Rock Crawling

Rock Crawling - July 28

We have been so lucky on this trip to meet so many people who take us in and introduce us to their daily lives which can really be SO totally different than ours. Our next door neighbor at Portal RV Resort is Dee McNenny, a retired ski instructor and Jeep driving extraordinaire, to say the least. She is from Colorado but working on making Moab her home base.  She lives in the most beautiful casita ever built with her coach in the driveway and two amazing Jeeps in the garage. Not a bad deal at all. She invited us to go out on her buggy to try "rock crawling" Saturday. What is "rock crawling"  you may ask. Well, it is pretty much just what it sounds like! And a lot more. We spent the ENTIRE day (due to some break downs you'll read about) out in the desert driving over rocks. Well, Dad and I rode...and walked some too!

We left Portal about 8:00 AM towing the buggy.  After meeting  Dee's friend Duane Stewart we headed up into the mountains . Shortly after getting into the valley, Dee's brakes on the buggy locked up, and we thought the day might be short lived. Dad and Duwane bled the brakes and sprayed some water on them to cool them down. Ten or so minutes later, the buggy was ready to go, and I decided to ride with Duane in the Jeep. We took the Rusty Nail Trail to the Golden Crack and then the Golden Spike back. The next day I went out and found a t-shirt with Jeeps and the word Moab too.   I felt like I had enough off road credibility to wear it!

The Outlaw buggy for Dee and Dad

The view as we climbed the mountain 

My view from the Jeep

When we weren't climbing obstacles this is what the trail mostly looked like

Duane driving and me holding on for dear life at the start of this obstacle. 

Here I have on the 5 point harness and clenching my jaw while Duane sings as he drives. 

Dee is the Queen Bee driver

Duane spotting and helping find the line on the Rusty Nail Trail

The first obstacle I ever went over where I saw sky the ENTIRE way. I screamed on this one! At this point, I had no idea how anything worked. After a while, I started watching Dee in the buggy behind us and could see the tires crawling, literally, up the rocks. 

And so begins an unusually difficult obstacle...

Off camber

Dad bails...

Duane having to add rocks in front of the right passenger tire to get some traction to get over the obstacle

Stuck on the differential - you can see where it scratched into the rock. Oh, and no worries---she made it!

"No left turn" obstacle. I wish I had a picture of the drop off on the left side of the mountain!!

Squeezing through "no left turn" and listening to country music. Definitely a great day to add to the memory bank.

The Golden Crack

Lots of differential scratches and black spots that are from power steering failures

Dee on the Golden Crack with Duane spotting  - what a GREAT shot. One of my favorites on the day. 

This crack is in the Pitman arm which allows steering on the Jeep - so with that broken...no steering. Let me back up...Dee says she wants to go over the Golden Crack, and Duane says that basically there is NO way he's going to cross it because the past two times he has crossed, something has broken. Well, once Dee got over, Duane couldn't stand being on the other side (we didn't HAVE to cross this to get back to the trail head by the way) and so over he goes and "crack" the Pitman arm goes. 

So here is break down for number 2 (the locked brakes was number 1). Duane has no steering so he isn't going anywhere. Luckily, we were at the summit of the mountain on the trail and had some cell service so Dee was able to call out a mechanic. Yes, a trail mechanic had to cross all those obstacles by himself with no spotting and bring us the right part. Dad and I had brought water, but enough to be back at noon, not enough for the whole day which we quickly learned was a mistake, but Dee and Duane had plenty and we were OK on water. While we waited for the part, we took a hike to the rim of the mountain and could even see the highway so we weren't actually far from civilization, but there is no other way off the mountain than over the trails unless you want to take the 1400 foot drop...the choice is yours. 

View from our hike

Dad napping. I can't make fun because I took a long nap too!!

It probably took about 3 hours total for Tim the mechanic to get out and install the new Pitman arm (which fit!) He even had to take a nut off of his truck to finish the install, and then there were three of us driving the obstacles on the different trail on the way home. I really enjoyed this trail back. Although the obstacles were big, there was no need to spot, and we headed along nicely for a while. Not to be outdone, Dee came on the radio and said, "Well...I think I'm out of gas!" To make a really long story short (er), Tim got gas out of his tank to give to her while Duane and I headed on to get gas from the trailer at the bottom of the mountain. Instead of being out of gas, it looked like there was something wrong with the fuel cell in Dee's  buggy. By the time Duane and I got the gas, we met up with Tim and Dee in the valley before the descent down about 6:45pm. About a mile from the parking lot we came upon this....

