Out there day 2

My attempt at a bike ride this morning was thwarted somewhat by the 8000 foot elevation, muddy trails (it rained last night) and the eye watering climb it took to get anywhere. Later we drove up hill to Rico, a mostly abandoned mining town, visited the museum and had lunch. That was 9000 feet. Then we continued on up to the pass at 10,000 ft, and took some pictures. The pic of me sitting was taken behind MP2 as I tried to aerate my lungs after my aborted bike ride. We move to Santa Fe tomorrow. Jim and Anne are currently there and we have a couple of friends who have moved there from Habersham.

Not close to any town day 1

We did something a little different today. We wanted to do a hike but we needed to vacate our site at the KOA in Cortez. So, we drove the vehicles to the trailhead and did the hike. After that we moved 50 miles to our current location on the Dolores River. We are literally backed up to it. This place is officially called Priest Gulch. Anyway, back to the hike. We hiked up Sand Canyon, which is in the Canyon of the Ancients NM. A lot of indian ruins. We did an out and back, turning around after lunch at the 3 mile mark. We are here for 2 nights and we are thinking about chilling tomorrow. Im not sure I'm capable of that but it's certainly a thought.

Cortez day 2

I started with a bike ride on some spectacular trails just a few miles from the KOA. After that we spent the rest of the day learning about and touring "Canyons of the Ancients National Monument". This important land was set aside by Clinton. It protects literally 100s of thousands of sites and artifacts that were left by the early Pueblo indians. We drove some and visited a couple of ruins and the museum and visiter center. Tomorrow we will do a long hike in a canyon that has several more ruins. The small sign was hanging near the bar in the restaurant where we ate lunch in Cortez.

Cortez Colorado

We are in a KOA about 7 miles from the entrance of Mesa Verde NP. After we got set up and had lunch we drove into the park. After we stopped at a few overlooks and spent some time at the bar in the lodge we were out of time and had to turn around without seeing any ruins. Oh well, been there, done that. We are here for 2 nights.

A few more pics

All of these photos were taken by Courtney

Lake Powell recap

Where to start. This weekend is a Utah holiday, it's called "pioneer days". That might have contributed to the lakes population. It was well populated. We motored north for the first 3 days. Day 2 we visited Dangling Rope marina for fuel. It's a little under $6 a gallon. Let's not discuss the fuel bill. We took the 60 ft. Boat into the narrow Canyon that has the Rainbow Bridge. That was a fiasco/near disaster. The only boats in there were regular type boats. There were so many of them that there was no place to park. We ended up scaring a few of them out of there and with some deft or daft maneuvering we got tied up and did the hike to the bridge. As our afternoons progressed we would send out a scouting party on the wave runner to find a suitable campsite. We needed a sandy beach and a place to play. The kids did tubing, cliff diving, water sliding (there was a slide on the back deck) rock climbing and frisbee throwing. There was not too much screen time and I didn't notice any withdrawal symptoms. The 4th day we turned south. There was a lot of motoring that day and another stop for fuel. We made it back to Wahweap and got things put back together in time for the parental units to begin there drive back to Vegas. They made it and I assume they are currently airborne in route to CLT. It was another great trip, alot of laughter, too much drinking, good food, and cousin bonding. That will be it from Lake Powell. Jenny and I have 1 more night here and then we head for Santa Fe.

Day 4 briefly in cell coverage.

We have made the turnaround and are motoring back toward Wahweap Marina.

Morning of day 3

All is well, still heading up-lake. We will visit Dangling Rope marina and Rainbow Bridge today. It's pretty hot. We have been running the generator to keep the AC going. More later if possible.

Lake Powell day 2

Everyone has arrived. The boat is loaded. We are camped out in the marina tonight. Tomorrow we head out......We got on the water with not too much difficulty. We seem to have a fairly good signal at our first nights camp so ill try and post this.

Lake Powell

We have arrived. The drive was mostly on Utah Hwy 12. It's a spectacular drive. We drove by Bryce Canyon. (Pic below) Lindsay and Jamie are in Vegas waiting for Seth & Courtney to arrive. We will link up here tomorrow.

Last day at Escalante

The name of this park is "Escalante, Petrified Forest State park". There is a trail above the campground that meanders through areas where the petrified wood is exposed. We finally did that trail today. This part of the world was near the equator 150 million years ago and the thick forest and wet landscape ended up in the Great Basin desert in Utah. After our hike we drove to the 'Hole in the rock information center'. We watched a short video and talked to the two (Escalante born and raised) female volunteers who were manning the center. One of them had a relative who was on the original wagon train trip across Utah and down the narrow rock shoot that they called "The hole in the rock". There were a couple of paintings there that I photographed. We move to Page AZ tomorrow.

