Idaho

We left Heber City headed north into Idaho.  I was very glad I made reservations at the park...booked up due to a boating event at a nearby lake.  After a one-night stopover, off north again to see the Craters of the Moon National Monument. 

Craters of the Moon

An eerie landscape, much like the volcanic scenery on the Big Island, Hawaii.  

Volcanic vent with ice in the bottom.

During the winter, water and snow collect in the bottom of these vents.  It's cold in these parts during the winter so it all freezes into a solid mass.  Since the sun rarely penetrates into the depth, the ice remains.  It's a strange feeling to be in 95+ weather and see the blue-green of the ice in these vents.

There are beautiful patches of flowers growing out of the volcanic rock just about everywhere you look.  I was surprised to learn that the volcanic activity was as recent as 2,000 years ago and that this field may become active again at any time.

North Fork and the Salmon River

We stayed in Arco at a small RV park one night and then pushed on to North Fork, ID, to a small RV park.  The owner and his wife do everything, including running a small restaurant on the property to serve park guests on an "as ordered" basis.  There are only nine spaces; the park backs up to the North Fork of the Salmon River, cold, clear, beautiful river which eventually feeds into the main Salmon.

This is what we saw from the park every day:

Mike and the dogs at Josephine's RV Park.  The North Fork of the Salmon River is right behind them.

There's a town named Stanley a couple of hours away which has both the Salmon River and the Sawtooth Wilderness as attractions.  Drove up there one day for lunch.

Speaking of lunch, Mike and I toss a coin to see who pays for lunch.  As it happens, we are using a Coffeyville Centennial coin given to me by a lady in the park who lived in Sedan for many many years.  Mike has lost two of the last three; he thinks somehow  I am cheating because it's a Coffeyville coin.  I just think he's a sore loser...

Our second day in the area, we drove a loop which took us north, then east, south, west and then back north, in order to climb to Lemhi Pass.

We took a shortcut, a gravel county road, to get to the main road to the pass.  No one but us and the cows, until we topped a small rise and saw two people on bicycles by the side of the road.  Mike stopped to ask of they needed help.  They were from New Zealand and had BIKED from Lordsburg, NM, 70 miles west of Deming, NM, to where we saw them in southern Montana.  Fun talking with them.  They had flown to El Paso with their bikes, taken a bus to Lordsburg, and headed out.  More power to them....I prefer the truck and a trailer.  Mike parted with two cold beers for them and they were on their way.

Lewis and Clark and Lemhi Pass

View to the west from Lemhi Pass.

Loved the color of these wild flowers at the top of the pass.

Lewis speculated that the rivers on the western side of the continental divide would be both larger and much wilder than the rivers encountered in the trek up the Missouri.  He was SO RIGHT.

Lewis and Clark started down the Salmon.  The early going was acceptable but as they got further down, the river got faster and full of rapids.  Not navigable with the boats available to them.

The last day in the area, we drove 47 miles from Highway 93 to a place called Corn Creek, following the Salmon all day.  The first 17 miles were blacktop, so not too bad.  And then it became gravel and washboard.  Took us four hours to get to Corn Creek, and we were dodging trucks, trailers, cars, ATVs, you name it.  At some points, the road is only one lane wide so you hope there's a turn-out you can get to if there's on-coming traffic.  

We thought it very strange that there was nearly no one on the river for miles and miles and miles on a day which topped 100 degrees.  As we got closer to Corn Creek, the road was lined on both sides with trucks/trailers, the pick-up teams for rafters/kayakers/canoeists coming down the Middle Fork of the Salmon.  

And one other hazard on the river road:  goats.  These charming idiots have no fear of humans or trucks.  One ran in front of the truck, down the middle of the road, for probably a mile or more. Every time he started over to one side and Mike tried to pass him, he moved back to the center.  

I have far too many photos of the Salmon River to post them all but here are a couple I can't omit:

The Middle Fork Joins the Salmon.

Off We Go

 June 16

The day after we left Deming (June 15), we stopped at Chinle at Canyon de Chelly National Monument for lunch (they have a picnic area).  I sent Wyatt a text message telling him we were at Chinle.  The autocorrect on my iPhone changed it to Chinless AZ.  So much for autocorrect.

