Thursday, June 21, 2018
Yesterday we decided to unhitch and drive down to Anasazi Indian State Park and then on to Escalante. Escalante’s about 30 miles southwest of here down SR12. The park is about 7. The park had a museum that cost $5 to go into so we didn’t. It didn’t look like all that. But there was a food truck outside (a converted skoolie) that was selling Mexican food, and since I hadn’t yet eaten, I got fries ($4.50) which were really good and homemade with skins on. The park was set in a grove of Cottonwood trees which were shedding their “cotton.” I’d never seen that before. It looks really like snow coming down with the breeze and covered the grass in some places like new-fallen snow.
We heard there was a laundromat in Escalante (we brought along the sheets and some clothes to wash. I’ve been bitten a whole bunch and don’t know where the bites are coming from, so maybe the sheets?)
The drive down to Escalante was mind-blowing!! Some of the most amazing landscape I’ve ever seen! Once you start coming down from the mountains, the desert opens up around you with steep gorges and cliffs that go on to the horizon for 360 degrees around you! The road takes you along a ridge with thousands of feet of falloff on both sides and you can see out into this fantastic desert forever in every direction. Lots of twists and turns in the road and steep ascents and descents. The Diesel Exhaust Brake got a good workout, and I got a lot of practice shifting the truck into lower gears for the downgrades where the exhaust brake cuts out (at about 1000 rpm). It was really a very strenuous 25 mile drive and I’m very, very glad we were not pulling the trailer on it. It would have been a real strain on the truck. However I watched the coolant temperature, and unlike yesterday, it never got over 205, even in the heat of the desert where the temp was in the mid-nineties. The oil and transmission temps were fine also.
Escalante was smaller than I expected. Although there were several blocks of homes, there was only a couple of gas stations, a grocery store (fairly well stocked!) and a couple of RV parks. One of the RV parks had the town’s only laundromat, so we used it. Took about an hour and a half. $3.75 to wash, $1.50 to dry.
The drive back through the desert to base camp was just as mind-blowing as it was coming down. We turned on the dash cam to capture as much of it as we could (I don’t know how much memory is left on that card, and I didn’t want to lose what we’d taken at Capitol Reef.) I was able to transfer many of the video clips from the dash cam to the iPad through its app, before the iPad ran out of space to store them. At least I’ve been able to save a lot of them. I don’t know if there is an app for the dash cam that I could put onto the laptop – I doubt it though, and if there were, I can’t download it with no internet connection here! Bummer! It’s really difficult living without being able to look up information when I need to!
Speaking of information, while we were in Escalante, a text came through from Warren. Bad news. He said that it looks like he and Kim will be breaking up – that they’ve been having bad fights and that she’s been really “bitchy.” He said to call this weekend if we want more detail. Who knows if we’ll be able to get cell reception this weekend or not. I couldn’t even get a text to go back to him telling him that we have no reception. I feel so bad for him. He’d been so happy for a while, and it had been such a long time since he’d been so happy. I hate for him to have to go through yet another break-up. Maybe they’ll be able to work out these problems. I hope so. We’ve never even heard if he had started the new job and if it’s working out. We hear from him so infrequently, it’s usually either good news or bad news.
On the way back from Escalante, not too far from here, we passed a sign for Lower Brown’s Reservoir. I remember seeing that name while doing research for boon docking locations around here. I believe we’ll check it out today as something to do. There were two other small Forest Service campgrounds just south of here, but they were small and said no trailers over 20 feet.
A big Class A came into our base camp area last evening and ended up parking pretty close to us. He had gone down the road to where it has deep ruts and rocks and nearly got stuck (he let out a few loud words to his wife, who was supposed to be directing him. LOL!) He was finally able to back it out and back into a space near us. They were gone when we awoke, as was the pop-up pickup camper. The teen group is still here but have left for wherever it is that they go during the day. I’m suspecting they may go to that reservoir.
Again, the thermometer said it was about 47 outside overnight, but we were very comfortable with just adding the two Mexican blankets. This morning it was 71 outside but 60-something inside again. A very pleasant morning, sunny, with a slight breeze, puffy clouds in the sky. When taking the dogs for their morning walk, I came upon parts of a deer skeleton: head, partial spine, partial pelvis, legs with hoofs. It was only about 50 yards away. Guess that answers our questions about bears! LOL!