Dee had lost ALL of her lug nuts on the back driver side and off came the wheel and tire! You can see how close we were to the highway. By this point, my cheese and crackers were WAY gone! 

Jacking up the buggy and using lug nuts from other wheels to put on the fallen wheel.

We finally made it to the flat part of the road, and Dee had a chance to show off her backing skills which were great.  She demonstrated by backing the trailer down the road so the buggy didn't have a chance to lose that wheel again. What an exciting day!! With a full belly of pizza, I slept so well and luckily didn't dream of tipping over in a Jeep!! Oh, I also can't forget to mention the amazing SKILLS both Dee and Duane have while driving these obstacles. Really top notch driving!! So lucky we were all safe and had a great day!!! 

Silverton and Ouray, CO

Silverton and Ouray, Colorado - July 27

This was a very LONG Jeep day trip to the southwest corner of Colorado....  Our destination?   Two tiny little mountain towns in the Rocky Mountains. We left Moab early around 7:00 AM and were shocked (and almost turned around) to see the GPS tell us we would be in Silverton in 4 hours but it was only about 180 miles. We were taking country roads, but truck route so we figured that there must be something pretty wild in between us and Silverton. Well, there was! Hwy 550 in Colorado curves and climbs to 11,000 feet with no guardrail. Seriously! We did see a few trucks on it; however, it was definitely not something to take the Newell on mainly because we'd probably both pass our from nerves on the way. 

Looking awkward at the Colorado boarder. Brings a new meaning to t-shirt dress.

Amazing view of the Rocky Mountains

More pictures of the road. I could go on and on!

Where is the guardrail?

Again - no guardrail!!! I DON'T UNDERSTAND!!!!!

Striking a model pose in Silverton

Train pictures for you, Daniel!

My favorite shot of the guy working on the train

Hot coals in the train

This train goes back and forth between Durango and Silverton

We ate a delicious lunch here.

After walking around Silverton for a while and poking our heads in many of the stores, we decided to go back to Ouray and do the same there. We went past Ouray on the way to Silverton so it wasn't going out of our way to sightsee. We had thought about going to Telluride, but from Silverton it was two more hours of driving and we just weren't ready for that!  Even in the small, maneuverable Jeep!

Arriving back in Ouray

This shows pretty much the entire town of Ouray which is just wedged in between the huge Rocky Mountains

Shot of the city of Ouray 

Where I got a great latte to keep me awake on the drive home

11,000 feet. Pretty high! We survived it...twice! 

Well, I am always on the Newell look out. Anytime we go anywhere or pass by a campground, I have my eyes peeled. So far my Newell sightings have made us some new friends. Friends are great, and I just LOVE to see how different each custom made coach is. While passing Ouray on the way to Silverton we passed a campground, and I saw one---a Newell!     So we stop and the coach had TENNESSEE plates but no one home so we left our card and a note. On the way back to Portal RV, we stopped again and just called the 865 phone number on the truck and Ron Skeens of Jefferson County, TN answered with "Hello Russ!" ????? Apparently Dad had fixed a circuit board for Ron a while ago. He wasn't home, but told us to go on in and give ourselves a tour of his gorgeous and no slide Newell. So we did!

Ron's 1996 Newell with the raised ceiling in the back. Great coach!

We had a LONG day but such an enjoyable one, and I managed to stay awake the entire trip back which is a feat within itself!!

Moab, UT

Moab, UT - July 24 - 31

Portal RV Resort, Arches National Park, and Canyonlands National Park

WOW! We have done so much in Moab!! Moab is such a great town with so many things to offer with basically two National Parks, extreme sports, great weather, great people, and SO much more! We arrived in Moab on July 24 after leaving Ruby's Inn with a sparkling clean Newell that Dad washed in the RV/Bus washing bay for less than $20 - a great deal. The drive was beautiful across southern Utah but not without a few surprises. When we were leaving Bryce we went through a few small towns that were clearly preparing for parades which we narrowly missed - thankfully. Can't imagine what it would have been like to try to get around a small town parade. It wasn't a weekend, but the mystery was soon solved when we stopped in the Newell at the Wal-Mart to do some shopping. We were wished a Happy Holiday as we checked out with our groceries and then with a little Wikipedia research, learned it was Pioneer Day. Pioneer Day celebrates the day Brighon Young himself appeared in the present day Utah area. Dad and I celebrated by crossing Utah in our very own covered wagon, the Newell! Sometimes, I think it is very important to try to understand what coming into this land would have been like in a real covered wagon - what a totally different time and life. How lucky are we to live in a time where we can travel hundreds of miles a day, with cool air, and no horses? 

