Idaho Falls

We’re enjoying our stay at Juniper Campground on the northeast side of the Ririe Reservoir. The reservoir was formed when the US Army Corps of Engineers built a dam in 1972. The reservoir is fed by a few creeks and covers about 1,500 acres. Donna has explored most of the water access points from the campground. On Friday, we got in the truck and she showed where I might want to try fishing.

I saw a sign with a reservoir map and it showed a fishing access site on the southwest end of the reservoir called the Blacktail Day Use Area. We decided to take a drive and check it out. I had my fishing pole, tackle box and some nightcrawlers. It was a fairly long drive from Juniper Campground to get around the reservoir and we had to traverse about five miles of gravel road. At the entrance to Blacktail, we had to pay a $5 day use fee.

We hiked down a trail to the water’s edge and I tried my hand at fishing. I didn’t get so much as a nibble. I talked to another fisherman there – he had half a dozen rainbow trout on his stringer – he told me the fish were all caught earlier in the day and they seemed to quit biting in the last hour or so. We had similar fishing set-ups, so it wasn’t a matter of me being rigged incorrectly – the fish just weren’t biting.

Southern tip of Ririe Reservoir from Blacktail

We took a longer route back that kept us on pavement all the way. We ended up in Iona before we found the way to US26 and back to the campground.

I had set up my ham radio Buddipole Versatee Vertical antenna they day before and had it tuned nicely on the 20-meter band. I played around on the radio in the afternoon and made a few contacts. I was able to reach out in different directions – I had contacts near Tucson, Arizona, another in Escondido, California, a guy in Livingston, Texas and I heard a guy in West Branch, Michigan talking to guy in Australia! He must have had a great antenna system – I heard his end of the conversation, but couldn’t pick up the signal from Australia. Speaking of great antenna systems, I heard from Janez (S51DX) in Slovenia again. This is the fourth time I’ve had contact with him.

It was getting windy and I thought it felt like rain was coming, so I put my gear away. We ended with a few raindrops later, but nothing serious. The clouds made for a nice sunset.

After dark we went outside to look for the super-moon, but the cloud cover persisted and we couldn’t see the moon.

Saturday morning we drove to Idaho Falls for the farmers’ market. The market was located on Memorial Drive near Broadway, adjacent to the Riverwalk Greenbelt and Trail. After we parked, I was telling Donna about coming here when I was a kid. In 1966, I traveled with my grandparents to visit relatives in South Dakota. Our route took us here and my grandpa stopped so we could stretch our legs in the park and see the falls on the Snake River.

The farmers’ market had a large number of stalls and lots of people.

There were food vendors, crafts and great produce and farm-fresh meat and egg stands. Donna bought a nice head of living lettuce among a few other items. I saw some mushrooms for sale that were gorgeous, but we didn’t buy any.

There was a Veterans Memorial on the greenbelt that offered a nice river view. We walked out there and the Snake River didn’t look anything like I remembered. I know when I was a kid there was a long section where the river dropped several feet along a rip-rap of rocks. From where we stood, I could only see a small area where the river flowed over a concrete dam.

As walked back toward Broadway, I could see the east side of the river looked un-natural – it seemed like the river was split into two levels. As we crossed the Broadway bridge, things began to look familiar. When I was a kid, we must have parked on the west bank of the river.

The river is split with a manmade channel lined by a concrete dike on the east side. The river spills over the concrete dike like a negative pool edge and cascades over rip-rap rocks into the lower west portion of the river.

We made a stop at Winco Foods while we were in town to pick up a few items. We saw some good looking wild Alaskan sockeye salmon. The guy at the seafood counter said it just came in that morning. We bought a two-pound filet. Donna grilled it last night and it was fabulous.

After we came home, I practiced guitar for bit, but my session was cut short when my amp quit working. I had power but no sound out of my AmpStand. It’s called a 12-watt tube amplifier, but it really only has one 12AX7 vacuum tube in the preamp. The rest of the circuit including the output is all solid state (transistor). The amp had power – the power light stayed on, but there was no output. I’ll take it apart this afternoon, but I’m not optimistic. If it was a true vacuum tube amplifier, I could troubleshoot it easily, but with a solid state circuit, I can only hope that there are obvious visual clues.

Before we left Rock Springs, Wyoming, Donna wanted to get some inch-thick pork chops. We found Duroc pork chops at Smith’s grocery and bought them. Duroc is a variety of pig that has darker meat that’s more flavorful and tender than most pork. Donna pan fried the chops and made a cream gravy with sauteed onions for dinner the second night we were here. They were great!

The weather has been good – highs in the mid-to-upper 70s cooling to the low 50s overnight. It’s a little warmer today and the forecast calls for 90 degrees by mid-week. The wind has been gusty at times – wind must be the norm here. When we drove around the reservoir, we went past the half a dozen or so wind turbines we can see from here. Once we drove nearer to them, we could see the wind turbines extended through farmland ridges for miles.

Our friends Jeff and Deb Spencer are due to arrive here tomorrow from Yellowstone. We’re looking forward to seeing them again and are hoping they can snag a good site here when they arrive.

*Just so you know, if you use this link to shop on Amazon and decide to purchase anything, you pay the same price as usual and I’ll earn a few pennies for the referral. It’ll go into the beer fund. Thanks!

The Road to Ririe

I wrote my last post on Sunday, which was Father’s Day. I had a relaxing day starting with a fantastic Formula One race at the Paul Ricard circuit in France. I followed that with the Moto GP race in Germany. Donna went for a walk in the morning and got her exercise in.

To cap off Father’s Day, I grilled a ribeye steak we bought from Bob Ower – his cattle are fed sprouted barley, a superfood. I wrote about his process with the barley in this post.

There’s a grilled ribeye under that pile of mushrooms and onions

We went to Smith’s Grocery on Monday and stocked up the pantry, refrigerator and freezer with food. I found a whole chicken for $2.59! After getting the groceries put away, I got Donna’s bike prepped and she went for a 15-mile ride up Yellowstone Road. She fought a headwind all the way out to the north end of the road and had the wind at her back on the return.

While she was out doing that, I broke down the chicken and put the parts in the freezer for a total of four meals. I’m getting pretty good at the process. Then I set up my amp and pedal board and played my guitar for about half an hour. I wanted to get a good feel for the strings I was using before I replaced them with the strings I got from Curt Mangan.

The strings I was using were a standard nickel coated 10-46 set I bought online from an outfit in San Diego called Webstrings. They claim they are made in the USA, but don’t reveal which factory makes the strings or whether they’re assembled with USA sourced wire. When I bought these strings, they had a incredible deal on bulk purchases and I bought two dozen sets. The set I put on my Gibson ES-339 a few weeks ago was my last full set. I have five packs of strings left, but each pack was opened so I could rob the high “E” string. I broke five “E” strings out of the 19 sets I used – that’s over a 20% failure rate. I rarely break guitar strings. Most of these breakages happened when first tuning up to pitch or shortly thereafter. These strings sound okay, but they obviously have a quality issue.

The funny thing is, I bought a bulk pack from Gibson when we were in Memphis. Their 10-set bulk pack comes with two extra high “E” and “B” strings ( the two thinnest strings). But I don’t recall ever breaking a Gibson string.

