RV 08

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Utah '08

Debbi had just completed her third semester of Spanish and achieved her third "A" grade. The perk for this is that she was not required to take the final exams. With school behind us we can venture out with the motor home. Gosh it has been a while since we last used it. Since we have below freezing winter temperatures (at night) we need to remove the winterization fluids from the water system (which is now easy since I have finally figured out how to read the hidden "invisible" text in the manual).

On Monday we brought the motor home to the house to pack so we could leave on Tuesday to Southwest Utah and visit Monument Valley, Canyonlands and Arches National Parks. Debbi was putting "stuff" under the kitchen sink and said "we have a water leak under the sink!!!!!!". Since I had just flushed all the pipes with a bleach solution to sanitize the system, this did not sound good. An inspection revealed a drip coming from the elbow under the sink drain pipe - definitely not good!. The plumbing is all plastic screwed together connections so it comes apart with ease. Most sinks have a P-trap but the space under this sink is too tight, so they used an elbow and glued on a section of pipe. The connection at the back of the sink is not level with the pipe connection coming out from the sink - so it has a slope in it. This condition does not allow for a tight leak-proof seal at the threaded connection where we have a leak. Our inspection revealed a very dry seal in the threaded connection. I asked Debbi to take the seal into "town" and see if Ace Hardware can find a replacement - a urethane seal would be great - to allow for a seal and the stupid slope that we have to deal with. Debbi returns with an assortment of choices - none of which are like my ideal urethane seal. After several attempts the drip is now a significant flow. A second trip to Home Depot does not provide a positive direction. The original seal was a custom unit that had the required outside diameter and a much smaller (than normal) inside diameter and it was much thicker to allow for compression required for the slope of the pipe. The clock is ticking away and we have made no progress. IDEA. Use the original seals and coat each side with a bathroom type silicone caulk sealing compound. Voila - leak is fixed. (Bill left out the part about leaving the original pipe section at Home Depot so I went back to fetch it. Fortunately they had not thrown it out. Oh, and then we couldn't FIND the original seal. It had flipped out of the pipe, into my purse, and into my wallet. Found it quite by accident.)
Lets finish packing.
Tuesday morning we hook up the trailer, load the Subaru on the trailer and we are off on our adventure. The plan is to drive up to Lake Powell and camp for two nights. On Wednesday we have reservations for a 7 hour boat trip to Rainbow Bridge National Monument - the worlds largest natural bridge at 290 ft tall, 270 ft across. As we drive North I (Bill) thought it would be financially wise to top off the motor home fuel tank in Flagstaff before we head into the land of tourists and high prices. At the gas station I walk around the back of the motor home and to my amazement the rear of the coach is covered with engine type fluids. The tongue of the trailer and the whole front, hood and windshield of the Subaru have this fluid on every surface. THIS IS NOT GOOD! Take a deep breath and think this through. What is the fluid and where did it come from? It is kind of a gold-brownish color and slippery. The coach is a diesel pusher, which means the engine is in the rear and sits underneath our bed. The access is via a a large steel panel that the mattress sits on. Okay - check the engine oil dip stick - fluid level is okay. Check the transmission oil dip stick - level is okay. Where is it coming from? When you access the dip sticks you see the radiator for the engine and it is sealed all the way around so all the cooling air is forced through the radiator. The real effect of this is that you cannot see the engine. Okay what else - we have a diesel generator - its level looks okay. The coolant level in the expansion tank looks okay. Time for professional help. We drive to an RV dealer and talk to the service department. Once I told him it was a diesel - he said "we don't work on them". He would not even come out and look and offer an opinion. Okay who does work on diesels around here? With some very vague directions we headed off in search of this dealer - which we finally found. It was a Freightliner Truck facility which was GREAT because our chassis was built by Freightliner and they mount the Cummins engine on the chassis. The service manager did come out and look (finally) and said it was engine coolant - but from where? Knowing what to look for he found a crack in the expansion tank. With all of serial number information which we (Debbi) had with us they could access the build record file for our motor home and come up with the part number for the expansion tank that we needed - and would you believe they actually have the part in stock? We need to leave it for service - which was okay as long as we have a solution to work on. Since we are only an hour from home we unload the car from the trailer and pack all the food and stuff into it the and tow the trailer back home. The trip will resume on Friday - will have to see Rainbow Bridge on another trip.

And then Debbi did some fancy talking to get a full refund on our non-refundable camping deposit at Lake Powell. The Rainbow Bridge folks were a lot easier.