Got into Bluff UT this afternoon about 3:00 to a little gem of an RV park (Cadillac Ranch RV Park).  Only 14 spaces and we have space 13, farthest from the highway.  Below are a couple of photos of our views from here.  This is an historic area.  Drove through some of the old section of the town (town only has 320 people so it was a short drive).   It’s easy to see why it’s named Bluff.

Here are a couple of views from our space in the park:

Fort Bluff

We are in this area to see Monument Valley and the Valley of the Gods.  Monument Valley was the location for innumerable cowboy movies of the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s so some of this will look familiar.  Valley of the Gods is not as well known and we will go there on Saturday.  Our friend Nancy recommended Valley of the Gods.  Sometimes you take her recommendations with a grain of salt but this time, she appears to be spot on.

Today we drove the length of Monument Valley.  The Navajo tribe owns this land and they wanted $20 for up to 4 people per car to drive their 17 mile road through the most scenic section.  Being fundamentally cheap, I declined.  We have great photos anyway, so there.  We saw one side of the buttes and the people driving the Navajo toll road saw another view. 

Years ago, Mike traveled through here on a motorcycle and remembered a restaurant on a cliff above the San Juan River.  On our way back from Monument Valley, we stopped there for lunch.  As always, we did a coin toss to see who paid…I lost…again.  (Mike says he has lost every coin toss since January, so he was due.)  Mike seems to lose the cheap coin tosses; lunch at Palomas MX at the Pink Store is $15 maybe, including margaritas.  Lunch today was $21.20 cheeseburgers, onion rings, fries with no beers.  Ouch.

There is a walkway which overlooks the river outside the restaurant building  but it appears to have been closed for some time.  This sign is posted on the door:

The manager here at the RV park suggested we go to Muley Point.  She said she has been there on a clear day and could see Ship Rock AZ, 100 miles away.  It’s 1200 feet from the valley floor and a twisting, gravel road most of the way up. 

Moki Dugway and Muley Point

We got to a hairpin turn about halfway up and saw some poor guy pulled off at an overlook with the hood of his car up.  He was still there when we were coming back down, probably an hour later.  

All my photos are less crisp than I would like.  The park manager said there is a wildfire in western AZ and the smoke/particulates are blowing into this area as the prevailing wind is SW to NE. 


Native American rock art appears in a lot of places out here.  As we were coming back to the park in Bluff, we stopped at a state park which borders the San Juan River.  River was running deep and fast, as it's snow-melt.  Took a trail down into the park and saw this:

Valley of the Gods

Another nearly empty park and just stunning.  And it was free.  

Having seen the sights in and around Bluff UT, we headed out to Torrey UT to see Capitol Reef National Park. On the way, we passed the Natural Bridges National Monument entrance.  We had left early enough that we had time to stop.  If you are in the area, this is a DON'T MISS park.  Very few visitors (I think we saw five other vehicles).  

There is a forest of pygmy juniper trees at this park.  We came into the park while it was still cool but as the air warmed, I could smell the scent of the junipers.  It was lovely.

We kept running into a couple with another RPOD.  

We stopped for lunch at what we thought was a state park on Lake Powell.  The drought in the west has been so severe, the boat ramp is now yards short of the very shallow water.  The poor guy who has the bait/beer/groceries concession here is probably starving.

Found the park in Torrey easily and got settled.  Here is what we could see from our site:

Capitol Reef National Park

Arrived in Torrey UT to tour Capitol Reef National Park.  This park is quite busy and the scenery we had passed the day before made this park less impressive...until we came to the end of the paved road.  

This last section of the car-accessible park is simply spectacular.

In the past week or so we have encountered tourists from Holland, France, Northern Ireland, England, Switzerland and Germany.  I don't remember bumping into so many Europeans before anywhere except, of course, in Europe.  Wondering if these folks thought, "There's no safe place to go in Europe, so we'll go out to the wide open spaces."

Headed out from Torrey to Heber City UT, east of Salt Lake City, for a couple of days of down time.  You have to buy groceries and do laundry and it's tough to do when you are moving and touring.  This waterfall is on US189 going up the mountains into Heber City.