I took a break (no pun intended) and changed to the Curt Mangan (CM) strings. The first thing I noticed was the brighter finish on the CM strings. The nickel finish was so bright, they were almost white compared to the Webstrings. I gave them a good stretch and tuned them up to pitch. When I started to play, I found out that brightness wasn’t only in the appearance – the tone was noticeably brighter than the Webstrings. Chords sounded cleaner with distinct note definition. I know strings are a small part of the equation when it comes to guitar tone, but the difference was there – it wasn’t my imagination. Now I’ll have to see how well these strings hold up. Curt Mangan sells six-packs of string sets for around $7 per set – and he only uses USA-sourced material, no imported wire.

Tuesday morning we hit the road just after 9am. Packing and getting road-ready is much easier and faster these days as we are traveling lighter and I don’t have to pack and secure the trailer. We drove back toward downtown to hit the Pilot/Flying J Travel Center for fuel. I topped up with 60 gallons at $3.58/gallon – gulp.

We headed north on US191 – it was mostly flat sagebrush country. It was very rural with miles of road without any dwellings. Donna started keeping track of antelope sightings for something to do. By the time we reached Pinedale, she was up to 80 antelope or so. She eventually lost count around 122 sightings and I’m sure we missed as many as we saw. Most of the antelope we saw weren’t in the open sagebrush country – they were more concentrated around ranch land and towns. There are better food sources and access to water there – that’s my theory.

US191 follows the Green River for a while, then we entered the Bridger-Teton National Forest. The scenery changed to pine trees and steep mountains on either side of the highway. We could see snow still on the tops of the Grand Tetons. The road followed the Hoback River and was very scenic. We didn’t have any long grades, just a few short climbs and descents. I think we topped out at just over 7,000 feet above sea level.

At the junction with US89, we turned west. US89 follows the Snake River through the National Forest. At the town of Alpine, we hit US26 which runs alongside the Palisades Reservoir. We saw several RVs camped along the huge reservoir – it looked like dispersed dry-camping was allowed. It was a very scenic area and I wouldn’t mind stopping off there next time we are in this neck of the woods. The southern tip of the reservoir is in Wyoming while the majority of it is in Idaho. We crossed the border and soon after, we exited the National Forest at Swan Valley. The landscape became more agricultural as we neared our destination.

Our stopping point was Juniper Campground – a county park – at the Ririe Reservoir. The nearest town is Ririe (Rye-ree) a few miles away. It’s a very small town with no real shopping or grocery store. For groceries, we’ll go to Idaho Falls, about 17 miles away.

Juniper Campground has three loops of RV sites – “A”, “B” and “C” loops. The “A” loop sites are reservation only and are fully booked up. The “B” and “C” loops are first come – first served. Full hook-ups are $25/night. Some sites are 30-amp electric service while most also have 50-amp service. We heard about this place from our friends Jeff and Deb Spencer and took a chance on finding an open site. We found site B20 open and snagged it.

There were a couple of other open sites in the loop, but one was a handicap access site and the other wasn’t very level and didn’t have any shade. Once I checked the satellite reception in B20, we were good to go. It was about a 250-mile travel day and that’s about as far as I want to drive the coach. Ozark the cat was asleep most of the day after having dramamine for breakfast.

I paid for 14 nights here – that’s the stay limit. This will get us through the Fourth of July weekend. It’s always hard to find an open campsite over the holiday weekend. Jeff and Deb Spencer are due to arrive here from Yellowstone next Monday and they plan to stay for a week.

We’re at an elevation of 5,200 feet above sea level and it’s much cooler here. Upper 70s are forecast for next couple of days, but it’ll warm up after that. Next week we’ll probably see 90s and stay hot through the Fourth of July weekend. Our loosely drawn plans will have us heading west across Idaho and I hope to make a stop in Emmett, Idaho to visit my buddy from San Diego, Tye Moody. Tye sold his house in Bay Park and moved to Emmett last year.

Another Jetpack Blow-up

We left Thompson Springs around 10:30am Thursday morning as planned and backtracked on I-70 westbound through Green River, Utah. We turned north once again on US191 about five miles west of town. It was a relatively easy drive until we hit Indian Canyon just north of Helper. We drove this route back in 2014 and recognized some of the landmarks, but I didn’t remember how tough the climb out of the canyon was. We finally topped out over 9,100 feet above sea level.

Our next stop was at Steinaker Lake State Park, north of Vernal, Utah. We had reserved a site with water and 50-amp electrical service. It was hot once again and we wanted 50-amp service to run both roof-mounted air conditioners. Although our site was a pull-through, the roads and paved sites are narrow and tight. Our “pull-through” site had a really sharp turn before the narrow exit – no way could we drive through it. I disconnected the truck from the back of the coach in anticipation of reversing out of the site in the morning. We were at an elevation of about 5,200 feet above sea level.

Donna went for a short hike around the reservoir and shot a few pictures.

After a mostly quiet night – we had some gusty winds that woke us up a couple of times – we were back on the road Friday morning. Three straight travel days were wearing Ozark the cat out – she’s not too keen on the travel days.

Our route northbound on US191 had us climbing again. On one section of road, there was a sign warning of sharp curves with 10 switchbacks over a four-mile stretch. Once again, I kept an eye on our engine coolant and transmission fluid temperatures as it was hot outside – around 90 degrees. On hard climbs, I slow down and downshift the transmission manually to keep the engine RPM around 1900. By downshifting, I reduce the load on the engine by utilizing torque multiplication through gear reduction. Running at higher RPM keeps the radiator fan spinning at higher speed and circulates the coolant through the engine quickly for efficient cooling.

When we crossed the state line into Wyoming, I remarked to Donna that I’d never driven in Wyoming without seeing antelope. For the next 15 minutes, I wondered if I jinxed myself before I saw a lone antelope buck about 75 yards off the roadside.

We hit I-80 about midway between Green River, Wyoming and Rock Springs. We checked in at the Sweetwater Events Center – we’ve stayed here a few times and never had a problem getting a site. It’s a huge property with arenas, race tracks, a golf course and about 1,000 RV sites. There were only three or four RVs in sight when we arrived Friday afternoon and a few more showed up on Saturday.

We paid for four nights ($114) and set up. We took the truck into town to stock up on groceries at Smith’s Grocery store. After dinner, Donna saw our Verizon Jetpack mifi jump off of the window sill! The lithium-ion battery pack had blown up! This happened to our last Jetpack a couple of times before it finally went kaput after about three or four years. This one is about three years old. I put a back-up battery in it and it turned on briefly before an error message stating “no battery” appeared and it shut down for good.

Saturday morning I went to the Verizon store at the White Mountain Mall. The woman at the store there told me there was a recall on the Verizon mifi and I needed to call a special phone line for it. I looked at the recall notice in the store and it didn’t include our model (6620). She told me I needed to call – she couldn’t help me. I made the phone call and as I suspected our model wasn’t included in the recall.