Cornville to Blanding, Utah. Who ever heard of Blanding, Utah? It is a central location for several days of our adventure. We stop in at the Chamber of Commerce visitor center and get loads of really neat ideas. First trip (Saturday) is a 70 mile drive west to Natural Bridges National Monument. Since the world's largest Natural Bridge is on Lake Powell, why a National Monument here? They have a collection of 3 large Natural Bridges (including the second largest) and a 9 mile driving loop road that connects all of them and some great Indian ruins. The visitors center and housing for the rangers is all powered by solar energy that was installed in 1982. The power is stored in 180 deep cycle batteries and can provide electric for 3 days in case of bad weather. (says Mr. "my middle name is how does that work"). The temperature climbed up into the mid 90's and put some effort into our hikes. We drank a lot of water and found a spot of shade for our picnic lunch. We have a 120v ac or 12v dc refrigerator that we put in the car to keep water and food cool - no ice for a margarita (which we could have sold for a tidy price). On the return trip we stopped at several cliff dwelling ruins. We hiked out of the last stop as the sun was sinking in the sky and needed to walk quickly because once the sun is down it is dark on the trail and all the flash lights are in the motor home.
Dine in or Dine out - I think the answer was Dine out.
We saw some amazing sights but the erosion is what I found so amazing. We have traveled numerous times to the Grand Canyon and I have been struck with the volume of erosion required to develop the canyon. At Natural Bridges I spoke with a ranger and his point was that as you look out you see several mesas in the distance that are 1,000 ft above us and stretch as far as you can see. Every thing below those mesas was eroded away and passed down through the Grand Canyon. He said the volume of visible erosion here is 5 times what you see in the Grand Canyon. All of southwestern Utah shares this same magnitude of erosion. Just plain amazing.


"Campground" in Blanding is behind the gas station - convenience store	We passed through Monument Valley on the way north	Solar Array at Natural Bridges	The layers of rock

Natural Bridges		cliff dwelling

Sunday we drove down to The Valley of the Gods which is a 17 mile unpaved road (Bill thought the road was great) through a miniature version of Monument Valley. Great photos. At the exit of Valley of the Gods we HAD to head up an unpaved set of switch backs that climbed 1,200 feet in 3 miles up the face of a significant cliff. At the top we drove out to Mulee Point for a view of Monument Valley in the distance and over 1,000 ft below us. We then headed out to Goosenecks State Park on the San Juan River. The river is 1,000 feet below and has cut a channel that has several "S" bends directly below us. We shared a picnic table for lunch with 2 couples from Germany. This was the twelfth vacation to the USA for one of the couples. It is amazing how many foreign visitors we encounter within our national parks and scenic areas. I would estimate the number is in the 30% to 50% range. They told us that they just don't have anything like this in Germany.
Dine in or Dine out. Dine in, Debbi bought a chimney starter for lighting charcoal in no time flat. I dumped the hot coals into the grill and the fire was so hot it was hard to cook a rare burger for Debbi - gosh it tasted goooood.


Sand Island Petroglyphs	Mexican Hat (just outside the town of Mexican Hat, UT)	Valley of the Gods	It takes real perseverance to be a tree up here

	The river below & "S" bends		and what do you suppose these guys live on?

Monday was a trip to Monument Valley. We joined a 3 1/2 hour tour with an Indian guide which was great. In the afternoon we drove back out into the valley to gets some photos in the afternoon sun. The haze did not allow the contrast that you would like to see but it was a great adventure.
Dine In on chicken over the grill - I'm getting better with the coals but it's going to take a few more times.


Demonstration of native weaving	beautiful finished product	hogan	lean-to with great view

Many of the formations have names which I have already forgotten	yes, Virginia, there are cowboys and Indians in Utah - posing for tourists	Our tour took us to places on the reservation where the public can't go	Monument Valley is not a national park, it is on the Navajo reservation

petroglyph	about a zillion movies have been filmed here

The next day we drove out into the Needles section of Canyonlands National Park. The visitors center suggested an alternate approach which took us up to about 8,500 ft for a view of the Needles area. An unpaved road looked like it had the best view so we had to go explore. We were just under the snow line which was at about 10,000 ft. Remember we had 97 degrees a few days ago and now we are just under fresh snow. The first stop was Newspaper Rock which has a huge collection of petroglyphs on a 20 ft x 40 ft rock face. The Needles are cylindrical rock columns much like the Hoodoos in Bryce Canyon National Park. We then drove about 40 miles east back to US 191 and drove north a bit and then about another 30 miles back out to an overlook of the Needles area. Below (out there somewhere) is the Colorado River and the confluence with the Green River.


There's snow in them thar hills - it's May 18!	Unpaved to nowhere	Newspaper Rock

	An energetic hike to an old (early 1900'2) cowboy camp		These cairns showed us the way across the mesa

Mother Nature at work	Needles	Who says there is no color in the desert	Uh, oh! Storm coming, gotta go now

Time to pack up and tomorrow we head up to Moab for some more Canyonlands adventure and Arches National Park. The temperature dropped from 97 on Tuesday to 61 on Weds, and there was snow in the surrounding mountains.