Escalante day 4

Today was spent doing some exploring along the "Hole in the Rock Road". That road starts near here and runs 54 miles all the way to Lake Powell. It was first used by Mormon pioneers that were trying to colonize this part of the country. Anyway, the road is washboard dirt and we were on it for 27 miles out and back. Our first stop was 'The Devil's Garden', a large area of sandstone Hoodoos and other weird rock formations. We drove further to a trailhead that led to a couple of slot Canyons. One of them was so narrow that we had to drop our packs and slide in sideways. The exit trail was a brutal climb. We timed it perfectly so that the afternoon temp was peaking. Sweet. We have one more full day here and are thinking about dialing it down a notch.

Escalante day 3

We did 3 things today. First, a very rigorous hike to an 87 foot waterfall. We hiked downhill to it but it was the uphill in the heat that got our attention. Next was a Mango smoothly in Boulder. I had 3 episodes of severe brain freeze. Then we did a short hike into a slot canyon on the Burr trail. The small sign was on a tree near the waterfall this morning. I couldn't agree more.

Escalante day dos

Today we did a 75 mile loop drive (40 miles on dirt) on a road called "The Devils Backbone". We stopped several times, did a hike and took some pics. It was 7 hours of really neat scenery. I'll let the pics speak for themselves, even though they don't really do justice to what we actually saw.

Escalante SP Utah

We made it OK. There was some vehicle abuse involved. We finished the drive on Utah Hwy 12. It is a extremely scenic road but there were stretches of 17% grade, both up and down. I saw 5000 rpm riding the transmission on one descent. The rpm gauge only goes to 6000. Yikes! We are here for 5 days. There are so many places of interest nearby that I have wanted to see for many years that I thought a long stay was appropriate. The pic below was taken at a scenic overlook where we pulled over to give MP2 a little breather.

Last day at Ridgeway

I rode some more of the RAT Trails today. The climb wasn't as brutal as the other day but it was still breathtaking (I needed more of it) The descent was alittle more technical and I didn't realize that it was, until I locked my brakes, missed a turn and went down an embankment. Not very much harm done. Gravity's a bitch. We move tomorrow. It's going to be a long drive, 7 hours we are thinking. Our destination is Escalante UT. Cell is supposedly minimal but the visitors center has wifi. There are only 22 campsites. I reserved ours 7 months ago. We will be driving partly on I 70 across from were we had the MPs fatal blowout. We will try to keep in touch somehow. We are there for 5 days. It will be a hiking stop.

Ridgeway day 3

We spent today in Montrose. It's about 30 miles north. We went to the watersports park first. The city has modified the Uncompahgre river by adding a few hazards that form rapids and standing waves for adventure seekers. There was a guy there surfing one of the waves. (See pic) We then visited a botanical garden that was dedicated to 'zero scape' gardening. Thats minimal water, native type plants. After that we did a tour of a western museum. It was a bunch of old buildings filled with artifacts. It was a 1 hour tour led by a docent. I didn't take any pics there. From there it was a liquor store, Safeway, and the always entertaining Walmart. As always, lunch was in there somewhere. Tomorrow we will resume our physical activity. We are here until the 15th. The pic of the eagle was taken at "Dennis Weaver Park" just down the road from here. If your of a certain age you will remember Dennis Weaver. I guess he was from here. The statue is bronze and weighs 2800 lbs.

Ridgeway day 2

I biked the R.A.T. trails this morning. (Ridgeway area trails) There is no air up here and all the trails start with a gargantuan uphill slog. With my new knee and sea level lungs it was a challenge. I limped up to the top, a 700 foot climb, and rode around up there for a while. I have to admit the down hill was a blast. Jenny and I walked the parks trails for a couple of hours before lunch. I am pretty worn out but this is really good PT. We will probably drive around some tomorrow.

Ridgway SP Colorado

We drove over 3 passes to get here. 2 of them were over 10,000. One was higher than yesterday. We read about this campground on an app about 6 months ago and we booked it at that time. We are near Montrose and Ouray. We drove through Durango and Silverton on our way here. There are 80 miles of bike/hiking trails across the road from the park. We're going to stay for 4 nights, hopefully that will be enough. Pat has named our new RV, MP2. We thought was a good idea. So MP2 it is. These pics were taken on the drive and in the park.