I knew there was another Verizon store about a mile away and I went there. The woman there told me she sold her one and only Jetpack a few days earlier. Then she told me there was a third Verizon store about half a mile up the road. I went there and they had two Jetpacks in stock. I bought a new model 8800L Jetpack mifi and we’re back in business. The Sweetwater Events Center has wireless wifi, but it’s not 100% reliable.

We headed down to Bunning Park near the old downtown area for the Blues and Brews Festival a little before 3pm. We attended this festival a few years ago and had a great time. Last time, they had only a handful of breweries participating and a couple of very good bands. This time we found many more breweries represented, a larger audience and the opening band was not so good.

The second band was unusual and they sounded good. What was most unusual was their drummer. He sat on a wooden box and used soft-tipped drumsticks to drum against the box. The box had a microphone or pickup inside to amplify it. It actually worked well.

Admission was $40 and it included unlimited 7-ounce beer samples. I had a wristband and they gave me a miniature mug – the vendors were supposed to check wristbands and only fill the 7-ounce mugs – but a few people had pint glasses that they filled with multiple pours into the approved 7-ounce mug. Donna was the designated driver, so she didn’t pay or get a wristband.

I knew the third and final band would be good when they opened with Too Rolling Stoned by Robin Trower. Their band was called Stones Throw and they were very good.

We had a good time people watching and listening to music. We bugged out of there at 7pm after eating burritos from the Taco Time food truck onsite.

In my last post, I mentioned meeting Curt Mangan and touring his guitar and bass string factory. When I talked with him, he told me they were selling strings as fast as they can make them. They have warehouse distributors in England, Europe and Asia – I think he said Japan and Singapore – as well as around three hundred retailers in the US. But he surprised me by saying the majority of his sales come through his online store! I think I’ll change my guitar strings sooner rather than later so I can make a fair comparison against the strings I’ve been using instead of waiting for these strings to sack out. If I wait until these strings lose their tone, anything will sound better, so I won’t be able to accurately judge if the Curt Mangan strings are equal or better.

We had a couple of visitors today! One of Donna’s tennis friends from Viewpoint, Val Tremelling and her husband Shorty, live about 100 miles north of Rock Springs. Donna sent a message to Val on Friday that we were here in Rock Springs and if they happened to be in town, be sure to let her know. As it turned out, they were on their way to a family BBQ and stopped by to see us before heading there.

The temperature here reached 90 on Friday and Saturday. Today is cooler – in the mid 80s with gusty winds. Tomorrow should be cooler before it heats up again on Tuesday. We plan to pull out of here on Tuesday and follow US191 up to US89 south of Jackson, then hit US26 into Idaho. That’s the current plan, we’ll see how that shapes up.

Unexpected Tour

We stayed busy over the weekend in Cortez, Colorado, then things heated up! On Friday night, we went to the fairgrounds a few miles east of town for the Ute Mountain Roundup – the rodeo! Donna ordered five tickets and had reserved seats for us all – front and center! We’ve enjoyed a number of rodeos since we hit the road eight years ago and this rodeo ranks right up there with the best. By the way, you can read about my first rodeo experience back in 1976 here.

Saturday morning Donna and I played in the pickleball Shootout – it’s a local tournament with a round-robin format. Unfortunately for me, I was scheduled in a group that was totally mismatched. We had two players that could play at the 3.5 level – me and another guy – and two players that weren’t up to par. This led to uneven play and lopsided scores. Donna had a better matchup and held her own in some tough competition.

Mike and Jodi Hall came out with their granddaughter, Swayzie, to watch and enjoy Centennial Park. For such a small town, Cortez has a large number of beautiful, well-maintained public parks. After the tournament, we went to the farmers’ market and got there about 20 minutes before it closed.

We took a break and had some down time before we met up at WildEdge Brewing Collective for a couple of cold ones. Mike picked up the tab – thanks for the brews, Mike! We said our goodbyes until fall as Mike and Jodi were heading out of Cortez Sunday morning.

We had a lazy day on Sunday. We decided to forego the pickleball social at Montezuma’s in Dolores – we had just eaten there on Friday. Meanwhile the thermometer steadily climbed each day. We had upper 90s Saturday and Sunday. Monday was near 100 degrees and Donna was called off from going to the Ower’s farm to weed. She ended up going on Tuesday, after pickleball in the morning although the temperature reached 101 degrees.

I had an interesting afternoon on Tuesday. My Facebook feed showed a video ad for Curt Mangan guitar strings. I clicked on the video and watched how they make round core nickel wound strings. What really got my attention was their small factory – it’s right here in Cortez, Colorado! I looked at their website and found the strings were available at a music store in town. I drove to the store to get a set of these strings to try out, but it was only open Wednesday through Saturday.

I looked up the factory location and drove there thinking they may have a retail outlet. I found an unassuming metal building set back about a quarter of a mile off Mildred Road with no signage. I parked and checked out the building – it wasn’t open to the public. As I stood there by a screened, large loading door, a voice called out, “Can I help you?” I peered inside and saw it was Curt Mangan. I told him what I was looking for and he said he didn’t sell retail onsite, but invited me to come in. He asked what strings I wanted – I told him I was after a standard 10-46 set. He said, “Follow me.”

We went into a room that was obviously a packing and shipping area and he checked a shelf and found an empty box. He said, “Wouldn’t you know it – no 10-46 sets. Come with me.” We walked into another area – I would say the metal building covered nearly 5,000 square feet – and he started pulling individual strings packaged in white paper. When he had a complete set, he put them in a colored package and then inserted the whole thing into a plastic sleeve which he sealed with a machine. Then he handed me the set of strings!

Then we started talking about guitars. I told him my first “good” guitar was a Fender Stratocaster that I factory ordered from a music store in Longmont, Colorado in 1976. I said I never really bonded with Fender guitars and now I play Gibsons. He laughed and told me everyone needs a Strat or a Telecaster – they’re the foundation of electric guitars. Then he told me he had the Fender franchise in Longmont in 1978!

I told him a story about finding the receipt from Longmont Music for the 1976 Stratocaster and showing it to my guitar teacher about 10 years ago. I paid $425 for the guitar. Jeff, my teacher, asked me if $425 was for a made-in-America Strat. I laughed and told him that all Fenders back then were made in Fullerton, California. Today, you can buy a Fender made in Corona, California for big bucks or a cheaper version made in Mexico or Squier-branded one made in Asia. I checked an inflation calculator online and found $425 in 1976 is equivalent to $2,000 today – about the low end of a made-in-America Stratocaster, so they haven’t changed all that much unless you get into the Custom Shop variants that can cost upwards of $5,000 or more.

We had a nice talk, then Curt asked me if I had time for a tour! I could hardly believe it. He took me through the manufacturing process and showed me the machinery they use and how they make strings. He has a small workforce. I’m not sure how many employees he has – most of the workers were gone for the day. He told me at this time of year, they start early and knock off around 3pm due to the heat.

Curt told me he got out of the retail music business after a few years – he said it’s super competitive and hard to stay profitable. He went to work for the Ernie Ball Corporation in their Music Man guitar division. Ernie Ball is another guy with a great rags-to-riches story, but that’ll have to wait for some other time. He stayed with Ernie Ball for about 15 years and while he was there, he learned that musical instrument sales were cyclical – they went up and down. But strings seemed to be in steady demand. He studied guitar and bass string technology and, in 2004, he started producing strings.