Our campground in Moab was pretty nice although we spent almost no time there.	This arch is really the entrance to a home, man-made	We took the Rock Art Trail one morning to several sites

Courthouse Wash		Jug Handle Arch	Somewhere in this picture is a dinosaur track, on a flat rock about in the center

There are over 2,200 named arches in the national park and we hiked out to about 12 of them in the several days we spent in the park. Numerous others are in the distance and we've got the photos to prove it. Debbi must have taken about 500 pictures a day - now to sort them all out will be the real challenge. The ranger at the visitors center was a big help in planning our activities. He asked if we liked petroglyphs and suggested a trip up to I-70 for a visit. It had rained in the morning so we thought this would be a good side trip. On the way was an unpaved side trip to some dinosaur fossils. The road was damp from the rain and a desert dirt mix with a bit of stone. We rounded a corner and the car continued straight ahead like driving on ice at 33 degrees. With some playing with the steering wheel and the gas we made a nice 4 wheel slide and them put on the gas because the car was slowing down - this is not a good place to be. We found a spot that had more stone and stopped the car. We had mud everywhere. This did not look like the best spot to turn around so I walked ahead to look for other options. Looking back I could see that we had dug 2 or 4 ruts (depending on how straight the car was) and about 1 to 2 inches deep. Okay so this is a 4 wheel drive Subaru with summer tires but lots of tread - so what is the big deal? I walk forward and the road is like quick sand. Put some weight on my heal and pivot and I my sneaker sinks in about 1/2 inch. I walk down a slight grade and find a nice rocky spot that is a a bit higher and a good spot to turn around. As I walk back to the car (a bit up hill) my sneakers are loaded with mud and it is hard to walk. I tell Debbi that I found a good spot but I am not sure we can get back to here. We need to turn around right here. After 12 or 15 "K" turns and NO wheel slippage (it is very slippery) we are turned around. A bit of acceleration and we are moving but not in a straight line We get back to the curve and develop a sweeping 4 wheel drift and before you know it we are back at the main highway. The wheels and fender wells are 100% packed with mud. The car looked like it just came back from STPR after a muddy weekend. Some of you may not understand but that is like the standard for how much mud you can get stuck on a car - and in this case we only drove about a mile. I bang out some of the mud from the wheel wells but it is not an easy job. Lets drive up to the petroglyphs and see what happens. I-70 had rain a while ago so this will help with the mud.

The site had some petroglyphs but what was amazing was the pictographs. Petroglyphs are drawings tamped into a black stone surface (desert varnish) from about 1000 AD to 1500 AD. Pictographs are much older - some can be from 2000 BC up to about 800 AD. I assume these are from the more current time period. The figure figures look like ghosts or spooks. They add colors (red and yellow) at this site. This visit was a real high point because these were some of the best examples we have seen.


Park Avenue Trail, Arches NP

The first afternoon we spent just a short time in the park before the storm clouds came in. We went back the next day for a hike with a volunteer around the Windows area, and finished that hike just before the skies opened again.


You probably have to "know someone" to get a picture from this side with no tourists in it.		But the hike took us to the back side where there were less people


there are carvings and paintings from several periods of history	these are the most amazing pictographs we have seen anywhere

	Then we went to the John Wesley Powell Museum in Green River	the river was really high
		Just wait until all that snow melts!
Along the Colorado the water was also high	The Manti-Lasal mountains seem to have their own weather system

The next day we went to the Islands District of Canyonlands NP and Dead Horse State Park. Don't ask how this park got it's name, it's a nasty story.


Mesa Arch	It was pretty chilly, but we still had our picnic	This is a crater but I can't recall what caused it	I never believe them anymore when they say it's an easy hike... just a few miles...

And this nut was taking his own picture with a timer	Uh, I guess they really mean open range, these guys crossed the road in front of us	The Colorado River below

Back to Arches NP the next day for more ... arches, what else. Oh, yeah, hiking


	This is as close as we got - evidently it's a VERY difficult ranger-lead hike	Okay, suck it in, we have to go through here to get to an arch	The most amazing thing about this was the setting - deep sand. The kids thought they were at the beach

Skyline Arch	Double Arch

On our final day we drove the Manti-Lasal mountain loop, up to the snowline, then on to the historic ____ bridge, and finally back to Arches for more hiking.


Yup, it's own weather system	It's May 25th!	Hey, they didn't plow the road! Time to turn around!	This was a historic bridge, but it burned in April after a child playing with matched nearby set brush on fire

Lunch on the banks of the Colorado, watching rafters	Pine Tree Arch		Landscape Arch, probably the next one to disappear
On the 27th we packed up and headed home, stopping in Blanding to pick up a piece of Indian pottery we had purchased, and then in Flagstaff to leave the RV (again) for service. This time it was mostly routine maintenance, fortunately. Now we have a few days to unpack before we have company for the weekend and leave for the right coast next week.