July 2024 – TooBusyForWork

Antelope Island views then north

I forgot to post any pictures from Antelope Island, so here you go! The bison herd on Antelope Island is famous. The bulls were looking pretty beat up since mating season was just finishing.

And no set of pictures for Antelope Island is complete without a gorgeous sunset view. The sunset was just orange/red from the smoke haze. Beautiful, but it makes it tough to breathe.

We did get to Island Park, ID and found a great boondocking site on Sunday, 21 July. We stayed there through Thursday night. We obviously took some RZR rides, but we also enjoyed meeting some friends who were work camping in the area, one in West Yellowstone and one at Henry’s Lake State Park. We discovered the osprey nest on a dead end trail we took by accident. Nice accident! There were two young birds. When I snapped this picture (from a long way away!), one adult bird had just flown off to get more food for the hungry teens.

There was quite a bit of water, and we saw lots of lilies.

We also took one day into Yellowstone. We got into the park by 7:00 am. It was cool enough some of the animals like these elk were still close to the road. The other advantage of early, cool mornings is the steam rising from the thermal features is much more visible.

These three elk were just as we got into the park

We saw a number of the primary animals – bison, bald eagle, osprey, elk, deer, and a fat, happy black bear.

We spent Friday, 26 July, at the Y Knot Winery campground, Glenn’s Ferry, ID. It was still smoky, something that had been increasing since the last couple of days at Island Park. The next day was a killer. We had reservations in Burns, OR, but the AQI was over 600! A lot of eastern Oregon seems to be on fire, and there was a big one just outside Burns. The haze was thick, and the air smelled of smoke. We just kept going until we got to Bend, OR where we stopped at an Elks Lodge again. The drive was mostly 2 lane roads with lots of curves. I was tired when we got set up!

The next day wasn’t any better, but we wanted to keep heading west to get out of the smoke. We drove from Bend to Springfield, OR, just outside Eugene, OR. I had a UPS delivery sent there, and I needed to pick it up before our chapter rally. The road from 5 miles south of Sisters pretty much all the way to Springfield was the slowest I have driven the motorhome. It was only 120 miles, but it took over 4 hours. The traffic was very heavy, there was lots of construction, and the mountain roads very winding. Ugh. We hadn’t started until 10:30, because we thought it wouldn’t take long. I was awfully tired when we finally got to the Elks Lodge where we stopped for the night. We have definitely gotten a lot out of our Elk’s Lodge membership! It is nice to have a safe spot to pull into while traveling. Many are dry camping for $5-$10 which is just fine for us. Some have electricity which is nice on hot days, and those are $20-$30 a night, still worthwhile.

I was so tired of the bad air quality, so we headed for the coast instead of staying in Springfield a few days like we had intended. We are currently at the Elk’s Lodge campground in Florence, OR 1 mile off Hwy 101. Beautiful place for $35 a night with electricity and water. We could only get 2 nights here, but they also have dry camping where we hope to spend the next nights before our FMCA rally in Coos Bay. I intend on hitting the local fabric shop for some more fat quarters and interfacing for class samples. I am teaching a class on collapsable fabric storage containers, and it is easier to show students some of the steps than describe them. I have the kits cut for the students, but I will partially make some more as examples.

Now to clean up!

North Rim Part 2

Ok, I will just come out and say the North Rim of the Grand Canyon beats the South Rim, hands down! I don’t know that I will ever visit the South Rim again.

We took 4 July to just drive around the area and see a few sights before our tour group got together. Here are some highlights.

On 5 July we met our tour group. We started off with an evening ride to a fire tour about 10 miles away. It was very, very, very dusty! There were about 45 or so rigs on this trip, and it seemed to take forever at the stop we made. The fire tower only allowed four people at a time, and it seemed a LOT of people wanted to climb it.

On Saturday we divided into two groups of 30ish rigs to do a ride. Our leader was fairly good, but not completely clear on directions. He also complained about the speed we were making but he stopped for a LONG time at each stop. I know it takes a while for folks to pee and drink water, but it doesn’t take 45 minutes! The ride was beautiful, but it made the previous dusty ride look clean. So much dust! I am just not used to a super dusty ride like that. In our club in Quartzsite we mostly ride on rocks, not dusty locations, and I have seldom riden with so many people, and then it wasn’t on dusty roads. But the views were good.

I did bump up the saturation on this to see the shades

On Sunday we only did a part of the ride with the tour group since we had already seen their last stop. At last I could breathe! We had a fabulous lunch all by ourselves in a beautiful grove of pines. There is a lot of virgin forest here.