I changed my strings a couple of weeks ago, so I won’t try out the Curt Mangan strings for a while, but I’m looking forward to trying them. If I like them, I can order direct from them online.

Curt’s notion of every guitarist needing a Stratocaster or Telecaster guitar stuck with me. I’ve been kicking around the idea of putting together a Strat-type guitar and doing research on the project. I bit the bullet and ordered a custom body and neck from BYO in New Hampshire. They’ll build the body and neck to my specifications – I went for a swamp ash body and maple neck with Indian rosewood on the fingerboard. With their lead time, it should work out for me to have the parts when we return to Mesa in September.

We left Cortez around 10:30am on Wednesday. The ongoing road work had moved past the La Mesa RV Park entrance and we had no trouble getting out. I made a quick turn into the Maverick station to top up our tank with diesel fuel. Diesel was $3.39/gallon – at this time last year we paid $2.21. Thanks, Joe – I see inflation rearing its ugly head.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, the temperature in Cortez reached 101 degrees. We had the generator running to power the roof air conditioner as we drove. Our route took us through Dove Creek and into Utah where we hit US191 in Monticello. From there we went north through Moab. Seeing what happened to Moab is a bit heartbreaking for me. It used to be a funky, cool little town that was a gateway to great hiking, biking and off-roading. Now they’ve over-developed it to the point of making it into a Disney-like tourist trap.

We arrived in Thompson Creek off of I-70 around 2pm and checked in for the night. We needed a 50 amp hook-up, it’s much too hot for dry camping. Today we’ll move on to Vernal, Utah and spend the night at a state park with electric hook-up. Friday we’ll go to Rock Springs, Wyoming. We didn’t plan to go there originally as we’ve been there twice before. But when searching for festivals, Donna discovered that this weekend is the Brews and Blues Festival there and we want to attend. We did it once before and it was a hoot with surprisingly good bands.

It should be a little cooler there, but we can still expect daily highs around 90 degrees.

Snail Mail

It has been a real whirlwind week with lots of activities for us. It started last Sunday when we met our friends Bob and Carolyn Ower for dinner at Main Street Brewery in town. We had good food – I highly recommend the Down Da’ Bayou plate. I had it with beer battered catfish smothered in Cajun blue crab sauce (shrimp can be substituted for catfish). It was excellent! We had a good time and lingered for nearly two hours telling stories.

One thing that definitely isn’t a whirlwind is the United States Postal Service (USPS). I have a couple of examples – I ordered a replacement accelerator pedal assembly with position sensor for our Nissan Frontier. I don’t normally like to replace a part based on a Diagnostic Trouble Code (DTC) in the control module – I prefer to test the components in the system containing the DTC to drill down to the faulty part. But, this is an intermittent issue and everything is working fine right now, so troubleshooting won’t work.

In our case we had an accelerator position fault. In my experience with Volkswagen, this could be anything from a pedal position sensor to a wiring harness or connector problem – rarely did I need to replace a pedal position sensor. Bob Ower runs a repair shop and has much more experience with Japanese cars than I do. He said he’s found this fault usually means a bad pedal assembly on Japanese cars. A search of Nissan forums seems to confirm this. So, I ordered a pedal assembly from Amazon and they shipped via USPS.

Well, USPS Priority mail doesn’t seem to have much priority these days. It took about a week to get the part. It didn’t look like they treated it too kindly during that time.

See the red sticker – and the crushed top of the box

Luckily the part inside was intact. Removal of the old part was fairly easy – I just had to remove the wiring connector on top of the assembly and remove three mounting nuts with a 12mm socket. The hardest part was wiggling into position to reach it.

I noticed the pedal didn’t appear to have much wear. Once I had it out, I had some misgivings about replacing it. I found the production date code on the assembly – it was 49/19. This means the pedal was manufactured during the 49th week of 2019. It had been replaced some time after that.

Production date code in lower left of sticker

The replacement pedal I received was produced in March of 2021, so there appears to be a lot of turnover of these parts. Hopefully I’ve solved the issue. With the new pedal installed, I had to go through a process for the Engine Control Module (ECM) to “learn” the pedal position parameters. I printed the pages with this procedure from the Nissan service manual – it involved turning the ignition to the “on” position for a few seconds, then “off” for 10 seconds with the pedal released. Then another series of key on and key off cycles with the pedal pressed through its full travel three times in five seconds. No big deal. A couple more procedures set the idle air control and idle speed and it was job done.

I have another beef with the USPS. I ordered our mail from our service in South Dakota on the second of June. I received tracking information that showed it arriving at the Sioux Falls, South Dakota USPS distribution facility on the third. Then no new notifications until yesterday, June 10th. It showed the package left the Sioux Falls USPS distribution facility on June 9th – six days after it arrived there. This is a USPS Priority mail envelope!

Donna and I played pickleball on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday morning. Our plan was to take Thursday and Friday off in preparation for another Shoot Out scheduled for Saturday (tomorrow). Besides, we had other things planned.

On Wednesday afternoon our friends Mike and Jodi Hall from Mesa and their granddaughter Swayzie checked in to the KOA Campground about a mile down the road from us. Donna prepared a potato salad and pounded chicken breasts which she seasoned with a dry rub and we went to their site at the KOA. Donna grilled the chicken there and we had dinner together at the picnic table in their site.

Jodi, Mike, Me and Donna (Jodi Hall photo)

Thursday morning we met up with them and drove nine miles east to Mesa Verde National Park. Mike and I both have America the Beautiful Senior Lifetime Multi-agency passes that get us into National Parks and other places free of charge. We drove about 26 miles into the park to the Wetherill Mesa area where we parked and hiked to the Step House. This is a cliff dwelling in an alcove facing northeast on the steep side of the mesa. It’s well protected from the elements. The hiking loop was about a mile long in total and we dropped about 100 feet down the side of the mesa.

They think 30 or 40 people lived here in 500-600 AD and again around 1200 AD.

Last night we joined the Halls for dinner again. This time Mike grilled pork chops. We all eat well, even when we’re roughing it.

This morning we met up again and they followed us up to Dolores where we hiked up the trail from the Canyon of the Ancients Visitor Center to the Escalante Pueblo and the McPhee Reservoir overlook.

These ruins date back to 1100 AD.

By the time we made it back down to the parking lot, it was lunch time. We drove through the town of Dolores and found Montezuma Mexican restaurant. Donna had heard good reports about the food there and they turned out to be well-founded. We sat on the back patio deck right next to the Dolores River and enjoyed some really tasty dishes.

Dolores River from Montezuma’s rear patio

Tonight we’ll meet up with Halls again to go to the fairgrounds for the rodeo. Donna bought tickets for all five of us a couple of weeks ago and we have reserved seats.

The pickleball club is having a social at Montezuma’s in Dolores on Sunday afternoon, so we’ll go there again. The Halls are scheduled to head out to visit friends in Ignacio Sunday morning before they return to Mesa, Arizona.

