Fast 5 Moab Run Down

We just finished up our stay in Moab.  We spent the majority of our short time here repairing the trailer (and the wheel). Even so, the small amount of time we were in the Moab region was enough to captivate both of us - so much we are already planning another trip here in the future to see even more.  So, here is a look at how we spent our short amount time here:

1. Fixing the tire blowout and resulting damage to the trailer:

We were able to get a replacement tire fairly easily, but to put it back on, we had to completely button up the trailer, put the cats in their carrier, hitch back up, and put the tire up on boards to change it out with the spare. Then we hired a trailer repair guy to come out and help Jason work on fixing the side panel along with the underside damage.

We are both really glad that the damage has been repaired and we are reviewing our research on trailer tires and what we need to do to keep this from happening in the future. Our very latest research is telling us that trailer tires are only good for 5,000 - 12,000 miles! Huh. Somehow we missed that when we were initially doing our research. We had heard that they should last at least 10 years - and even the dealer we bought our trailer from said our tires should outlive the trailer. Apparently that is based on the idea that you don't go out on 5,000 mile summer trips every year. So, even though it was an expensive and time consuming event - at least we are all safe, no real damage occurred, and we learned something valuable from it. We are also thinking about getting some tire monitoring system to better keep track of our tires. And, of course, we will continue to monitor the tire pressure on our own.

2. Hike to Delicate Arch in Arches National Park

A large portion of all the hikes were all shut down due to a parking lot upgrade in Arches National Park. We were pretty bummed about that - but we didn't have a lot of time to explore everything anyway, so that helped us narrow things down to what we were going to do (and also let us know that everything else that was still open was going to be CRAZY busy). One thing I really wanted to do is see the Delicate Arch. So, on Tuesday, we got up early and headed into the park to try and beat the heat and crowds (and get a parking place!) so we could abuse our bodies by hiking to Delicate Arch.

I feel pretty lucky that we got there early enough to enjoy the arch with very few people around. 

The hike is only 3 miles round trip - but that 1.5 miles in were intense! Especially to us out-of-shape 30 somethings (and if you keep in mind the 4,000-5,000 feet elevation).  Anyway, the first half is all uphill and part of it is this very steep climb over a very large rock. 

Some of the images from our Delicate Arch Hike

We loved the hike - and we timed it perfectly.  There were hardly any people there when we got there so we were able to get some nice pictures and enjoy the arch for its beauty. By the time we left a ton of people had started to show up.  And by the time we got back to the parking lot, they had closed the lot we were in and people were parking on the side of the road for as far as we could see.

Although we about got blown off the cliff by the 50 mph wind gusts, the picture was totally worth it! I had no idea that the arch was as tall as it is. 

I LOVED the Delicate Arch. Even though I had seen a ton of pictures of it, it was really amazing to see it is person, and so up close as well.

3. Canyonlands National Park

We only had a few hours to explore Canyonlands, but our time there left me wanting more. Tons of hikes and things to see. We only got to see a portion of the park - but what we saw was breathtaking:

Truly an amazing view

We did go on one short 1/2 mile hike out to see the Mesa Arch.  It was a great little hike and the arch with the beautiful canyon behind it was lovely.  Plus we got to see a couple of different cactus blooms along the way.

Our Mesa Arch Hike

One great thing about Canyonlands was all the great viewpoints like this one overlooking the Green River as it cuts its way through the rock. 

One of Jason's panorama's of the green river overlook

Overall the area had a lot to offer (not to mention scaring the shit out of me when there were 50 mph gusts of wind when we were very close to edge of a major drop off!).  Can't wait to go back and see and do even more!

Some of the vistas in Canyonlands National Park

4. The rest of Arches National Park:

The rest of Arches National Park besides the Delicate Arch area was pretty fantastic as well.

We did get out and hike around some of the other arches that were still open, and they were amazing and beautiful.  However, it was so crowded due to the Devil's Garden section being closed down that it did take some of the majesty away.  If we had gone really early in the morning, we would have probably enjoyed it even more.

Clockwise from top left: double arch, the 3 gossips, some large sandstone rock, turret arch, us in front of the south window arch, north window arch, and a picture looking up at the north window arch. 

Next time we come here we want to visit the Devil's Garden area that was closed down this time. Also, maybe go at sunset to see some of these arches really lit up with that gorgeous light. 

