It's been a busy day. The RV repair place could not duplicate our problem. It sat there for 2 days, plugged in, and when they unplugged it, everything switched over to 12 volt. The tech tried everything he could to cause it to fail and he couldn't. The trip was awesome. I'll discuss that in the next few days. The pics should speak for themselves.
It's a 3 hour bus ride to the put-in. We are getting an early start. Be back in a few days.
This morning we drove into Dinosaur NM. Its about 15 miles. We explored the quarry and then did a short hike to see some more fossils. Underneath the glass quarry roof is a sloped wall of partially excavated dinosaur bones. The whole thing was very well done and worth the visit. The rest of the day has been spent readying ourselves for the 4 day paddle raft trip through "The Gates of Ladore" on the Green River. WE WILL BE OUT OF TOUCH! We will be back in civilization Wednesday night. The guides have a satellite phone but it's only for calling out. You can call the tour company (O.A.R.S) at 800-346-6277. We will drop the MP off at an RV place before we leave tomorrow morning. They said they would look at it next week and drive it back to the KOA when it's fixed. Uh huh! I almost laughed when he told me that. Stranger things have happened but that scenario seems unlikely. I'll be trying to document our journey as we paddle but it's going to be awhile before it gets posted.
As some of you might be aware the MP occasionally throws a wrench into our plans. She threw one this morning. We have been boondocking in Capital Reef. We would run our generator for a while every afternoon but generally we were on battery power. It was fine, it ran the fans, gave us light and operated the water pump. That system has failed. If the generator is running or if we are hooked up to city power everything works. If we have no AC power, nothing works. We found a place in Vernal that might be able to fix it. We're going to leave it with him while we're on the river rafting trip. I'm pessimistic, but I'm always pessimistic. Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised. The pics were taken on different days. One in the morning and one in the afternoon.
On today's agenda was a 120 mile scenic drive. The route included 40 miles of washboard dirt. The switchback pic is on a road called 'The Burr Trail'. That route was originally made so that cattleman could get their cows up top during the summer. It's a pretty hairy 1/2 mile. We are actually still on the drive, 40 more miles. We stopped for lunch in the small town of Boulder and the restaurant has such good wifi I decided to post this now. As an aside, Boulder is on the edge of The Escalante Grand Staircase NM. The current administration is trying to shrink its size significantly. The citizens of Boulder are up in arms. We wish them luck. Our drive has been magnificent so far and it would be a shame to take paradise and put up a parking lot. We move to Vernal UT tomorrow to get into position to begin our guided raft trip on the Green River.
I have wanted to hike an out of the way trail here since the last time we visited in 2014. The trial follows a canyon bottom as it meanders around and eventually empties into the Fremont river. Jenny wasn't too enthusiastic about accompanying me partly because the trail head is nowhere near the finish, it's 10 miles long, and you have to ford the river at the end. She volunteered to be my shuttle driver. I felt special. I can check that one off my list. I took some pics. We are here for one more day.
We were able to get a site in the park campground. There are 75 sites and until this year they were all first come, first served. Not anymore. Only 25 of them are not reserveable. I got up early, drove in (12 miles) and nabbed site 14. We are boondocking. We can, however, run our generator for 2 hours in the morning and afternoon. The park HQ and campground is located in an old Mormon farming community called Fruita. There are 2600 fruit and nut trees that were left by the previous residents. As things ripen, you can pick and eat all you want. If you want to take some fruit home it's $1/lb. Scales are provided. Apricots are in season now. I squashed a bunch of them getting these pics. 1/2 inch of squashed apricot on the bottom of my Rainbows was, hopefully, a once in a lifetime experience.