The weather has been on the warm side with daily highs in the upper 80s and even 90 degrees. This weekend is supposed to be warmer – well into the 90s. We might see 100 degrees before we leave next Thursday. I need to start planning a route out of here.

Face Plant

I had a little setback this week. Like many people my age, daily medications are the reality of life. In my case, I take a couple of medications to control high blood pressure – it’s a family trait. I don’t like it, but it’s what I need to do.

When I first started taking the medications, I wasn’t quite ready for how my body responded. One night I got out of bed and stood up a little too quickly. I immediately felt dizzy and should have sat back on the bed. Instead, I took a step and put my hand up to brace against the wall. I didn’t get there. Instead, I began to fall forward. To counter this, I took another step, then another. I picked up a little up speed, then fell flat on my face. That was several years ago.

It hasn’t happened again – well, I’ve had momentary dizziness from standing up too quickly after sitting for a period of time, but no falls. That is, until three weeks ago. The night before we left Mesa, I went down in the living room. I took a small chunk out of my nose when I fell, but it was no big thing.

On Tuesday night, we watched a few episodes of Chopped on TV. I was relaxing in the Euro-recliner while I watched TV. I’ll admit I was also sipping on a bourbon on the rocks. When it was time for bed, I stood up and turned off the TV. I felt dizzy, then the next thing I knew I was face-down on the floor, bleeding profusely from my forehead and nose and I could taste blood in my mouth.

Donna was in the bedroom but came out quickly when she heard the “Thump.” My lower front tooth was broken, I could feel it moving like a piece had split across the width of the tooth leaving a front piece that seemed fairly solid and a back piece (lingual) that was moving about. Donna helped me clean myself up and it was off to bed.

Wednesday morning I was worse for wear and appeared decidedly second-hand. My tooth was clearly an issue. Donna texted our friend, Carolyn Ower, and got a dentist recommendation. We were able to get an appointment to see Dr. Vestal at noon.

I drove to his office looking like I’d been in a bar fight – except my knuckles weren’t bruised. After checking me over, he confirmed what I thought. The tooth had split with a smaller lingual piece just hanging on. Luckily, it was a thin enough piece of enamel that didn’t expose the nerve. It also tapered down toward the gumline, so only a narrow sliver extended below the gum. He simply pulled it out. He thought it would be best for me to leave it as it is for a few weeks, then decide if I want a crown to repair it.

I think I’ll be looking worse before I get better. It was apparent by late afternoon and this morning was no improvement. At least my tooth doesn’t hurt and it could’ve been worse. I’ll get over it.

Yesterday Donna went to the community pool and had a good swim. There are numbered lanes and only one person at a time can take a lane. She wanted to swim laps, so this was perfect. This morning she went for pickleball but I stayed home – I need another day or two of recovery.

While Donna was at pickleball, I took my guitar apart for a deep cleaning and did a few set-up tweaks before restringing the guitar. I’m toying with the idea of building a solid-body electric guitar. I think it would be a fun project once we return to Mesa for the winter. I’m thinking a Fender Stratocaster type of guitar with a bolt-on neck wouldn’t be too difficult and it might be nice to have another guitar.

We ended May with a slightly wet day – we had a few showers on Monday – Memorial Day. The temperature reached the upper 70s and has been steadily warming since then. Today we expect a high of 85 and it should reach 90 by the weekend.

Donna closed out the Memorial Day weekend with a couple of outstanding dinners. Sunday she made a chili verde by cutting pork tenderloin into cubes, browning them, then put them into a slow-cooker pot with tomatillo sauce. She served it over pan-fried potato slices with grilled zucchini on the side. We’ve been dining al fresco at the picnic table.

On Monday she made Korean beef bowls. It wasn’t traditional Memorial Day fare, but it was delicious.

She kicked off June with a new take on grilled chicken – Moroccan spice grilled chicken with grilled asparagus. We loved it.

The chicken breasts came from a whole chicken that Carolyn Ower gifted Donna as a thank you for helping out at the farm. It was one of their hens they had butchered. It was the same size as the whole chickens we’ve been buying at the store (about 5 pounds), but was proportioned differently. The legs and wings were much larger while the breasts were still ample size. And it was less fatty. That’s what you get when hens are allowed to roam versus those that are caged.

Farm to Table

Last Thursday was Donna’s birthday. It was my youngest daughter, Shauna’s, birthday as well. We celebrated Donna’s birthday by going out to dinner at Olio Restaurant in Mancos, about 17 miles east of Cortez. This restaurant is open Thursday, Friday and Saturday and tables must be reserved in advance. It’s an intimate setting with only seven tables – only four tables were occupied while we were there.

They have a menu that frequently changes, depending on fresh ingredients in season and they have a large wine selection. We started with a three-cheese board with rosemary-fig jam, grill toasted bread and an assortment of nuts and dried fruits. We chose Delice de Bourgogne (creamy French cheese made from cow’s milk), Caciotta Dei Boschi Al Tartufo (firm Italian cheese made from sheep’s milk) and Bucheron (soft French cheese made from goat’s milk) for our three cheeses. I ordered a bottle of 2014 Pugnitello by Corte alla Flora – a bold Tuscan red wine to go with the meal.

The cheese board and wine were extraodinary. For entrees, Donna hard a hard time deciding between the Tomato Braised Heluka Pork Cheeks on ‘Cacio e Pepe’ Bucatini Pie  or the Confit of Poussin on Mushroom Farro with Marsala Sauce, Shaved Leek & Fennel Slaw. She went for the poussin which is a small chicken – about the size of a cornish hen – that’s been partially deboned before roasting. Only the leg and wing bones remain while the bird still appears to be intact.

I was excited by the Grilled Nebraska Wagyu New York Strip with Olio Signature Steak Sauce on the menu. I’ve never had wagyu beef before, but I knew about it – at least that’s what I thought. True wagyu beef only comes from Japanese cattle – it can be one of four breeds. The most well-known is probably Kobe beef. All Kobe beef is wagyu, but not all wagyu is Kobe. There are four breeds of wagyu in Japan. Wagyu (Wah-gyoo) can be translated as wa (Japanese) gyu (cow). Wagyu cattle are genetically disposed to having a high percentage of intramuscular fat – meaing a well-marbled meat that makes the tastiest and juiciest steaks.

Fifty years ago, some Japanese wagyu cattle were exported to America for breeding, but Japan soon outlawed any export of live wagyu or any genetic material capable of reproducing wagyu cattle – they declared it a National Treasure. But the cat was out of the bag and some ranchers bred the few available cows. But the gene pool was diluted and cross-breeding occurred. Nowadays, most American wagyu is a far cry from Japanese wagyu – it’s mostly angus DNA with a small amount of wagyu genetics. Some people look down on it and call it wagus.

Back to my dish. The Nebraska Wagyu is not the Japanese wagyu I was expecting. It was definitely more of a wagus beef, a lean one as well. I was sorely disappointed and in the future, I will choose USDA Prime over American Wagyu. The real deal Japanese wagyu goes for more than $100/pound and I’ve seen cuts as high as $300/pound. Although export of live cattle and genetic material is banned, you can still get butchered Japanese wagyu beef.