Heber City is a pleasant little burg.  Here's a photo from our campsite.  Still snow in the high country.

We leave tomorrow (Friday, June 24) for various destinations in Idaho, working our way over to the western part of the state to visit my long-time friends Kathy and Bosco.  More posts to come.

On the Road Again

June 2

Gearing up to start out on this summer's peregrination.  It takes a fair amount of time to get the RPOD ready to roll and then, in the last day or so, close up the Hitchhiker for the summer.  We plan to leave Deming June 15 and return September 12.

Since we will be in desert heat and high country chill, we need both hot weather clothes and cold weather clothes.  The plan takes us from Deming through Arizona, Utah, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, Montana, British Columbia, Alberta, Wyoming, Colorado...well, a whole bunch of places.  It's about 6,100 miles, not counting side trips to see the sights.  

Over time, with four dogs, the toys get disgustingly dirty.  They go through the washers here with no ill effects but seeing them hanging on the line is a bit strange.

Been a disappointing spring, as we have cold/wet/windy weather until late May and then within a couple of days, we had temps in the high 90s to 100 and more wind.  Not fun to be out in the desert with conditions like this.  

The spring-blooming cacti are still putting on quite a show.  This one grows out of a stone post, strangely enough.  Note the bees:  I don't remember seeing bees on any of the other cacti blooms.  Wonder why this one is so popular.

Posts will be more frequent now that we are on the move again.

Where is Bernardo?

May 5

We stayed at a park last week in the mythical township of Bernardo, just off I-25 north of Socorro.  Stayed there a couple of times last year.  Some optimistic soul expected a town to develop here, complete with a platted subdivision...and nothing happened.  There is no town and nothing in the subdivision.  Oddly enough, our friends Steve and Nancy re-located to this park a month or so ago and we went to see them.

The RPOD had to have major repairs (has been in the shop for two months) so we wanted to do a test run to verify that everything worked properly.  And we got to spend some time with our friends.  The drive home yesterday was exhausting...30-35 mph winds.  Mike pulled the RPOD with his truck, I pulled the trailer with his side-by-side.  Got home about 3:00.  Of course today I have a mountain of laundry and a trip to Walmart to get groceries ahead of me.

Our new friends, Jill and Paul Rossell, joined us for three days and left Thursday for Durango.  Hope we have an opportunity to do more fun things with them in the future.

Jill and Paul

l to r:  Steve, Jill, Paul, Mike.

Muppet seeks shade.

Nancy and her mare, Molly.

This cute little buckskin was abandoned in the desert.  Fortunately, someone found him and brought him to Kiva, the closest horse facility.  He is friendly and probably quite young,  Most likely, he won't get very big.    Blessings on the person who found him.  He couldn't have survived very long in the desert without water.

Saw some interesting cacti and the plants here in the park are starting to bloom.

All the flowers below are on my lot or next door.

When will the wind stop and spring start?

29 April

Winds are hitting in the low 30 mph today.  The whole Hitchhiker rocks and I have to latch the screen doors on the decks twice to keep them from banging.  Coupled with colder than normal temps, the weather is, in a word, miserable.  A hard winter and so far, no spring.  

We are headed north to Bernardo to visit our friends Steve and Nancy for a few days.  It's a good shakedown run for the RPOD and we need it.  There were many repairs after last year's travels and we need to be sure they are all solid before we take off for three months.  Our new friends Paul and Jill are going to stop in Bernardo for a few days with us before going on into Colorado.

Just to keep things interesting, I have had two flat tires on the Jeep in less than a month.  After the second one, I took the Jeep to a local tire shop and got all new ones.  I can't really complain, as the old tires are probably original equipment and had 73,000 miles on them.

Several days ago, we took Jill and Paul out to some of the local sites, including the Homestead Mine, Homestead, Pony Hills, and a couple of other stops.  When Jill and Paul were in the mouth of the cave, they stirred up a flock (?) of bats, who blasted out past them.

Jill and Paul at Homestead Mine.

Jill and Paul and their new friends, the bats.

The spring-blooming stuff is going full blast now.  One of the more interesting is Ocotillo, commonly known around here as Spanish Spear.  The plant blooms before it leafs out, as you can see in the photos.