We're off

Well, the final days of hosting in Escalante are coming to an end. We have been here 3 months and head for Idaho this weekend. I think we are both ready for a little break and to enjoy a break in the weather too. It has been unseasonably hot here, not as hot as some places though. In early spring it was the constant wind and now the heat. Our poor little AC is working its little heart out to keep it reasonable in the trailer.

Spooky

Zebra

We have been able to enjoy some of the great hiking and trails in the area. Our son, Kyle and his girlfriend came for the Memorial day weekend and we all went hiking down the notoriously bad Hole in the Rock road to the slot canyons of Peek a boo and Spooky. Last weekend some local friends led us on a hike to Zebra slot. Just beautiful. It was a tough hike with the heat, lots of sand to slog through and distance but worth it

We've also found some of the pictographs and petroglyphs done by ancient Native Americans, thousands of years ago. It's fascinating to come across them on a rock wall.

Moqui marbles

Besides the stunning beauty, expansive landscape and colorful rocks, this area has some unique items. The oddest are called Moqui marbles. These are iron balls with sandstone centers that are embedded in sandstone rocks, boulders and slickrock. As the rock erodes, the marbles are exposed. Eventually, they come completely out, roll down crevices or get washed by gushing rain waters to collect in a flat spot or crevice. They range from small pebbles to softball size. They too are fascinating. On the hike to Zebra slot, we came across fields of them, seemingly grouped in sizes, just waiting for a lot of water to push them over the cliff into a wash.

One final walk/hike was last evening. We walked the rim above what is called Micro death hollow, some of the men (not Bill) did a run and we met back at the start for a picnic. Our view point was pretty incredible and overall a very pleasant evening.

Our time working and hosting here has been great. Many people say this is the best state park in Utah and the area is quite different. We've helped make it better and really enjoy our hosting job.

Time for a break/vacation

April Fools

Well, Spring is officially here but the weather sure has been playing with us. We finished out our winter in warm weather with a month in Tucson, then planned on moving up slowly to southern Utah. But plans were altered when Gail's sisters moved her mother into a senior apartment. We rented a car and zipped up to Idaho from Las Vegas and spent a week moving and getting her settled. Our truck continued to give us some problems and this allowed us to leave it at a repair shop to work out the problems. It was cheaper to rent the car, get great gas mileage, then drive the truck to ID and back. Getting it repaired definitely wasn't cheap tho.

When we returned to Las Vegas, we then headed to St. George, UT for 2 weeks. Our youngest son, Kyle, lives there and we wanted to check out some of the state parks for possible volunteering next winter. The weather was very nice in St. George, pretty red rocks and hills and a nice size town. It has every thing you need, and a good snowbird spot for the winter. A couple of state parks have potential for next winter. We stocked up the trailer with staples as best we could as the nearest Walmart will be about 2 hours away.

The fateful day to travel to Escalante arrived, April 1, and we set out in the rain. As we climbed toward Cedar City, it changed to snow and slush on the road. We still had a pass of about 9000 to go over and kept our fingers crossed. It turned out ok, only some slush on the road and on the other side it hadn't even rained. I was more worried about the wind possibility but that didn't come about. And to think the day before was warm with temps in the 80s. But the fun was not over yet!

We were traveling down UT12 to the park and about 5 miles out we heard a pop/bang. We are the only ones on the road so it wasn't traffic noise. We thought out loud "what was that"? Bill looked in the rearview mirror and said "oh, I know what it was". The dreaded blow out on a trailer tire. But luckily it didn't shred apart and rip up the bottom of the trailer. The road has no shoulders, soft sand on the edges, but we pulled over as best we could. Bill worked on the tire, got the spare down, the bad one off and as he is ready to put the spare on.  That's when I discovered that the spare tire was on an 8 lug rim and the trailer has only 6 lugs.  It won't fit! And this is what the factory gave us. So it's Sunday, in remote UT, barely any cell service, absolutely nothing open and what else can we do but limp the 5 miles to the campground. That's what we did at 5 mph, made it in without completely shredding the tire and ruining the rim. Since then, replacing a good tire on the good rim has been resolved, we received an entire spare rim and tire from the factory, a local repair place has been very helpful and now we order a good for the other end of the axle, cuz one other tire is probably about ready to go.

Anyway, aside from some fickle spring weather, it is good to be back at "our" park. It's good to see our former friends and coworkers, Bill is already having fun on the tractor and we're ready to do some more exploring/hiking of the Escalante area. We will be here till July working and enjoying things.

And there are fish in the lake, a camper brought us 2 nice trout the other day. YUM

Winter moves on

Another month has gone by in the sunny state of Arizona. We were not able to continue working at Picacho Peak state park as Bill needed some knee surgery. So we moved to town where the doctor is located, had the procedure, working on rehab and getting as close to 100% as he can.

We spent Jan. in the town of Casa Grande, about 40 miles south of Phoenix. It's a moderate size town, has a nice mall, good grocery shopping choices ( that means Walmart and others), some good eateries but not too crowded or busy. Everything was pretty close and we were able to ride the scooters for errands rather than the BIG truck. Of course, you can be as busy as you want at the RV park with activities. There are the usual senior park activities, shuffleboard, cards, pool activities, pool hall and ongoing lunches, dinners, shows brought right to the park, clubs, classes and "state" get-togethers. This is snowbird country and even though they have left their home state, they have never really left. All the same things here except the snow and cold. Lots of golfing too. Anyway, its a way of life for many senior citizens and you can join as much as you want or not. Some friends from Boise joined us for 2 weeks at the park and we golfed a couple of times and enjoyed visiting.

Now we have moved down to Tucson where another group of friends resides. This park is smaller but still has the same activity choices. All fun stuff. The weather in January has been great, one of the warmest on record. It still can be very chilly at night and down to the high 30s but so far no snow. Most days are pretty clear and very little rain.

Our plans have altered a bit since we were planning on being at Picacho through April. Now we plan to start moving north in March to check out campgrounds and parks up in the Mesquite. NV and St. George, UT area. Also we will get to visit with our youngest Kyle. Then we will go back to Escalante for some volunteering for Apr-Jun. I hope to have some fun time in July and Aug, before we leave for Australia in Sept. Anyway, that's the basic plan but as you know, everything and anything is subject to change.

We have the chance to explore more of AZ sites and are closer to some now. We did visit the San Xavier mission, old and historic but still a working church and mission. The interior has some very ornate carvings and religious depictions. We then went on down to the art town of Tubac, also very old and home of the Tubac presidio. Other than touring the presidio, there are lots of art stores, sculptures, crafts from Mexico or southwest.

The stretch of highway to Tubac is a direct freeway to Mexico. We had no desire to go that far but it's interesting in that mile markers are in kilometers and on the return a border patrol stop in the middle of the freeway. Everyone must stop and get looked over, I guess, because they asked no questions really about where we had been. There is one just like it in TX, from McAllen to San Antonio. Anyway, it was a nice day.

Hopefully, we will get to Katchner caverns, Tombstone and a couple of other parks. We will keep you posted.