Friday, June 22, 2018
Destination: Lower Brown’s?
Today we decided to drive down to “Lower Brown’s Reservior ,” the road to which is just a short way south from base camp. The dirt road to it passed a potable water spigot, which could be useful. It’s located on a circle, but it might be too tight to pull the trailer through the circle. Anyway, the road went on and on, seemed like miles, all heading downhill. I’m thinking the reservoir may be at the bottom of the mountain — thousands of feet down!! We passed what was called an ATV campground, and later we passed what was called a dispersed camping area. Still we went on and on. The road was very narrow with deep shoulders, and I feared meeting a vehicle coming the other way. So far so good … eventually we could see a large lake off in the distance – and waaaay downhill. I’d guess five miles away. We decided NOT to go after all. We found a wide place in the road and I put Big Red into 4WD and made about a six point turnaround. Used 4WD and 1st gear most of the way back up the mountain. Didn’t need it towards the top. We did meet another pickup coming the other way as we were going up, but we both managed to squeeze by. An ATV went by later, too.
Change in Plans
Since we scratched the idea of going to the reservoir for our day trip, we decided to check out the town of Boulder. The Rest Stop lady had told Bob they had good restaurants there, including a Zagat-rated restaurant. I remember passing a sign for Boulder when we went through there before, but I didn’t remember seeing any town at all. Well it turns out the Anasazi Indian State Park pretty much IS Boulder – a couple of motels and a gas station plus the Park building. A sign on the gas station announced a gathering of some sort at the Boulder Community Center, wherever the heck that is! Maybe Zagat found Boulder, but we sure didn’t. We had lunch at the skoolie – this time a huge burrito with eggs, potatoes, sausage, cheese, & salsa that I shared with Bob. It was ok, needed some extra salsa or some sauce. I didn’t want to bother to get sauce – eating and watching the dogs at the same time is hard. It was still snowing cottonwood, but not as much as before. There were a couple of guys there with a little PA system playing guitars and singing for tips – an old guy on lead and a much younger guy on harmony. Not bad. They did Sweet Baby James, and that song about being onstage – can’t place the singer of it right now. They sounded pretty good. We made the trip back to base camp in a half-hour. We could go uphill MUCH faster than going downhill! I’ve taken to downshifting the truck on those long downgrades to help with the braking when the exhaust brake cuts out. Am still hearing squealing from the passenger side brakes when I brake lightly. We first started noticing that way back at Yellowstone, and yet as often as that truck’s been in the shop, they’ve never mentioned anything to us about the brakes.
Lazy Afternoon
We just lazed around base camp the rest of the afternoon. About 4 I noticed the light flashing on the refrigerator indicating it was out of propane. I went out and switched over to the other bottle. I couldn’t see the red line that’s supposed to indicate that the can is empty, but the fridge started right up once I turned on the other can. I guess that can got us through a week’s worth of refrigerator plus two or three partial runs of the water heater. I guess that’s not bad. We can refill the tank when we go back to Torrey.
What’s Next?
Even though it will be a weekend, I think we’ll be heading back to Torrey and to Capitol Reef tomorrow. Afraid it might be hot there, but we’re kind of bored with this place now. Still can’t really decide where to go next – Otter Reservoir or Fish Lake, I think. Would like to go to Goblin Valley State Park, but I think it’s going to be hot there, and w/o internet, I don’t know about camping in that area. The map makes it look pretty sparse there, and the park looks like it may be 20 miles off the main highway, which doesn’t look that big itself. Would rather not drag the trailer there without knowing more.
Just looked up and noticed some rain drops on the windows on the other side of the trailer. It has clouded over, and it was so warm last night (only in the 60s) that I was kind of thinking there may be a change in the weather. If it does actually rain in any amount, it may make it slick to get out of this camp. The ramp up to the road is pretty steep and there’s a big drop-off from the asphalt. Well, time will tell. If necessary, we can stay till it dries out, right?
Confusion Reigns
I feel like I’ve gotten off on the days – the days seem to be running together in my mind. I think Wednesday was the day we took that amazing drive down to Escalante and did the laundry. On Thursday we didn’t do much of anything. Bob took a walk to the Rest Stop and talked to the lady who works there. I believe I ran the generator from about 2:30 to 4 to recharge the house batteries and run the microwave for a few minutes, and also recharge all the electronics. I tested whether the generator would start the A/C at this altitude, which I’m guessing is about 8,000 feet. It would not start the A/C, it put the generator into overload. I didn’t know if you’re supposed to push those reset buttons to clear it or what, so I just shut it off and then restarted it. I guess we now know that altitude DOES make a difference in the power.