Steep grades but beautiful views of southern Utah

At the bottom of the grade in between the rocks.

More landscape. Also, NO road services and NO cell service. 

We have been really lucky with having no accidents (knock on wood) and no break downs (knock on wood), but on this leg of the trip is where NOT to have any problems. No services of any kind and that includes cell. We did see a single car accident (it flipped over) and there were two police cars there. It was hard to tell how the call got out or how the police were notified,  We checked on the GPS and the closest Police Station was 86 miles away as the crow flies, so much farther by driving. Very lucky to have such a safe trip so far!!

We arrived in Moab, UT in the mid afternoon, and I made a huge mistake on navigating and became disoriented while looking at the iPad upside down.  That meant we missed our turn into Portal RV Resort. So we had to pull over and look at the iPad (still upside down - I just learned how to lock it...embarassing) and find roads to turn around on. We had to drive through town and luckily had both a light and an extra turn lane along the way to make it safely into Portal. Portal RV is such a great place! We are in the South Side which is the owner side and have access to the beautiful pool, modern bathhouse with fancy sinks, and a great view of the portal itself which is at the confluence of the Colorado and Green Rivers.

Dad quickly found me a great place to work out at the Moab Recreation and Aquatic Center. I have taken a few classes (two at 6am!!!) and worked out with their state of the art equipment. It's so fancy that I could be writing the blog from the treadmill as you read. I'm not, but I could have!! What an amazing facility for me to spend some time at since it's been a while we have stayed somewhere with a fitness facility! I was also able to ride my bike there on the bike trail, but Dad did have to come pick me up...oh well. Better safe than in the local hospital.

Newell and Jeep on lot M22 next to the beautiful casita

Our outside space on the lots with the pergola. 

The Portal Pool from our friend Dee's casita at night!!! 

View of the Portal

The sun is hitting the rock absolutely perfectly and with the dark clouds in the sky - love it!!!

As I previously mentioned, Arches National Park is just down the road and after my early  morning work out class (which, by the way, I was sore for two days!) we headed over to Arches. Arches National Park has a beautiful visitor center with a great informational video about how the arches and canyonlands were formed by water (the Green and Colorado Rivers) which seems to be so scarce out here in the desert. Moab lies on a fault line that is 300 million years old. It is truly amazing to see how nature made this landscape. Who knows what it will look like in another 300 million years??

The maps warned us that parking would be a problem but since we were there so early it wasn't; however there really wasn't that much parking at the different view points. We saw a lot of arches including the Delicate Arch (which is the most famous one) and then took the Jeep on some off roads. Pictures tell all....

Entrance to Arches National Park

An arch - so cool to see these. 

The bluffs where we took the Jeep on the sand roads in Arches National Park

Jeep on the back roads in Arches

More vistas from Arches National Park

The Delicate Arch 

More arches

Balanced Rock - what a perfect name and description 

More Arches National Park

The sign on the road where we took the Jeep - at this point we were very excited!

This is the balanced rock part the sign warned us about and where we turned around. Little did we know where we would be driving later in the week!!

About 30 miles from Moab is the Canyonlands National Park that has only been a park since the early 1960s.  Because it isn't as well known as the rest of the parks in the National Park system, it was not as crowded,  but it is remarkably beautiful!  We went on a surprise mile and a half hike where I got a little sun!   Again...more pictures!!

Entrance to Canyonlands

Canyon in Canyonlands - I think this looks like a chicken footprint

More canyons and you can see the see the dirt roads for Jeeping 

I found a place to nap

At the top of our hike at Upheaval rock - a very sharp drop off. I did not like that at all!

Upheaval rock. This rock had a green-ish hue and is clearly different than the surroundings area and looks like it pushed through the land! So cool!

We were originally only planning to stay 4 nights in Moba, but have (so far) added 3 more! I've been able to go to more classes at Moab Recreation and ride bikes on the amazing bike path that goes on for miles and miles. Also, how could we miss this sunset??

Has to be one of the most beautiful sunsets of all time. Dad gets all of the credit for these sunset shots. 

Another shot of the great colors in the sky. 

Miles of safe biking. What a great characteristic of this area to have fewer "extreme" places to take bikes!

Biking over the Colorado River one morning. The cliff face on the other side was straight up.

Moab, Utah has it all!!!