2008 - Week 2


May 6, 2008:
Slow day today! First order of business was a trip to the dentist in Evergreen. He fixed it promptly at a cost less than a tank of gas. Susie and I then went to Safeway to replenish our fresh fruit and vegetable supplies. Plain old bananas were $0.69/lb compared to the $0.49/lb at home. We then filled up with gas at a gas station that was not shown on our GPS. Lunch was at a small deli, and the owner brought us carrot cake as a complimentary desert. Back to Diana’s where we disassembled her new grill, loaded it into the back of her SUV and returned it to Home Depot. She found that it is almost impossible to buy a grill that runs off natural gas. We met Paul for dinner and returned home for laundry and to play with the blogs. There were some rain sprinkles when we went to bed at 11:00pm.

May 7, 2008:
We were awaken by heavy rain at 2:00am and by the time we got up there had been 3/4” of rain. We were concerned that there might have been snow in the mountains, but a check of the road reports showed that the rain had passed across the mountains and was about to pass Denver. We had breakfast and left Diana and Paul to pack for their 7-day wedding anniversary trip to the San Juan Islands in Washington State. They take a trip every year, usually with a tour, and camp out, but this year the trip was cancelled due to a lack of participants. They decided to go anyway. They will give us feedback so when we get there in July we’ll have first-hand knowledge. Back on I-70 headed west. Diana’s house is at 6,024 feet and Susie had been taking altitude pills, but the trip through the Loveland Pass at 11,200 feet left her feeling terrible. It wasn’t until we got to Dillon CO, north of Breckenridge, that she began to feel better. A cup of strong caffeinated coffee put her over the edge. We have taken this route once before but never with snow on the mountains. They were still actively skiing in several areas, mostly between Denver and Dillon. We are not sure, but it seems there were many more oil or natural gas drill rigs along the route of I-70 than we saw during our last trip through this area in 2004. The best part of the trip was the drive through Glenwood Canyon. I-70, the Colorado River and a single set of railroad tracks are all crammed in the bottom of this narrow but deep canyon. We ate lunch in a Rest Area near the town of No Name (no joke) CO at the west end of Glenwood Canyon and watched Amtrak passenger train headed west and a few whitewater rafters. The water in the Colorado River is from snowmelt and must have been cold. We drove through a wind/dust storm just before we stopped at for the night at the Colorado State Park in Fruita CO. We stopped at 5:15pm after driving 276 miles. We are on the north side of the Colorado River and on the south side is the Colorado National Monument which we drove through a few years ago. If you are in the area, you must take the time to do the same. There are clouds in the west so a change of weather is probable.


May 8, 2008:
I took Daisy for a walk at 7:00am, about one hour after sunrise, and it was a real treat. The sun shone on the bluffs of the Colorado National Monument and the different colors of the rocks were well highlighted. The view is the best in the early morning. We walked along the Colorado River for a bit, noticing the dark brown color and the swiftness of the water. Susie caught up with her drawing diary and then took Daisy for a run. We had showers, breakfast and then left Fruita at 10:30am. That park is just wonderful, and it gives us a good feeling whenever we stop there. Heading west on I-70, we passed into Utah and marveled at the geography and colors. Off to the south we saw the snow-topped La Sal Mountains that are just to the east of Moab. It was in these mountains that we climbed into 6” of snow and were unable to turn around and go back. We have photos of that adventure, but the most interesting is us in the RV following a herd of cattle along the road. We passed the town of Green River UT, and I remembered that it was the jumping off point for canoe trips down the Green River. The trip takes a few days, and the canoe outfitters give you enough food for 3 days, shoved you into the river and then retrieve you just upstream of where the Green River joins the Colorado River in Canyonlands NP. Susie thinks it would be better to have a guide and maybe that is an option. The farther west we went, the rougher the geography. There were more mesas and different kinds of stone, ranging in color from tans, reds and grays. At mileage marker 146, we came upon San Rafael Reef and start of the San Rafael Swell. We stopped at a viewing area and climbed to the top of a small knoll and thought we had seen the best ever. We had lunch and drove through the cut in the San Rafael Reef to the top of the San Rafael Swell and found that the views were even better. I am not sure the pictures do it justice, but it is a memory that Susie and I won’t forget. We continued west on I-70 to Salina UT, viewing the snow-topped peaks of the Pavant Range that we passed to the north, then through irrigated farmland to Delta UT (founded 1907) to spend the night. We drove 269 miles and stopped at 4:50pm MDT. This is the first commercial RV Park that we have been through in several years that doesn’t have any internet facilities.