Kevin showing just how big these Virgin Ponderosa pines really are

We were supposed to travel next to Marysvale, UT, but the fires there were on the west side of town heading east. I figured the smoke would be just as bad for me as the dust had been, so we cancelled our reservations. Hopefully we can get back there another time. On Monday, 8 July, we went to a cheap campground in Fredonia, UT, the Wagon Wheel RV Park. It was FHU for on,y $30 a night, so we didn’t complain. We got all our laundry done and stocked up on groceries in nearby Colorado City. We then had to decide what to do next since the fires interfered with our trip to Marysvale. We decided to just go back to the North Rim!

There are bison in the North Rim, but we hadn’t seen any until our last day there. We finally saw one just standing around (kind of boring) and another have a nice dust bath in a Buffalo wallow. Guess which one I am posting?

We generally just relaxed a lot, riding only another couple of days. The views were so lovely, the campsite so quiet, and the weather so temperate we just chilled reading books and such. We ate at Jacob’s Lake restaurant and the Kaibab Lodge, and both were excellent.

On Monday, 15 July, we started to head north. We spent one night at the Saint George Elks Lodge, and we were the only ones there! Then again, it was 105! Awful, but the views were nice. Tuesday we went to the Cedar City RV Resort, a nice place. We had reservations to see “Much Ado About Nothing”at the Utah Shakespeare Festival, and it was a hoot, Shakespeare’s comedies are belly laughing funny and definitely not “high brow” stuff. We had intended to visit a small Renaissance Faire going on, but it was just too miserably hot since they didn’t open until 11:00 am. We did visit the Frontier Homestead State Park Museum, but I gave out from the heat before I got to all the outdoor exhibits. Nice museum though!

Did I mention it was HOT? After the 105 degrees in St. George and the 99 degrees in Cedar City, we decided to prolong the pain by spending time at Antelope Island State Park, UT. The island is in the Great Salt Lake, and it was one of our favorite spots when we lived in SLC. We also wanted to see friends in the area. Antelope Island was also really hot, 10 degrees above average, but what is “average” anymore? There was also a LOT of haze from smoke. We did get a bunch of shopping done, and we spent time with friends, so it was worth it. But we aren’t going to stay 3 nights like we planned. We decided to head to Island Park tomorrow morning. Temps are forecast to be in the mid to upper 80s, and we can handle that. Crossing my fingers!

North Rim, Part 1

After a fabulous trip in the Uintas, we needed to move on. Because the holiday is this week, we couldn’t find a really nice place to spend a couple of days. Everything was reserved! We ended up at a Love’s Travel Stop in Salina, UT, just off I-70. Good things: it was close for travel, clean, concrete patio, and amazingly quiet. Not so good things: expensive for a bare pull through with no trees, no landscaping, just concrete and black top. It met the need though. We did lots of laundry, got groceries, and we generally caught up with things. Not my favorite kind of place though, and it will be on my “if nothing else is available” list.

We drove the rest of the way to the North Rim on Monday. We found an amazing boondock site just off FS 22 which branches off AZ 67, the Grand Canyon HWY. Two miles up a gravel road led to a huge site surrounded by aspens and pines with a few fairly level spots.

We have since put up the Clam shelter since there are a lot of flies and a few mosquitos. Monday night we had dinner at the Kaibab Lodge, and it was fabulous! They normally offer a buffet, but it was pretty quiet so they just had a few menu items for choices. Everything was done beautifully, and it tasted great. We had a nice talk with the cook. He stays at the lodge in the summer and in Yuma during the winter. He full-times in a 27’ travel trailer.

On Tuesday we drove to Hurricane, UT to pick up the RZR we had left for an oil change on Monday. We had a bunch of engine work done before we left Iowa, and it needed an out of cycle oil change. It was a bit before the 50 hours recommended, but we would have been over the hours if we had waited until we left. I also picked up some new fabric for a quilt top I am hoping to finish during this trip.

Today we drove to the North Rim visitor center. Lots and lots fewer visitors than the South Rim! I was so proud of myself walking for 200 yards or so with a brief stop in the middle. I could not walk 50’ before my nerve ablation, so life definitely looking up. After all the driving, we both took a nap! We had pizza for dinner, made on the Blackstone. Sausage, onions, and mushrooms made a fabulous topping.

For the next four days we will be doing a bunch of UTV riding, so more to come!