had to see what I was doing. I think they were more interested in the packing material from the shipping container. I made a “cat house” for them out of some carboard and that kept them occupied long enough that I could remove the Styrofoam packing, which they really liked to tear apart.

Oreo and Tippy

 

I left the cardboard house for the cats after I cleaned up, which I guess was a mistake because the boys were soon using it as a sled and sliding down the staircase on it. Such is life with two young boys.

aka Marus and Evan

Millie and RaeAnne took advance of the weekend and went on a Mother/daughter shopping excursion to Sante Fe on Saturday. 

Dave, who is an early morning runner had his first face to face encounter with a bear on the trail. When we were here several weeks ago he had his first trail encounter with a skunk. He survived both meetings unscathed!

I think I'd rather cross paths with the bear!

And so it goes!

Moab Utah to Durango Colorado

 

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 today. Actually we’ve been hearing suspicious rumbling’s before, but today we’ve had to stop the wishful thinking and admit something is wrong. I suspect we have a bad front wheel bearing on the truck. 

It's always something!

I jacked the front of the truck up here at the campground and the wheels are not loose (yet) nor do they feel rough when I spin them by hand, but the sound when we are rolling is compelling.

 

We debated our options and decided to skip our next campground in Del Norte Colorado and head directly to Los Alamos New Mexico. Once we get to our basecamp at RaeAnne’s house we will take the truck to be repaired. That way we won’t be stuck here in the event the job takes several days.

 

We planned on being in Los Alamos for two weeks anyhow, and that’s seems to be the best place to take care of the problem.  

Arches National Park

 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 through a third party. Go directly to the app provider and make the deal there. PS: You do not need an audio tour for this park or for that matter, any of the other parks we have visited this trip!

We've seen enough red rocks for a while!

We have been in seven (If you could the Valley of the Gods as a park) National Parks on this trip. We have not even tried to grade them, as they are all very scenic and each has slightly different attributes. 

If we were to rank then parks on a list, Archer NP would be up there near the top of the list. Ironically, The Valley of the Gods would also be a contender for the top spot, and it is not even a National Park. The Valley of the Gods is just a 17 mile gravel road through BLM land.

Valley of the gods

Moab Utah

 

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 rent these UTV's

As we have been doing in all these two day stops, we explore the town on the afternoon we get there. On the 2nd day we do whatever the main attraction for the place is. That has mostly been National Parks and although its debatable it is the main attraction, the entrance to Arches National Park is right here in downtown Moab. 

Capitol Reef NP part two

 

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 earth’s tectonic plates were actively moving. Erosive wind and weather shaped the uplifted rock into what we see today. I wonder what’s coming next?

All the hiking trail parking was full, in the few spots we stopped at we were immediately attacked by swarms of biting nats. That really put a damper in any thoughts we had of hiking.

One point of interest within the park is a preserved fruit orchard and its associated buildings. It was created by the Mormon’s in the 1880’s. The park service continues to cultivate the orchards and you are free to eat the fruit in season.

There is evidence of humans living at Capitol Reef dating back to 1300CE. What is CE you may ask? For the new social order, it is the same as AD or After Death, no religious connotations allowed! When did our leaders sneak this into the vernacular? 

Sorry, I’ve diverted from my subject. I mentioned ancient people living here because they left petroglyphs carved into and painted on rock walls. The pictures here and all the ancient people’s drawings we have seen everywhere from New Mexico to Arizona to all the National Parks here in Utah are exactly the same. 

They are dominated by men with a triangular shaped upper body, often with a round helmet or antenna sticking out of their head. They sometimes have a swirling circle next to them, no one knows what this means, is it perhaps the ancient’s way of describing someone suddenly appearing out of the sky?

A long ways to walk to share drawing techniques.

 How do you suppose that is possible that people who lived hundreds of miles apart, often separated by hundreds of years and of different ethnicities are carving the same picture? 

Millie also noted that in no area have we seen any petroglyph carvings of women. What’s wrong with these people, why no stone age playboy petroglyphs!

It’s all a mystery!

PS: When we got back to the town of Torres, we had an exceptionally good pizza as a Father’s Day meal. 

PSS: Filled the truck with gas here in Torres, $4.59 a gallon

Capitol Reef National Park Part One

 

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 closed in on the highway and the speed dropped to 25 mph as we wound our way through a narrow pass where the hills came together. 

The entire route was scenic and little used. We saw very few homesteads, a couple small villages and almost no traffic. The only real activity we saw was near the Otter Creek Reservoir, were we saw boats being pulled behind vehicles and UTV’s driving on the roadway.

We had a scare with the truck when we got to the RV Park, I heard a strange noise coming from the front of the engine. I knew it wasn’t an internal engine noise and my first thoughts were a bad bearing in the alternator or one of the idler pulleys for the serpentine belt. Turned out to be the air pump for the truck horns, which is mounted just below the radiator was running continuously.  I can’t access the associated pump/tank/hoses assembly here on the road, I’ll fix it when we get home. I pulled the fuse as a temporary fix to stop the compressor.

In keeping with our two days stay routine we just relaxed at the RV for the rest of the day. Tomorrow we will do a self-guided driving tour of Capital Reef National Park, the entrance to which is located just three miles from town.