I should mention that Donna volunteered to help Carolyn Ower in her garden a few days a week while we’re here. She spent Wednesday afternoon and Friday morning last week weeding alongside Carolyn who is very happy for the help. Between gardening and caring for her chickens, Carolyn has been very busy getting ready for the farmers’ market here in Cortez that will open next weekend.

In my last post, I called the Ower’s place a ranch and linked to last year’s post where I called it a farm. So, which is it? Here’s the thing: I’ve found several definitions describing a ranch versus a farm. Most agree that a farm generally focuses on raising crops while a ranch will be mainly utilizing the land to raise large animals – cattle, sheep, horses, etc. A ranch will also be a farm when you consider that they usually grow feed crops and may have vegetable gardens. So a ranch can be a farm, but a farm isn’t a ranch. Does that make sense? By the way, the Owers call their place Ower’s Farm. Dairy farms seem to contradict the convention – they have cattle and usually grow feed but they aren’t called ranches.

On Saturday, we played in a pickleball shootout at the Centennial Park in town. The local pickleball club organized the event and we signed up online through Track It Hub. It was a round-robin type affair and in the first round, everyone played three games with different partners and opposition. Then we had a break that stretched to over 45 minutes as one court got a late start due to a no-show and they had to wait for a replacement player. The long break had an adverse effect on my game. I started by scoring 31 out of a possible 33 points in the first round and moved up a bracket. When we resumed, I felt stiff and lethargic and didn’t play well in the second round. Donna felt like she played okay. She had stiff competition in the first round, but had the second highest score. And in the second round, she scored 30 out of 33. We’ll probably sign up to play again in the next shootout tentatively scheduled for June 12.

Last week, Donna made a Dijon sauce to serve over sweet-spicy grilled chicken breast. It was tasty, but I was surprised to see the brand of Dijon she found.

Friday she grilled chicken and also a medley of peppers, fresh zuchini, onions and really young bok choy. The zucchini and bok choy were gifts from Carolyn Ower’s garden.

Yesterday, Donna tried a new-to-us salmon recipe. She grilled a wild-caught Alaskan sockeye salmon with a glaze of honey, olive oil, lemon juice, soy sauce, Worchestershire sauce, finely diced ginger and shallots. It was winner and we’ll definitely go with this again, especially since cooking it in foil made for super-easy cleanup.

She plated it with buttered basmati brown rice and Tuscan spiced broccoli. Excellent!

Salmon, basmati brown rice and Tuscan spiced broccoli

The weather has been very agreeable with a few clouds and daily highs reaching about 80 degrees. I’ve been alternating the afternoon hours between playing around with ham radio or practicing guitar. After not playing much over the last couple of years, I’m finding my guitar playing is going well – I feel like I’m playing better than ever, but there are some songs I used to play that I don’t remember.

The weather forecast calls for a cooler day tomorrow with a 40% chance of afternoon thunderstorms – of course I just washed the truck. It’s supposed to heat up after that with daily highs in the upper 80s. We’ll be here for two more weeks.

Sand Canyon Cliff Dwellings

Last year when we were here in Cortez, we met a couple at the farmers’ market that have a small ranch. Their names are Bob and Carolyn Ower, and they sell fresh eggs, produce and beef from their ranch. I wrote about visiting their place here. Last week, Donna contacted Carolyn to see about getting some eggs.

We went to their place on Saturday and had a nice visit. Carolyn kindly gifted Donna with a dozen farm fresh eggs and a couple of zucchini squashes. Carolyn’s eggs always look like Easter eggs because she keeps a variety of chicken breeds and they lay different colored eggs.

A strange thing happened as we were leaving. As I started to pull out of their driveway, our truck suddenly lost all power and wouldn’t rev above idle. I shut off the engine, waited about 10 seconds and restarted. It ran fine but the check engine light as well as the traction control symbol were illuminated. Lucky for us, it happened in the Owers driveway – Bob runs a small auto repair shop on the property. He was kind enough to connect a scan tool and read the fault codes. We had P2127 and P2138. These relate to an accelerator pedal position error.

Bob cleared the codes and they didn’t return. The most likely cause of the error is a bad pedal position sensor – modern cars are drive-by-wire, there’s no cable providing a physical connection between the accelerator pedal and throttle. It’s strictly electrical with a pedal position sensor and an actuator at the throttle valve. I’m still debating whether I should order a new pedal assembly which includes the sensor or not. The fault hasn’t returned and I don’t like throwing parts at a sporadic fault.

Sunday, while I watched the Formula 1 race from Monaco, Donna hiked the Sand Canyon Trail. The full trail is about 6.5 miles – she started at the bottom and the full length to the top gains significant elevation. Donna went about four miles up, then turned back. She saw many cliff dwellings – ruins from an ancient Pueblo tribe. Here are a few photos she took on her hike.

A collared lizard she came across on the trail

We had some rain on Friday and high winds which carried over to Saturday. The temperatures were much cooler – officially the high on Friday is listed at 66 degrees, but I don’t think we reached that here in the RV park. The night time temperatures really dropped with lows around 32 degrees over the weekend.

I put up my HF ham radio antenna – a Buddipole Versatee Vertical – Monday and broke out my ham radio rig. Conditions were good Monday afternoon and I made contact with Janez Celarc (S51DX) in Vhrnika, Slovenia – about 6,000 miles from Cortez, Colorado. I had talked to Janez last year when we were in Idaho. He was working a contest this time and didn’t want to chat – he was trying to record as many North America contacts as possible in a given amount of time. He just took my name, callsign and location, then moved on to the next contact.

As I’ve mentioned many times before, we’re not camping, we’re living the RV lifestyle. We strive to eat fresh cooked homestyle meals that are nutritious and healthy, just like we did in a sticks-and-bricks house. On Saturday, I made Japanese fried rice and Donna grilled jumbo shrimp to go with it. Delicious.

Jumbo shrimp with tare sauce over Japanese fried rice

We love fried rice and I make use of any leftovers. On Sunday, I made omelettes filled with fried rice for breakfast.

Last night, Donna grilled zucchini marinated in olive oil, lemon juice, lemon zest, salt and pepper. After grilling, she sprinkled the zucchini with a mixture of chopped kosher salt and lemon zest. It was a great accompaniment to spaghetti with clam sauce.

Tomorrow is Donna’s birthday. Traditionally we go out for a nice dinner at a restaurant of her choice. Last year we were in Springerville on her birthday and with covid restrictions, we had to settle for Chinese take-out. This time we have a reservation for dinner tomorrow at Olio Restaurant in Mancos. Olio is run by chef Jason Blankenship and his wife, Michelle. Chef Jason has 25 years experience as a chef in the Houston, Texas area and Durango, Colorado. His restaurant here is exclusive – it’s only open Thursday, Friday and Saturday – reservations are required. The menu changes weekly and everything is prepared by Chef Jason – no big kitchen staff. We’re really looking forward to it and I’ll tell you all about it in my next post.

