Two nights at an equestrian campground, where family and the neighbors joined us for some great evenings at the campfire. We didn’t have horses, but the neighbors were accepting anyhow…lol. Exchanged numbers. Second group of the trip that we’ll make efforts to keep in touch with.
Moved on towards Escalante and Boulder. Turn right and went looking for a camp spot. Found it!
What a fantastic evening and morning. Views, quiet and good company.
Headed east, enjoying a fairly quiet road. It’s paved mostly, until you hit the park, then it turns to gravel. Into Capitol Reef we went;
Everything was fun and games until we started heading north through the park. I’ve been on wash board at least a couple of times in my life. Some really bad. Nothing like this.. It was 20 plus miles of seriously slow (idle speed much of the time). The trailer would start to bounce from the oscillation…to the point that it was brutal. Just had to go slow. Usually don’t mind slowing down, but it was over 4 hours on the worse part. 6 hours from the bottom to the exit at the north. Met a Ranger on the road..she was politely trying to tell me that many drivers were idiots and that the drainage cuts were at times difficult or impassable. I thanked her, stated we understood and asked it the ones ahead were worse than the two behind me. They weren’t. Point is though, someone with a long trailer, MH, etc, and who didn’t understand the basics…would easily wedge in the ‘V’. I think the best part of the whole little journey was when we were at the wye at the bottom of the switch backs and met up with a couple heading up with a little truck and pop up camp trailer. Her eyes were about 6” in diameter after noting that we’d come down the hill. She looked at her husband and said “Ok, I think we can do this”.
Side note, I’m not sure I would choose to go up the switch backs with heavy trailer combo’s. Completely doable, but the uphill sharp turns are pretty bumped out from people spinning. We’re a lot heavier than average, but the lighter trucks, etc, have rutted it out severely making one seriously bumpy ride going up. One of those situations where a light truck dragging an anchor would have to keep some speed to make it around the corner, but in doing so, compounds the problem. Food for thought for those that tow.
Ended up near Hanksville for a quiet night. Really, really quiet.
Our freezers were full of Ling Cod, steaks, hamburger, Sea Bass and along with some kielbasa, really good hot dogs, etc. Some nights, I just wasn’t sure what to make; here was an odd surprise; apples, sauerkraut, kiebasa, potato’s and seasoning. Call it a wild hair at times, but fun and this was pretty simple and good.
Then back south along 95 towards Blanding. Hands down, one of the top areas we need to go back to and park and explore. Stunningly beautiful canyon areas. We weren’t in a hurry, but we did have a deadline now to be back home which led us to not explore the way we wanted. Blanding and then North to Moab. Ugh.
Hit Moab and realized I’m getting older. It’s different; too metro, too invaded, too much like other areas that become ‘popular’. Uptight and no fun anymore. I know, it’s just one opinion, but I don’t dwell on it, just move on to the next. We drove out of town east for 30 miles to get off BLM land (the area near Arches/Moab has restrictions on camping, as in designated areas only). Passed the last campground, cross the bridge, turned left and parked by ourselves. Mucho better.
In the morning we hit Arches. Unloaded the bike and viewed and hiked. Wonderful hikes. And again, a win for the parking. Place was crowded, cars looping around and around looking for a spot. It’s a shame, and I’m also not one to want to jump to limiting. Not sure if there is an answer other than one has to plan better, as I want people to enjoy and see the wonders. But the crowds at the popular spots can be brutal.
From Arches, we drove north up 191, making time, and went through Flaming Gorge Rec area and then into Wyoming. Found a nice little camp site in the middle of a little field. It wasn’t bum-f-egypt, but you could see it from there..
Through Rock Springs and into Jackson Hole. Another town that has lost most of it’s charm. Pandemic and packed with tourists doesn’t help. Beautiful area for sure. Fun fact: almost the entire town closes up and vacations after Thanksgiving. Get there the first week or so of December, and the town is open, but deserted. An absolute treat. Didn’t get that this time unfortunately. Wife shopped a bit and we took off. Outside of town and east, off park land, found another great camp spot. We were eating dinner when a local herd of beef wandered by the camper…we were all quite content at staring at each other. They ate grass, we ate their cousin..
Through the Grand Teton park and into Yellowstone. Snow on the ground, we enjoyed the drive and pulled into the lodge at Old Faithful. Good day for a hike…we skipped hanging out for Faithful..honestly, it’s not that exciting. But the hike out through the boardwalks is wonderful.
Here’s the stuff that just cracks me up and should frustrate you all. Typical at the parks, they close the lodges and bathrooms. For safety of course. Then they install these;
Yea, that makes sense. No doubt it’s so much safer to clean. Never mind they’re bunching all the people together in one line and toilet facility. Don’t read me wrong, I don’t have a problem with the bathroom, just the logic and extra money they spend in the farce of doing the right thing. And the dumbest part? Can’t have the visitor centers open, but we sure can open the shops.. don’t get me going on how stupid we’ve allowed everything to get.
To West Yellowstone, some shopping and out of town to the west. Took 287 and passed a lake that just didn’t make sense to me. Was commenting to the wife that it didn’t make a lick of sense to build a dam and not cut all the trees first. Why would they do that….? Lol, around the bend, a sign, I pulled over, and got another history lesson. A natural tragedy in the 50’s, Earthquake Lake. That explained why the trees were still sticking up in the middle of the lake.
To Ennis, then a bit more backroad to Virginia City, zigged down to Dillon, then shot up to 90 and worked our way home. Stopped and had dinner with friends in Coeur d’Alene, checked out some property north of Spokane.
One of the last quiet camp spots was about 6 miles up a valley road in Montana off 41 (I think we were near Silver Star). Had a ranch hand pass by earlier…told him we were looking for the bar. I didn’t think it was that funny, but he sure did. I can only imagine his though process, from lost city folk idiots in way over their heads to, sweet, having fun, looks like a good time.. About 9pm, we hear a truck coming down the road..three honks, a big wave and off he went. Nothing more than letting us know he was passing through.
We don’t go four wheeling, looking to get lost, stuck, or otherwise screwed up and in trouble; never been up anything I couldn’t back out of. But we get off the beaten track for sure. It’s really not hard to determine if a road is used enough that it heads somewhere, and I’m always looking to see if I can determine if it’s graded or not. A grader takes a decent amount of space to turn around. If he can, I can. The new apps (Maprika, others similar) are fantastic for showing roads, trails, BLM, National Forest land, etc. Makes it really easy to keep pushing. Neat thing about them, they work even without signal. I’ll download a section of the map prior to being in an area (a big chunk of the state or states) and the GPS location works regardless of signal. So, the map works.
We took a trip to the Red Woods and what not earlier this summer. I’m going to try and put something together for that too. Lot’s of good sights for sure.
Cheers….