May 9, 2008:
It is starting to feel that we’re starting the viewing part of the trip. We continued the drive across Utah and into Nevada to visit the Great Basin National Park, a distance of 130 miles. The land was absolutely flat with a large intermittent lake named Sevier Lake to the south. We worked our way through mountains including the House Range, Confusion Range and Snake Range before we reached the Great Basin NP. The growth is pure scrub, and we saw only one animal, a pronghorn antelope. Looking back on this segment, we think that building a dozen or so nuclear plants here can solve the energy crisis in the US. At the GBNP Visitor Center, we learned that the Great Basin is one of four deserts in the US but the only one that is “cold” desert (freezes during the winter) and has a little glacier at the top of Wheeler Peak (top elev. 13,063 feet). We also learned that the Great Basin covers parts of UT, NV, CA, AZ, OR and a bit of Mexico. The definition of a basin is that all water that falls in the region stays in that region and does not flow to the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean. In the Great Basin NP is a cave complex named after Absalom Lehman, the man who discovered them in 1885. We have explored 4 cave complexes during the last 5 years and all are different. This is a small cave, but the interior features are wonderful. Because it is small, these features are easily viewed. Stalactites, stalagmites, columns, straws, shields, and bacon are abundant. The environment of all caves is very fragile, and we were able to see fungus growing on traces on human-made pencil markings and soot from candles used during the exploration in the late 1800’s. According to the US Park Ranger, there are two types of fungus growing in this cave that are unique to this location. It was hard for anyone on the tour to believe that after 120 years that these markings were still providing nourishment to the fungi. The tour took over an hour and was well worth the time. Before we left, we started to drive further up the road to Wheeler Peak to get a better view of the Great Basin, but there was too much haze. We turned back and drove to Ely NV to spend another night in a KOA. When I walked in to the office I noticed they were selling t-shirts with the inscription “397 miles round trip to the nearest Wal-Mart”. I didn’t buy one, but it sure told us how far we were out of the mainstream. All three of us will be happy when we can start staying in US National Parks and US Forest Service lands. Much quieter! We head southwest tomorrow to get organized for a drive through Death Valley on Monday. We traveled 174 miles and arrived at Ely at 4:15pm. It is now 8:30pm and the sun has set. The wind is from the northeast, and the temperature is expected to fall to 28 overnight.