Most definitely awe-inspiring!

5. Food and drinks:

For being such a touristy location, there was some pretty good food to be found in Moab. The first night we went to Bucks  because it was right in front of our RV park and I heard live music coming from the back patio.  Turns out that it has an amazing private patio overlooking the mountains which was made even better with live music.  We shared a couple of appetizers (Mixed Game Skewer with boar, elk and buffalo sausage and Clams Verde (clams in a garlic cilantro broth).  We also went to the Peace Tree Cafe which had a nice patio right on the main street through town and also had a ton of really good food. The Moab Brewery was also surprisingly good - my smoked salmon salad was delicious!

A small sampling of our restaurant adventures

Overall, we saw a lot of potential for fun in Moab. I think we will definitely come back some day so we can explore even more that southern Utah has to offer!

Rifle Gap State Park

Before our ridiculous Friday the 13th "fun", we journeyed from our rest stop in Goodland, KS to Rifle, Colorado.

Welcome to Colorful Colorado! 

Kora, who is truly a wonderful camp kitty, threw mini tantrums off and on throughout the day. I wish she would be a better traveler since she seems to love camping so much.  Dexter has become an excellent travel kitty since we have fixed his diet (he know eats prescription, easy to absorb, cat food) and has put on some weight.  He now will purr and relax in the car.  I keep hoping that Kora will get that way at some point.

Let me sing you the song of my people

Minus the backseat sing-a-long from Kora, the drive was amazing. Having never driven this way before, we didn't know what to expect. What we learned is that I-70 goes straight through (literally - we drove through several major tunnels) and over the lower portion of the Rocky Mountains.  

Approaching the Mountains

The scenery was just beautiful for the majority of the drive. We saw snow capped peaks (up close and personal at 12,000 feet!), and steep and narrow canyons, and tons of waterfalls from the snow run off on the side of the mountains.  

Towards the end of the canyons we drove through

After 7 hours (only 1.5 hours longer than we had planned - I am sensing a theme here. Boo), we arrived at Rifle Gap State Park, outside of the town of Rifle in western Colorado.  We chose this campground purely on the fact that it was a good midway point between Goodland, KS and Moab, UT. It was fantastic - minus the fact that we had no real internet or cell phone connection. Every once in awhile we would get a bar, but for 95% of the time, we were completely technology free. Which, I don't mind at all - if I know ahead of time that will be the case.

The reservoir - the orange arrow is pointing to us in our spot.

Rifle Gap is a state park on a fairly large reservoir.  The area is surrounded by mountains and is mostly what I would call a high desert ecosystem. 

Our primo spot

I was not really expecting much of this place since we just chose it out of necessity, but it turned out to really private and beautiful. Our spot was one of the most private with no one on any side of us.  The overall park was very quiet and isolated, which is a rare thing since we were actually only a few miles from town. 

You can really tell how private our spot is in this picture

The town of Rifle itself is also an extremely cute little town. According to wiki, it has a population of about 10,000 people.  The downtown area was really nice and they have obviously put a lot of effort into maintaining its charm. Thursday morning we ate breakfast at this pretty fantastic downtown diner called the Base Camp Cafe - complete with lots of cheery dead animals on the walls!

Part of downtown Rifle

Then we headed back towards camp - and continued for about another 10 minutes to another state park called Rifle Falls State Park to see what it was all about. I guess I have lived away from waterfalls for a long time because I was thinking that this would be just a nice little trickle or something.  But, wow - these waterfalls were absolutely AMAZING. One of the most beautiful waterfalls I have ever seen. They are 70 feet tall and were just gushing water.

The triple falls at Rifle Falls

There is a short path that leads you to the top of the falls so you can get a great "behind the scenes" look at them.

Just gorgeous!

I could have spent hours here. There were some nice benches and picnic tables nearby that would be wonderful to have a nice lunch and enjoy the falls. However, it was a fairly small park with not a lot of parking, so I imagine that a person would want to get there early on the weekends to get a spot.

But first, we're gonna take a selfie

After we got done enjoying the waterfall, we headed back to camp where I cut up some chicken breast and marinated them in a honey mustard sauce. My mom gave us some flexible skewers as part of our anniversary gift so I decided it was about time to cook up some kabobs. These turned out amazing - the marinated chicken, plus garlic and herb seasoned mushrooms and tomatoes with a side of red beans and rice. So good!