Motion is Lotion

We had a fairly quiet night at the Ute Mountain Casino truck lot Saturday night. There was a truck with refrigeration unit that ran a generator all night. To me, it’s just white noise and I don’t pay much attention to it, but for Donna, it’s bothersome. We had a leisurely breakfast at the casino restaurant – we were in no hurry as we were only 11 miles away from Cortez.

We checked in at La Mesa RV Park in Cortez, Colorado around 12:30pm. There was a camp host expecting us and he directed us to site 9. After backing into the site, I confirmed Dish Network satellite reception before setting up. I wasn’t going to stay for a month in a site with no satellite reception. We set up without any issues and I was done in plenty of time to watch the Moto GP race from France at 3:30pm.

Our site backs up to the car wash at the Speedway gas station next door. This can be a little noisy during the daytime, but we haven’t heard anyone at the car wash after dark. When we checked in, I asked about Shiree, whether she still spends much time here at the park. Shiree and her husband, Ames, own this park and one in Springerville, Arizona. The camp host gave us some bad news.

He said Shiree wasn’t doing well. In February, she had some dental work done which involved removing a tooth with an old filling. Apparently, mercury leaked from the old filling and poisoned her. She’s not able to get around on her own and is undergoing chelation treatment to remove the metal. We’re hoping she makes a full recovery.

Over the last week, I’ve been complaining about a sore right knee. I had surgery on this knee about 35 years ago. I injured it in a ski accident on Mount Hood in Oregon. I had a partial tear of the anterior cruciate ligament and a torn medial meniscus. At that time, the surgeon told me he had to trim the torn meniscus as it wouldn’t regenerate. Over time, he thought this might lead to arthritis from bone on bone contact. I was thinking it might have finally caught up with me.

But then a curious thing happened. On Wednesday morning, I went with Donna to the pickleball courts. The soreness had improved so I thought I would give it go with a compression sleeve over my knee. After a few games, I didn’t feel any soreness at all. I thought it would be sore later in the day, but it didn’t happen.

Thursday morning we went back to the pickleball courts. I had the compression sleeve over my knee again, but wasn’t experiencing any pain. I played several games pain free and my knee remains pain free now. I don’t know how to explain it – maybe there’s something to the adage “Motion is lotion” and my knee is well lubricated again.

Pickleball courts at Centennial Park in town

They have six courts at the park and a group of players that show up regularly. We were invited to sign up for a tournament a week from Saturday, which we did. The tournament format is basically a round robin with individual scores tracked. I’m curious to see what group they put Donna and me in – we’ll see how they rate our level of play.

Wednesday afternoon we drove out to Mancos – a little town about 17 miles east of Cortez. The locals pronounce it MAN-cuss. After a couple of wrong turns we found the Mancos Brewing Company and stopped in for a couple of beers on their outdoor patio. They have several good brews on tap.

Other than pickleball, we’ve had a quiet week. I had one small project. The inlet to our canister water filter system was leaking. The inlet has a hose fitting swaged onto a 3/4″ pipe thread. Over time, it had worn where the hose fitting rotates on the 3/4″ pipe threaded into the plastic canister. I couldn’t find a direct replacement, but the hardware store had a short 3/4″ pipe threaded on both ends with the threads oriented correctly to add a hose fitting to it. So I bought those and figured I had it made.

I came home, shut the water off and removed the old fitting. Then I found I had barely enough teflon tape to put one wrap on the pipe threads. I put it back together and it leaked! I made another run into town for a $1.50 roll of teflon tape. This time I double wrapped the threads and put it back together. No leaks at the filter. Job done or so I thought.

Later I saw the area near the filters was still wet. Now the end fitting on our fresh water hose was leaking. I don’t remember how old the hose is, but I suspect we’ve had it for at least five years. I ordered a new drinking water hose from Amazon – it should be delivered today.

Today won’t be a good day for outdoor projects though. After having daily temperatures of 70 to 80 degrees, we have wind and rain today and the thermometer is only expected to reach 62 degrees.

I had another package delivered yesterday. I knew I would come across something that I needed, but left behind in Mesa. I tried to set up my Yaesu FT3DR handheld transceiver to work the local repeaters – one on a mountain top out side of Mancos and the other up in Dolores. But I didn’t have the cable to connect the radio to my laptop to program it. I ordered one from DX Engineering and it was delivered yesterday – but it was the wrong cable. I phoned them and we sorted out which cable I actually need and I shipped the wrong cable back to them. I should have the correct cable in a few days.

I’ll close with a couple of dinner plates. Wednesday, Donna grilled chicken that she simply seasoned with salt and pepper. She made creamed spinach and a baked spud to go with it.

Delicious chicken thigh and wing with creamed spinach and baked potato

Yesterday she marinated a pork tenderloin with her mojo marinade. I sliced garlic for the marinade. Donna asked for thin slices but I made them a little thicker than she usually does. She wondered how that would affect her recipe. It turned out to be an improvement – having the garlic 1-2mm thick added texture with no loss of flavor versus slicing it paper thin.

She grilled the pork last night and served it with sweet potato mash and French-cut green beans. We’ll use the leftovers to make street tacos for lunch today.

Mojo marinade pork tenderloin with sweet potato mash and French-cut green beans

Pine Trees and Petrified Forest

Packing the motorhome for a four-month road trip was harder than either of us imagined. I’m sure there will be situations where we say, “I wish I had brought XX along.” It’s a learning experience. Before, we traveled with all of our belongings. Now with the cargo trailer gone, we have to be more selective and there’s no reason to try to bring everything we own.

On Wednesday morning, Donna dropped me off at the 202 RV Valet storage facility, then she went grocery shopping. I moved our coach to the end of the row where there was a water spigot and hooked up our filtration and filled the fresh water tank. We planned to boondock for a few nights and I wanted a full fresh water tank. I didn’t take it back to our place at Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort because the only water spigot there is located behind the house at the rear of the property – I would have needed about 75′ of hose.

By the time I filled the 100-gallon tank and drove the coach back to Viewpoint, it was 11am. I had to obtain a 48-hour parking pass to park the coach on the street by our park model home. We began the process of loading the coach right after lunch and worked until dark.

On Thursday morning, we continued the process. Just packing all of the pantry supplies, spice cabinet, refrigerated and frozen foods was a big chore. I also put the Midget up on jack stands and removed the front wheels – I put the wheels in the double-locked storage shed to make it very difficult for anyone to steal the car while we’re away. I loaded Donna’s bicycle in the bed of our Nissan Frontier – I had made a cable locking system for it. I also loaded the Sea Eagle inflatable kayak in the truck, then I assembled the tow bar.

It was nearly 2pm before we were ready to hook the truck up to the coach. Our neighbor came out to help. Honestly, although I appreciated him, I didn’t really want the help. It was the first time hooking up the truck and I wanted to do it methodically and check each step of the process. We got it done and headed out.

Our plans went awry within half a mile. I had driven down the 200 lane and had to make a right turn onto the main street of the park. The person living on the corner to my right had placed a large rock cairn on the corner of their property. Due to a large palm tree in the center median on the street, my ability to drive deep into the street before turning was limited. The truck right front wheel struck the rock cairn. I was stuck. I had to disconnect the truck and move it, then reposition the coach on the main street and reconnect the truck. Not a great start.