Bryce Canyon Day Two

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 tour vehicle was a small, air-conditioned bus, the tour company provided us with complimentary bottled water and snacks. The small bus was easy to maneuver and park in the scenic overview lots and we never had to search for a parking spot.

Hodo's everywhere you look

I had done no research on Bryce Canyon before the trip and had no clue what to expect. Kevin, our guide soon informed us that Bryce is not really a canyon, it is a connected series of very deep chasms. All of the viewing points we visited gave us a different angle to view the deep clefts in the surface of the earth.

Every view-point had at least one trail head that you can hike down into the chasm

Bryce’s claim to fame is all of the spires (Hodo’s). There are more of them here than anywhere else in the world. There are over 28,000 Hodo’s (who-do’s) in the park, its really quite an impressive site, 

Kevin was thoroughly knowledgeable about the park and its environs and had an answer for our every question. The tour was reasonably priced, and we enjoyed it very much.

Millie and Kevin, our tour guide

Bryce Canyon Day One

 

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 business in 1916.

The Silver Bullet at the main Lodge at Ruby's

The campground is large having 250 campsites for anything from tent campers to the largest RV’s. We have a nice partially shaded full hookup site on the end a row, so we only have neighbors on one side.

Home Sweet Home

We have scheduled a semi-private (two couples) guided tour of the park for tomorrow. This afternoon we drove around the outside perimeter of the park to a waterfall. It was a 1/2-mile hike, the weather was in the low 80's, it was very comfortable. We discovered the water flowing over the falls comes down a diversion canal to the falls. Between 1890's four Morman Pioneers labored for four years to dig the ten-mile canal by hand. It was originally used to supply water to the newly established town of Topic.

The falls at Mosley Cave

Zion part three

 

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 fit in a couple small bags.

Lunch

It was now lunchtime and I had already picked out a restaurant. The Rooster Run Cafe was my kind of place, a step above your classic diner. We both ordered Fish and chips and devoured our plates.

We just enjoyed the rest of the day, in the evening we sat outside on our little plot of green grass and enjoyed the cool air.

After thoughts about not seeing the scenic drive. 

We did see a lot of the park; we drove the east side road and the Kobal Terrace road. If we had been able to get back in the park, we would have glimpsed the upper canyon from the confines of a packed bus. Somehow, that doesn’t sound like an enjoyable experience.

This is the way I see them

Foremost, we are reasonably healthy for our age, but we live at 31 feet above sea level, the road thru the main canyon is 4000-4500 feet, hiking any of the trails would be going higher and we have not trained for the exertion the altitude combined with 100+ degree temperature would subject us to. I recorded temperatures today at the RV of 117 degrees in the sun and 105 in the shade.

And then there’s that………..let me phrase this without sounding pretentious, my personality doesn’t require a lot of people around me. There were a lot of people at Zion.

We can always come back if we want to, but we probably won’t. We can placate our loss by reminiscing about all the really fantastic places we have been. I conservatively estimate we have traveled over 100,000 miles in two motorhomes and the travel trailer.

And it's not over yet!

Zion part two

 

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’m starting to wonder what I’m even doing here. Even if we were able to get into the Canyon, it would in no way be communing with nature. I doubt you could take a picture without having other tourists in the frame. 

Wilderness experience?

Besides all the parking and overcrowding problems, it is also extremely hot here. We saw temperatures as high as 117 degrees later that day. We had already agreed that we would not be doing any hiking in the canyon because of the weather. It’s not the high temperatures that are dangerous, personally I like it. It’s the very low humidity that causes dehydration and the blistering sun that will crackle your skin if you don’t protect it. Later that day we learned our camper neighbor suffered a heat related medical emergency after hiking.

First thing we did was drive to the town of Hurricane and wash the truck. After driving the truck thru the last two parks it was covered with red dust.

In part of my studies at YouTube University I learned about a road that entered the back side of Zion. The scenery is fabulous and almost nobody goes there. Kobal Terrace Road began about 1000 feet down the street from the campground. 

The secret side of Zion

Returning from the car wash we decided to explore Kobal Terrace. The first several miles the terrain was like Zion. I told Millie we were looking at the back side of the canyon walls and there were thousands of people on the other side. 

The back side of the Canyon

Further on the ground became green with grasses and other vegetation. The lower landscape is dominated by Pinyon Pine and as the road climbed in elevation we came giant ponderosa pines and finally a beautiful grove of aspen trees. The highest elevation we saw on the GPS was 7980 feet. 

The road meanders in and out of the national park boundary marked by small wooden signs. On the privately owned land we saw a few cabins along the road, but nothing anyone lived in year-round. Interestingly, we saw that they have recently run internet conduit along the road up here, for who, I wonder? After 22 miles we came to a fairly large reservoir. The road continued, but the paving stopped at the reservoir. After all the time we spent cleaning the truck at the carwash we didn’t want to get it dusty again so soon. We turned around and went back to the campground.

We spent the afternoon relaxing and enjoying each others company. How will tomorrow, our last day in Zion unfold?  We’ll decide in the morning.