MMMMM Kabobs!

Then, in the evening we got to watch as storms rolled by next to us. We were never rained on, but you could see where the storms were dumping rain on the mountains next to us. It was very pretty to watch!

Storm clouds rolling by

All in all our temporary rest stop turned out to be much better, more secluded, and more beautiful than we had imagined! We will be definitely keeping it in mind if we ever come back out this way in the future! 

A pop and a stop II

It has been an interesting trip so far. First we had the crazy rain and wind through Kansas. But then, while we were in Kansas it was actually great and beautiful. Then, we traveled to Colorado (which post I am working on) and we had the moth invasion AND no internet or cell service, which we were not expecting. Then came today where the real shit show happened.  We were all happy driving through the western side of Colorado

Pretty scenery in Colorado

And were super excited when we entered into Utah - a state that neither one of us have ever been before.

Welcome to Utah!!

When, only 40 miles from our destination, we heard a loud "POP". Of course, we both remembered the last time we heard a large pop and immediately pulled over to the side of I-70.  I looked in the mirror and could clearly see that something was wrong with the back tire and the side of the trailer. After getting out and looking at it, we learned that our back tire blew out and we lost the tread, which kicked up and damaged some of the exterior siding and created a few other mostly cosmetic issues with the trailer.

BAD TREAD!! BAD!!!

 Another truck pulling a boat was also pulled over on the side of the road and offered to help, (at which point I was thinking HELL YES, but Jason said no, we have all that we needed. ??  Really? I had no idea. I pay attention to what is INSIDE the trailer, not silly things like extra tires and tire irons). So, even though we thought was really nice, we sent them on their way towards their vacation since we actually had everything we needed to change the tire.  So, we put the cats (in their carriers) inside the trailer (where it was cooler), and proceeded to take the sad broken tire off and put the spare on (well, mostly Jason did all the work while I played the part of Ralphie and held onto the lug nuts - OH FUDGE).

I-70, the side of the road, and us

After about an hour of figuring out how to change a tire on a trailer on the side of a super busy freeway, we were back on our way driving on a nice shiny new spare tire. We were just a tad frazzled by the time we reached our destination, Slickrock RV Park, and were not at all amused by the first spot that we had apparently reserved for ourselves (let's just say that if we had tried to park there we would have lost our roof to a nice, but short and stocky tree).  I was really worried that we would be screwed and having to sleep on the of the road or something, but Jason sweet talked the front desk lady and we got our pick of several sites in the park to move to.

Our second choice site. Obviously just a tad tight!!

So we chose this site because it was long enough and was going to be in the shade most of the day. AND it was on the end of a row so we would only have neighbors on our mostly windowless side. 

Being on the end, it makes our spot seem bigger. We even had a picnic table, a grill, and a fire pit! 

But, this park is a tad small (although, we noticed several sites that WERE wider than ours), and we had to really work to position front to back and side to side to fit and be able to put our slides out. We have stayed in 27 campgrounds and RV parks now, and this was the most tight fit we have had so far in a place that was supposed to be able to accommodate our size.

You can see just how close we are to that tree!!

However, if you can overlook the crowded nature of the park, it IS nice to have shade here in Moab, and we even have nice views of mountains and red rock from our spot.

Red rock mountain views

Once we got parked, settled (and Jason had to go buy us a power extension cord), and plugged in with the A/C running for the poor kitties, it was time to asses the damage.

Uh, sir, I don't think it is supposed to look that way

Jason will spend more time tomorrow looking underneath the trailer, but right now, the majority of the damage looks like it is cosmetic damage. Which doesn't make me happy that now our trailer has observable damage to it, but I am thankful that it wasn't worse.

*ouch*

So, after a MUCH longer day than originally planned, we were all set up inside and it was past time for a little celebration TEQUILA SHOT that we made it and we were all ok!

Sauza. Not normally a "shooting" tequila, but you do what you gotta do in a pinch. Also, a noticeable lack of salt and limes. 

Tomorrow we will work on dealing with getting a replacement tire and looking over the trailer for anything that we need to fix or should fix before continuing our summer journey.  And, since I once again have access to the internet, I will be able to complete the blog post from the state park we visited in Colorado. Till then, Cheers! 

It was a Good Land after all!

We just wrapped up our two night stay in Goodland, Kansas.  We choose this particular stop based solely on how far away it was from home until our next stop. This year we really tried to focus on shorter drives and longer stays, but this first drive was (or should be!) our longest. Google Maps said that it should have taken us 6.5 hours, but when we programmed Drogo's gps, it said it would take 8 hours!! Usually, Google Maps tends to be more accurate, but this time, our truck had it right. We left at 9:00 am and, after 2 stops to refuel, we were completely set up in our spot by 6:30 pm.

My horrible attempt to capture the tiny "Welcome to Kansas" sign

The weather on our drive did not really give us summery feelings - the majority of the drive it was overcast and rainy. And, for several hours it POURED down rain and had heavy sustained winds (25 mph) and occasional 50 mph gusts of wind. It made for a pretty "exciting" drive! 

Pouring down rain

I entertained myself by alternating between knitting on my swirl jacket and talking to the cats. And, ever the helpful one, also looking up truck stops on my phone to give us places to fuel up.

My swirl jacket - I obviously have a long way to go! Also, my yarn is more navy blue than in this picture. 

Even though the drive was more interesting than we had predicted, as soon as we reached the KOA in Goodland, the sunshine came out. It was fairly cool outside (we even remarked that it almost felt more like October than June), but it was nice to sit outside in our space. 

Red solo cup! I fill you up! It's time to party!

Go Pokes!

We had planned on staying an extra day to give us time to recover from the long drive, but also get ourselves ready for the rest of our trip and to enjoy our time. So, the next day, we ventured out to explore the super adorable town of Goodland. First up was "The World's Largest Easel"! Also, apparently known as the Van Gogh painting.  

Why, that is a large easel!

I am not exactly sure I understand the point of the super huge easel + painting, but it was actually pretty cool.

I am leaning on the left leg of the easel, for perspective purposes. HUGE!

 

After we saw the easel, we got groceries to last us the next week.  On the way, we ventured through the rest of the town - which is super adorable. According to wikipedia, it has a population of about 5,000, but it felt bigger to me. I loved how cute the houses were and how well maintained a lot of them were. The main street was huge, and the entire thing was paved with bricks.

A view down the brick road of main street. 

Sadly, several buildings along main street were out of business, but there were also several that looked like they were thriving, like the amazing restaurant that we went to for lunch.

On The Bricks Cafe

After groceries and lunch we went back to camp to play a cut throat game of putt putt golf.

The owner's of this KOA were a really nice couple and you could tell how much love and effort they put into maintaining the grounds. And of course, the mini golf course was no different.

Besides the putt putt course, the KOA also had a pool and a playground, which included this amazing old tractor and mini log cabin:

Overall, this KOA was really nice. Our spot was the best in the park - very private with nice views of trees and wildlife for the cats. We also had shade during part of the day and were right next to a lovely rose garden. We will definitely stay here again (which we are on our way back home!)

+

One thing that we discovered when we got to our next spot - we seemed to attract a crazy amount of moths while camped in Goodland. They seemed to embed themselves into any crevice on the 5th wheel and the truck and we opened the slides, they started to get into the trailer. So, we spent the evening running around hunting moths. We have never had that happen before - don't know if that is just because of the location or the time of year or both, but definitely not a fun thing. I really hope that we have found them all. I don't want our 5th wheel to become a party bus for moths! 

On the road again....

We have been planning, packing, and gearing up to go for months.  Now we are sitting on the eve of our summer trip.  This year we are going for 8 weeks instead of the 6 we did last year. We are focusing on national parks, with an emphasis on longer stays and shorter drives in between than we did last year.

The highlights are: Arches NP, Canyonlands NP, Dinosaur NM, Grand Teton NP, Yellowstone, NP, Devils Tower NM, Mount Rushmore NM, and Rocky Mountain NP. We are also hitting a few state parks in Colorado that we found last year and are excited to finally try out!

I am so excited for this trip! Last year was such a huge success for us (minus a few incidents!) - we really didn't know if we would like it or how the cats would do on such a long trip, but we ended up LOVING it more than I could have possibly imagined.

Once again I will be blogging our trip as we go. And, if the posts seem different from time to time, that is because Jason has agreed to be a guest writer!!  Most importantly this summer, our trip will be easy down the road!