Trip log: RV Trip to Alaska 2014 |
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7/30/2014 Day 84 Dinosaur National Monument, Ut to Green River State Park, Ut; 200 miles An early morning drive out Cub Creek road, east 6 miles from the campground, brought us to Josie’s Cabin. Josie lived here in a cabin she built until 1964 when, at the age of 89, she broke a hip and died soon after. Along the road are petroglyphs, some really well done. A six-foot lizard is exquisitely done, and several smaller lizards are pictured nearby. My take is perhaps a real artist did the first one and students |
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7/29/2014 Day 83 Flaming Gorge, ut, to Dinosaur National Monument, Ut; 100 miles We saw two pronghorn shortly after leaving the campground, and dozens of rabbits. We stopped at the Flaming Gorge Dam just out of Dutch John and viewed the short movie about the dam and power plant. This was a very twisty road up over the pass to 8300 feet and down again. We got lost following the GPS lady who took us on a wild goose chase purporting to lead to Dinosaur NM. It finally wanted to take us a rutted jeep road where we threw in the towel and turned around. I think I misinterpreted a left arrow on the GPS at an intersection when the left was really for a different road further up. We were supposed to bear right there. It was about a 15 mile detour that we had to retrace, then we found the correct road and ended up in Green River Campground where I’m sure we’ve stayed before. Got site #80, a pull-through with trees on both sides for $6. No hookups, no dump site. Water, though, in the form of rain. Mucho rain. Temperature was in the 80s up until about 4 PM, then the rain descended in buckets for a while and it cooled off considerably. There were a few biting things, maybe mosquitoes but hard to tell, and quite a few flies. |
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We drove to the Visitor’s Center and took the shuttle up to the dinosaur bones Quarry Exhibit site The exhibit building is built to include the mountainside as one wall with hundreds of real bones exposed. Look very closely at the picture.
Two archeological students, Nicole and Ben, were up on the side; their job is to inventory and document EVERY bone on the wall. Apparently for grad students this is something to be wished for, not a punishment. |
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8/1/2014 Day 86 capitol gorge & grand wash in Capitol Reef National Park
After breakfast of cinnamon rolls from Gifford House, we drove out to Capitol Gorge and Grand Wash, both dirt roads but not Jeep trails. Further on from Capitol Gorge it becomes Pleasant Creek Road, and we drove a couple miles out that and turned around at the research station. Towering cliffs overhead made us stop and take the roof off the Jeep so we could see better. Recent--in fact everyday--rains have killed most of the dust so it was a pleasant ride. By 11 AM though, everyone else was coming out to the same places so the roads were pretty thick with cars. We bought a berry pie and returned to the RV around noon.
We sat under the awning and watched the deer play and graze in the tent area in front of us. Tonight the campground is pretty full. |
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8/2/2014 Day 87 Capitol Reef to Bryce Canyon; 123 miles
This morning as we were packing up to leave Capitol Reef, three deer came bounding over the fence and chased each other around in the grass among the tents for several minutes. Great fun! We got dumped and filled and on the road by 7:30.
Utah is built high. As soon as you turn from UT 24 onto UT 12 you start climbing. The summit in Grand Staircase Escalante is 9400 feet, then you cross Hell’s Backbone, a stretch of road about ˝ mile long that is only the width of the roadbed with steep dropoffs on both sides. Then it starts a steep descent of 15% grade, dropping 3000 feet in just a few miles, finally leveling out a bit at the town of Escalante. I hesitate to over use the word breathtaking, but that’s what it is.
We were able to secure site #B-49 around noon in Bryce North for $7.50, no hookups. There were none available in loop A, but several in loop B and this one is spacious, up on a hill, and surrounded with trees. Even at 4 PM there are still several sites left up here. Utah in August is not high season. Generator hours are a respectable 8 AM to 8 PM.
We had lunch at the lodge, a sandwich, soup and salad buffet, then went to Ruby’s Inn to use the car wash on the mud-encrusted Jeep. We watched the movie at the Bryce Visitor’s Center. Now we wait for the daily monsoon. Clouds have formed, there’s no sun, and rain should start any minute. But it didn’t start until about 4 AM. |
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may have practiced on the smaller ones.
We drove back 33 miles on highway 40 to Vernal where we had breakfast and finally got on the road a little after 10. Highway 191 takes us to 9200 feet up and down a very steep pass. Halfway up, several highway patrol cars came by with lights flashing. One pulled us over and asked us to wait in a pulloff just ahead for a wide load to come through. It was a two trucks carrying huge tanks that overhung the oncoming lane.
This is oil producing country. Many oil pumps are found along the way, and there is one very large plant that seems to burn coal in powdered form for energy. Many double tanker trucks are on the road, and the trains are pulling oil cars.
Green River State Park is right in the town of Green River, Utah. It has a boat launch ramp onto the Green River, a golf course and day use area, and is just beautiful. We got site #11, a pull-through with electric only, for $25. A dump site and water is available. A few sites are reserved but most are available and the campground is only about 30% full. The wind came up pretty strong about 6 PM and there was obvious heavy storm activity to the northeast of us, but aside from a few drops of rain, nothing here. |
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7/31/2014 Day 85 Green River State Park, Utah to Capitol Reef National Park, ut; 97 miles We dumped and filled before leaving Green River, stopped for gas ($3.95/gal) and picked up muffins for a breakfast later on. Another beautiful drive down mostly deserted highway 24 to Capitol Reef. This is the most amazing country! I think the entire state of Utah should be designated a National Park. There is no entry fee to this park and no need to check in. We saw one pronghorn after turning off I-70 onto 24, otherwise no animals.
The campground is $5 for a spacious site #B-42 in the trees, no hookups, dump site and water available. I had to level a little bit in both dimensions here.
We went to Gifford House and bought a jar of 5 Amigos Salsa, bread and a strawberry-rhubarb pie, $18. We also went to the visitors center to check out Jeep roads and found that some are closed or deemed impassible because of recent rains. The apricot orchard here in the campground is, of course, past bearing apricots. High season here is May-June, partly because of the orchard. It’s warm today but not hot. Around 6 the rain came in buckets for a couple hours and cooled things off in addition to making lakes of mud. The tenters tried in vain to cook supper but finally had to give up and eat in the car. |