May 10, 2008:
Well, the temperature didn’t fall to 28 degrees, only to 39 with clear skies. Daisy and I took a long walk through the scrub, hoping that it was too cold for the snakes to be out. There were several other walkers with us, and we all made the trip safely. I took a few pictures, but because the vista is so large, We left the KOA at 9:30am and went into town for gas (a new high of $3.959), electrical fuses, electrical switch and food. The grocery was large, but due to the need to increase shelf-life, everything seems to be loaded with potassium sorbate, a preservative that gives Susie 3-day migraines. We left Ely NV and headed southwest on Route 6. Once again the mountain ranges pop up through a very flat surface that is covered with sagebrush. There were several dry lakes on either side of the road. We the further west we got, the drier it became and there was less vegetation. Traffic was light between Ely and Tonopah, and I think during this leg of 169 miles we saw less than a dozen vehicles coming from Tonopah. Nuclear plants here also! While there are towns listed on the map, they are generally deserted or in such bad shape that they should be. During the last 30 miles as we approached Tonopah, we started to see herds of longhorn cattle, plus several small dust-devils. The longhorns must be the only ones strong enough to survive this environment. The town of Tonopah, where we turned south on Route 95, was a mining town and it was terribly depressed. We headed south and stopped in the town of Goldfield NV to make lunch. Goldfield has a few wonderful old buildings and was once the largest town in NV, but now it is just a dump (maybe a bit better than Tonopah but not much). It was here that I discovered that both front tires were badly worn on the outside tread. We called AAA in the hopes that they could give us a hand in locating a tire shop where we could get new tires plus an alignment. If you remember, I mentioned having the front end of the RV rebuilt so I was really surprised at the amount of damage. AAA was not much help. One of the firms mentioned was back in Tonopah, but when I called the phone was disconnected. Another firm was in the town of Beatty, but we were unable to make contact. Susie was on the phone trying everything, but we finally decided that we had to drive south with the hope that the closer we got to Las Vegas, the better chance we would have. We noticed that the rock formations changed the further south we went south with some layers of granite showing. We must have been traveling along a fault line as the layers of rock ran vertically, whereas a few miles on either side of this rock, the layers were horizontal, just as they were laid down millions of years ago when this area was a sea (several times). We also saw a very large sand dune that just seemed to pop out of the desert floor. Goodness knows how that got there. Driving much more slowly and checking the tires on occasion allowed us to get to the town of Pahrump NV, about 50 miles north of Las Vegas. There is a tire store, but it doesn’t do alignment because the RV is too tall. There is also a GM dealership, and we hope that between the two, we can get fixed. We found the most luxurious KOA imaginable. We were sure it was going to cost us an arm and a leg, but no. Actually, it is 5 years old, and the owners are trying to “condo” the property. We are the beneficiaries and have access to a pool, exercise room, sauna and hot tub plus free wifi. It was a pleasant way to complete a very stressful 130-mile hair-raising last segment of the trip. We cannot get anything done tomorrow (when we were planning to drive through Death Valley), and we don’t have a feel for Monday. All we know is that we need to go through Death Valley early in the day to reduce the heat impact. We shut the engine down at 5:30pm having covered 330 miles.


May 11, 2008:
It was bright at 5:30 this morning, but the sun had not yet come up. After Daisy and I went for our morning walk, we lowered the awning on the RV to get some shade and then had coffee and a bagel. I suspect we’ll spend some time in the pool today! We read a bit, played on the computer, grumbled at the lousy internet service, fixed some electrical problems, walked Daisy, swam in the pool
, took some pictures and then met a German couple, Stephen and Inga, from Hamburg who noticed that I had an Apple computer. She needed help registering her new Apple touch screen iPod, and so they came over after dinner. Susie was able to help her, and then we talked for about an hour and a half. Theyhave taken great vacations around the world for the last 20 years and have rented an RV and will tour southern CA for 2 weeks before returning home. We didn’t move the RV today. The high temperature was 86, quite a change from what we have experienced the last few days. It is also very windy and hazy so photos of the mountains are questionable. I sometimes wonder where all the bright and sunny photos of the area come from.


May 12, 2008:
I woke at 5:50am and took Daisy for a walk. Susie was up when I returned, and she cleaned the RV and fed Daisy while I took a shower and scoured the Las Vegas Yellow Pages for RV places in the hope that we can get new tires and an alignment today. We knew we had to go to Las Vegas and started driving in that direction at 8:00am. Susie was calling everyone, tire places, RV service companies and RV dealers (including Winnebago) I had identified, but no one seemed to do alignment. Finally through a LV RV dealer, we found All-American Tire on the southeast side. We arrived at 10:30 and two hours later with 2 new tires and an alignment, Susie convinced me that we should see the Hoover Dam. We stopped to get sandwiches and then went to Hoover. First, we stopped at the Lake Mead NRA Visitor Center and learned that for the first time in 8 years, the snowfall was in excess of the yearly annual amount by 47%. While that is a huge help, Lake Mead is at less than 50% capacity at this time. We moved on to the Hoover Dam and spent about 2 hours there on the tour of the diversion tunnels, generator room and observation deck. Next we went over to the building that houses an exhibit by the Reclamation Dept. The exhibit showing the routing of the Colorado River from the headwaters to the US/Mexican border was good, the 10 minute presentation seemed to be an attempt at fund raising for the Reclamation Dept. Anyway it was a great trip, and I thank Susie for suggesting it. We drove back north to Pahrump in preparation for Death Valley tomorrow. It was a very hazy day today, bust as we drove north it seemed as if a front was coming through and that should lower the temperatures in Death Valley for tomorrow. After that the temperatures rise again to well over 100.