By then it was 100 degrees out and 98 degrees in the coach. I fired up the generator to run the roof air conditioner as we drove down the road. Our route took us over Usery Pass to Bush Highway and AZ87 (Beeline Highway). Did I mention it was very hot out?The climb to Payson had me watching the engine coolant temperature closely. Any time it went over 195 degrees, I slowed and geared down to keep the engine rpms up and the load lower. Payson is 5,000 feet above sea level.

From Payson, we took AZ260 east. A little more than halfway between Payson and Heber, we found the Mogollon Rim Visitor Center. By the way, Mogollon is often mispronounced. People say “Moh-geh-yon” but the Arizona State Historian says it should be pronounced “Muggy-yawn.” We parked at the visitor center briefly. Donna texted our friends, Mike and Jodi Hall. They preceded us to the area and were meeting up with Frank and Kelly Burk at a camping area about 15 miles into the Sitgreaves National Forest.

I unhooked the Nissan and Donna drove it across the highway to Rim Road, I followed in the coach as we entered the national forest. The road was wide and paved for the first few miles, then it was graveled dirt – the dirt was fine powder, almost talcum like. It was dusty!

We made it 12 miles into the forest and found the cutoff for the spur road where we were told they were planning to set up. I left the coach on the main road and we drove about a mile down the spur road before we decided it was no go for the coach. The road had sharp rocks and potholes that would be hard on the tires and cause the coach to sway excessively – I could imagine everything falling out of cabinets.

We found a nice camp site just off of the main road – I think it was Forest Service 300 road (FS300) at the FS76 spur. Unfortunately, there was no cell service so we couldn’t let the rest of the crew know where we were. We had a peaceful, quiet and very dark night in the woods. Most people don’t envision pine forests when they think of Arizona, but northern Arizona has them, especially on the rim. We were 7,880 feet above sea level. Donna heard a cow elk calling near our site.

We decided against hanging around and trying to find our friends – we weren’t sure we had the right cutoff road or if we did, how far down they might be. We moved out of there at 9am Friday morning. Donna had spent a full day cleaning the interior of the coach last weekend, but now everything had a layer of fine dust, Same for the Nissan. Once we neared the highway, we regained cell service and I had a voicemail from Frank. We were on the right spur road to find them, but they were 3 miles down – too far to go back and forth every day on a rutted, rocky road, even in the truck.

We found another boondocking spot about 90 miles east at the entrance to the Petrified Forest National Park. There are free dry-camping sites at the Crystal Forest Museum and Gift Shop. We were set up there before noon and took the truck for drive into the national park. I have a lifetime America the Beautiful multi-agency senior pass. This got us into the park without paying fees – it’s usually $25 per car. The elevation there is 5,420 above sea level.

The petrified forest and painted desert are both part of the park. We stopped about a mile and a half into the park at the visitor center. There’s a hiking trail behind the center with lots of petrified tree trunk sections. Petrified wood is formed when trees are buried under silt for long periods of time – about 216 million years, give or take a few. The wood absorbs silica and other minerals as rain water percolates through the silt and quartz crystals bond with the cells of the tree – eventually making a replica of the organic tree material details in quartz form.

We drove through the park 26 miles to the north end, taking note of stops we wanted to make on the way back. The north end of the park has the Painted Desert Inn – a National Historic Landmark – and panoramic views of the Painted Desert. We stopped at Chinde Point where we we had a picnic lunch of the sandwiches Donna made.

Painted Desert view – the colors are somewhat washed out in the photo from the mid-day sun

Our next stop was at a place called teepees. The name comes from the shape of the hills formed from layers of sandstone there.

We made the driving loop at Blue Mesa. We didn’t hike much as I have a sore right knee. The last two times I played pickleball, I was rewarded with knee pain all afternoon. The pain persists now when I walk more than a few hundred yards – I’m not sure what’s up with that.

Blue Mesa is named for the layers of blue, purple and gray badlands that make up the area. Badlands aren’t just a place in the Dakotas – badlands describes an area void of vegetation with rock formations.

We made another stop and short walk to see Agate Bridge. This is a natural bridge formed from a petrified tree trunk. It was reinforced with concrete and people used to walk across it. Walking on it is forbidden now though.

We had another quiet night. The owner of the museum and gift shop doesn’t allow generators after 7pm or before 7:30am. Our Lifeline AGM house battery bank is holding up well – it hasn’t dropped below 12.5 volts at anytime on this trip.

We were on the road by 9am once again. We decided to head back to Cortez, Colorado. Donna talked to Shiree, the owner of La Mesa RV Park there and she could have a site for us on Sunday and we booked a month-long stay. The best route took us back through the national park, we exited at the north park entrance which loops back to I-40. We took I-40 about 20 miles east and hit US191 north. This took us through the west side of the Navajo Nation in northern Arizona. It was much like the New Mexico route up US491, but with what appeared to be sparser population – not saying the New Mexico side is highly populated!

The road surface was great all the way to Chinde, where we had a little incident. I turned off the highway to get fuel at the Speedway station. Once I made the turn, I saw it was a trap. Getting to the pumps and back out of the station looked problematic. I looked at the GPS map and it showed the road I was on circling the station through a small neighborhood back to the highway.

I went down the block and turned right, then I saw the pavement ended a few hundred feet down the road where the road became a heavily rutted dirt road. If we had the cargo trailer behind us I would have just reversed back past the intersection we just came through and drove back to the highway. Towing a vehicle with four wheels down means no reversing. The castor angle of the front suspension would make the front wheel turn to full lock when you reverse and would result in a disaster. I had two choices – unhook the truck and get turned around – or continue slowly down the rutted lane. I opted for the latter and we made it out of there after a few choice words. Phew!

North of Chinle, the road surface deteriorated. It had whoops and rollers so bad that I had to slow to 45 mph on a road with a posted 65 mph speed limit. We eventually hit US160 and passed through Four Corners where we briefly drove through New Mexico and into Colorado. (The Four Corners Monument is currently closed due to COVID-19.) Our destination was the Ute Mountain Casino about 11 miles from Cortez. After about 250 miles of travel, we were ready to call it a day. We lost an hour as we’re now in Mountain Daylight Time. We dry camped for free once again in the casino truck lot – a large paved lot adjacent to the casino travel center. The Ute Mountain Casino sits at 5,880 feet above sea level.

This morning, we had cool temperatures – my phone app showed 40 degrees at 7am. The sun came over the mountain to the east of us and it warmed up quickly. We expect a high of 80 degrees today with the chance of a passing thundershower. We’ll gain a few hundred feet heading into Cortez and we’ll be about 6,200 feet above sea level.

I’ll close this post with a food picture. Last week I had to make my signature Memphis-style babyback ribs. I won’t be able make them again this summer – we’re traveling with just the Weber Q, no Traeger wood pellet-fired smoker-grill.

Flying The Koop

…from real estate to wheel estate and back again

Idaho Falls

The Road to Ririe

Another Jetpack Blow-up

Unexpected Tour

Snail Mail

Face Plant

Farm to Table

Sand Canyon Cliff Dwellings

Motion is Lotion

Pine Trees and Petrified Forest

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: