Not Lost, Just Wandering: The Joys of Travel Continued...

May 24^th, a Wednesday, we had planned a leisurely final load of the travel trailer and then hitching it to Mike’s truck. We had planned to load the side-by-sides to the flatbed utility trailer, hitch it to my truck, have a quiet dinner and shut down the Hitchhiker (my trailer which lives permanently in the park) the next morning.

Shanon, the park owner, had talked with Mike a few months ago about buying his old park model trailer but nothing specific was decided. Shanon talked with me on Tuesday in the laundry room so I mentioned it again to Mike. All our careful planning for departure prep went out the window. Still nothing firm but better than having it towed to the dump.

Just to make things even more interesting, when we hitched up my truck to the travel trailer, the turn signals/brake lights wouldn’t work. The trailer has been sitting in the storage lot since March when we returned from AZ. We worked and worked, enlisted Shanon (who is a high voltage electrician by trade), and we still couldn’t get the lights to work. The running lights were working. By this time, it was late in the day and we were beat.

We left the next morning, Mike following me, and drove to Silver City, 50 miles north of Deming, where we stopped at a NAPA store and bought new light bulbs. When I called J&B Trailers in Albuquerque, where the trailer was built, the tech said we had done everything they would have done. He suggested the bulbs may have burned out, even though they still looked good. Both Mike and I thought it impossible but, hey, we were desperate. Four of us had looked at the bulbs and thought they were good.

Abracadabra...plugged in the new bulbs and the lights worked again. The only explanation we have is that both turn signal/brake lights are on a single circuit. When one bulb burns out, both lights go dead as the circuit is broken. Seems like a very strange way to wire a trailer.

There's always the "however"...the lights only worked when the trailer was standing still. When I started up the truck, the lights failed again. AAARRRRGGGGGHHHHH. Story continues below.

First stop was Big Lake Park, a Forest Service campground in Arizona. Beautiful park, beautiful lake, at 9,000 feet. The day we arrived, it was cold and VERY WINDY. We got into the campground and called it good for the day. Somewhat better weather the next day with lower winds but still chilly so we did nothing.

Saturday was perfect, sunny and little wind. The gentleman next to us told us where to locate the trails up into the mountain across the lake and we took off. Spent several hours just going on what must have been old logging trails up the side of the mountain. A good day.

The next day, we went back to the trail up the mountain and took a different route. After wandering around, we came upon an old burn area (somewhere we passed a sign that there had been a big forest fire in 2011). It's a rather eerie feeling to be in the midst of what was once a thriving forest and see nothing but dead stuff.

There is still snow in the high country, as you can see in this photo. I'm guessing the peaks are probably 11,000 feet, as the trails we were on were 9,600 feet.

I was scheduled to pick up my new Polaris Trail 900 in Richfield, UT, on June 3. We left Big Lake and headed north. Overnight stop at Tuba City, AZ, and then on to Panguitch, UT, the next day.

I roamed around the park in Panguitch and found some folks enjoying a cocktail outside. They were most helpful in telling us about trails we could reach out of the park. (You always want to find someone who knows the trails, even if you have Garmins and maps.)

Very strange geological formations in the canyon. Things were fine for the first leg of this but when we hit the place where we needed to cross over to get to the trail back, it had been raining. The mud was thick and heavy (see photo below) and we were concerned that one or both of us would get stuck. We turned around and by the time we reached the start of the canyon, it was raining. A wet ride back to the park.

On to Richfield to pick up the new rig.

Orientation on the new Polaris. The sales guy is camera-shy so he's just out of the photo. This may be the only photo ever of the rig this clean.

The dealership also sells and repairs trailers. How convenient! After chasing the problem for two hours, they isolated it to the lights themselves (must have been cheap lights). Rather than waste any more time on these lights, I had them replaced with LEDs which should function longer than I will. We wound up spending most of the day at the dealership but got the trailer lights fixed and picked up the Polaris.

More snow in the high country east of Richfield, UT.

From the back of the park in Richfield, we could access the trail to the top of the mountain just west of town. It is still early spring in the high country. Aspen trees are just starting to leaf out and spring flowers cover the alpine meadows. It is beautiful.

The trail we were on goes over the mountain to the town of Fillmore, UT. We'll be there in a couple of weeks and we will try to run this trail from Fillmore to Richfield. The snow bank should be gone by then.