Navajo SP Colorado

We moved a few hours further west today. The park is on Navajo lake. One side of the lake is New Mexico and the other side is Colorado. We drove over Wolf Creek Pass on the way here. (10,800 ft) The uphill side of the road was 2 lanes so we weren't causing any frustration for the other drivers. When we topped out we pulled over to give the engine a rest. (Pic below) I did my usual exploratory bike ride when we got set up. I rode on a trail that was an old narrow gage railroad that followed the north shoreline. We are only here tonight.

La Veta day 2

This little town we're in is at 7000 feet. We drove up hill for 30 minutes to another little town (Cuchara) thats at 8000 feet. We then did an out and back hike to 9000 feet. That's a lot of feet folks. After the hike we had lunch in Cuchara at a restaurant that encourages patrons to bring their dogs. It was appropriately called "Dog Cafe". We drove down the hill to La Veta and had an ice cream cone at a 1920s lunch counter. We are currently doing laundry. It was 55 degrees this morning. We had to use the heater. The flower pics below are Columbine, the state flower of Colorado. All pics were taken this morning on the hike.

La Veta Colorado

We are in another small commercial campground. This place got good reviews and has a laundry. On our way here we stopped at 'Bent's Old Fort National Monument'. Pretty interesting place. It was a built by some early entrepreneurs to capture profits from the fur trade that was booming in the 1840s and 50s. It's right on the Arkansas river that, at the time, was the US/Mexico border. The fur trade started out being primarily beaver but after we killed all of them off the trade shifted to buffalo. The Indians provided the buffalo hides and we gave them alcohol and cholera. We eventually killed off all the buffalo and shipped the remaining Indians to Oklahoma so the whole enterprise eventually collapsed. The structure that we toured is a rebuilt replica based on good drawings that survived the original forts destruction by fire in 1864. The pics were taken at the fort.

John Martin day 2

This morning's adventure was a hike. There is only 1 trail so our options were severely limited. I left a bike at the campsite and we drove to the trailhead. The trailhead has a marker indicating that the Santa Fe Trail passed directly through that spot. The trail was just a mowed path through the vegetation. 4 1/2 miles and a little over 2 hours we were home. I rode my bike back to the trailhead and picked up the car. This afternoon we drove into Lamar to visit Walmart. We are always curious about the clientele that we will encounter in these various Walmarts that we visit in different parts of the country. People watching is always fun---or appalling, depending on which store you visit. The pics were taken on the hike.

John Martin Reservoir SP Colorado

Nothing particularly blog worthy occurred today. We did about a 5 hour drive. We are now in the mountain time zone. I had a heck of a time adjusting to the central time zone. This change probably won't be any different. Even though we're in Colorado we cannot see any mountains. We are pretty much due east of Pueblo still in the plains. This is the last full day of the 4th of July weekend so hopefully things will become less hectic. We are here 2 nights.

Wakeeney kansas KOA

We have begun our drive southward. We started out on I 80 and are at Wakeeney KS camped right next to I 70. Literally right next to it. During the drive we had 2 noteworthy incidents. There is a brand new interchange in Omaha that apparently just opened up. I needed to change highways there. Ms Garmen thought I was driving in the dirt. I missed the turn. There were 2 U-turns and a lap around a church parking lot. 20 minutes later we were back on course. The other incident could have been ugly. A guy passed me in a pickup truck with a smoker in the truck bed. This is a heavy iron smoker like Seth and I have. He's about 200 yards ahead and we see a huge brown cloud of smoke billow up in the center of the the road. The car directly behind the pickup swerves and the pickup immediately pulls over. The smoker fell out of the truck. The cloud of smoke was ash. The smoker bounced on to the left shoulder. The pickup was on the right shoulder. We got through there unscathed. The owner of the smoker had a big problem. We head further west tomorrow. We are at the end of the line in the pic.

Viking Lake SP Iowa

The good news is we 1. Are headed west finally and 2. We found a place to camp on the 4th of July. The bad news is we're still in Iowa. There is a trail/road around the lake that I rode to acquaint myself with this parks ambience. I am now well acquainted. One thing we have noticed while camping on lakes in Missouri and Iowa is that there is always a large, well populated, sandy, beach. I'm not sure how to feel about that. It's sad in that the people on the beach might not have ever been to a real one or might not ever get a chance to see a real one. On the other hand, I'm glad that someone decided that importing sand and making a beach on a lake in middle America might be a good idea. Tomorrow is a long drive. We will end up in Kansas at a KOA. That will be our first commercial campground of the trip. The pics were taken on my bike ride. (The trail over the dam and a view of the lake.)