Lake Powell; the really bad drive; and our time in Lehi, UT

Today is Thursday, June 6th and for those of you checking into the blog site – yes, I have been remiss in my updates. I can only say that quarter end at work really kicked my energy level the past few weeks. So I promise to update the blog daily until we are caught up!


So while in Lake Powell for a couple days, we decided to take a six and half hour boat ride to Rainbow Bridge, the world’s largest natural bridge. The boat ride was long with a lot of twists and turns through caverns and around cliffs. We did not realize that this man made wonder has more shoreline than the entire Pacific coast of the USA. During the ride we learned the difference between Bridges and Windows; between a Mesa and a Butte; and about the geologic history of this beautifully stark area. Rainbow Bridge National Monument is a natural arch-shaped formation created by water running through and eating away at the center of what now looks like a 300 foot tall archway of gorgeous red and yellow sandstone. Named after a rainbow, it spans 290 feet from its base to the top of its arch and spans 275 feet across the river. There are no words to describe the view of this Bridge. Pictures do not do it justice – you just have to take the trip yourself sometime!

Lake Powell is known for house boats . My darling fitness trainer husband decided that after we walked down to the shoreline (and I mean down and down and down to the shoreline) that we should check out the boat launch nearby. Now walking along this shoreline is not for the faint of heart. You sink into the sand quite a bit so walking is a struggle (which may be why no one else was down at the shoreline). Once we arrived at the launch we were amazed to see up to four vehicles launching boats at the same time. This was the widest boat ramp we have ever seen. While there, a 60 plus foot houseboat was being launched. We do not know how they managed to offload that puppy but at one point the entire stern was under water before the boat was safely floated away from the semi-truck that brought it to the lake.

Some people like the one we witnessed own houseboats and other people rent them at the marina. You have to really beware on the water - you can tell who rents the boats and has never driven one before – and they are everywhere. The erratic driving that happens out on the lake, PHEW! Drivers beware!

We decided to pack up and drive to Lehi UT on Sunday as I had several meetings and could work from the office. Well, what can I say about the drive between Lake Powell and access to Interstate 15? Death defying, snow squall, possible ruptured tire, calls to AAA roadside assistance, OH MY there is no guardrail, AHHHHHHH, climbing onto the roof during the snow squall in the middle of nowheresville; temperature change of more than 50 degrees drop from sunny Lake Powell ---and why did we decide to spend our Sunday doing this? I think that about covers a drive that I would rather forget.

We arrived amid a swarm of mosquitos at the East Bay RV park in Springville, UT grateful to have arrived in one piece. Other than covering off the basics, we high-tailed it into the RV and called it an early night. The week for me was filled with lots of work, so I will transfer the blog over to Gary to fill you in!

As you may have heard me say, RVing is always interesting and when you are driving your home down a highway (though I use that word, highway, loosely on that horrid trip from Lake Powell which may explain what is to come…) things break. It is interesting to see how you recognize every little sound your rig makes be it a squeak or a groan – you know when your rig is not operating in perfect condition. So when we arrived in Springville we noticed a strange noise in our water pump. Now in an RV you have two choices. You can attach a water hose to the bib and rely on the water pressure at the camp ground (which by the way has its own perils as campgrounds are notorious for pressure dips and spikes which can blow out water lines, an expensive proposition. Always attach a pressure regulator when taking this approach) or you can fill your tank, disconnect from the bib, and rely on the onboard water pump. This is the approach we generally use. Out into the mosquito swarm ran Gary (as I was willing to skip baths until they fell asleep but he was not) to hook up the water hose. Off went the water pump and we began to read about how to fix common issues. Well, when all the common ailments of water pumps were addressed and we still heard odd noises, we just decided to replace the thing. Gary took off the next AM after dropping me at the office, and found the nearest Camping World. He replaced the thing on his own and was quite proud of the effort (that’s my honey!!).

I continued to work while Gary hit the local Cabela’s store (isn’t it nice that the Cabelas is right next to the Adobe offices?) Gary certainly thought so. After extensive research he headed off for some trout fishing on the lower Provo river. Gary’s idea of the perfect day! Two rainbow trout caught and released. We did find some time for a little fun with our friends – dinner with Josh and Mindy at the foundry grill in Sundance before making dirt dessert with the five Dahmer children. A fun time was had by all!  We kept them up past their bed time, fed them sugar, and left their parents to deal with the fallout!  Josh and Mindy are some of our favorite people!!!

Well, not everything that goes wrong is related to the Rig. Our son called to say that Honda has a recall on our CRV – so off to the car dealer after explaining why we could not do this in 2 weeks or even next week – it had to be this week! A four hour repair later (poor Gary, no fishing that day) and we were ready to pull up stakes.

Several folks from the office wanted to see the Rig so we moved from the campground on Friday to the Cabela’s parking lot – set out the awnings and had 15 or so work colleagues up for a hot dog luncheon with tours of the bus. We decided to get a head start on the next leg of the journey – to Gold Country in California – so off we headed mid-Friday afternoon. Gary driving and I working. The drive west on route 80 through the salt flats was such a pleasure after the recent trip from Lake Powell. My nerves were much happier!

Photos added to flickr today. 
More to come tomorrow! Hope all of you are well and can’t wait to see you also…

On the Road Again,

Gary and Traci

Verde Valley and off to Lake Powell

It is now Thursday, May 16th and I have lots to catch you all up on! First a birding update by my resident bird watcher and wonderful hubby, Gary:


The Verde Valley was a great place for birding. Many of you may not know that Gary has always been a big bird aficionado, an appreciation that he learned from his grandparents, Penrose and Viola Schwenk, who always had bird feeders in the Sycamore tree which Gary grew up watching with great interest. So far we have seen Road Runners, Gambel’s Quail, Belted Kingfishers, more than six varieties of hummingbirds (they were in migration through the Valley while we were visiting), Summer and Western Tanagers, Lesser Goldfinch, Phainopepla, Bullock’s Oriole, Black Pheobe, Ash-throated Flycatcher, more Doves than you can imagine (and they make quite a racket at 5 AM if I do say so), Brown-headed Cowbirds,Cardinals, Robins, Gold Finches, Curve-billed Thrashers, Cactus Wren, Bald Eagles, Several Hawks and Falcons, and a Carcara. That about covers the bird watching, I think!

Back to what we have seen and done….Over the weekend we visited several historic sites including the town of Cottonwood, Montezuma’s Castle National Monument (a Sinaguan Indian cave dwelling from the early 1100’s), Montezuma’s well (a limestone sink filled with water, providing another place for Sinaguan dwellings), Tuzigoot National Historic Monument (Apache for “crooked water” and a remnant of a Southern Sinaguan village from between 1125 and 1400), the towns of Camp Verde, Clarkdale, and Jerome (a former wild west copper mining town). We checked out several wineries including the Alcantara Vineyards which was next door to our camp ground – though the walk to it included two very large hills which we figured would not be good to stumble back home across, so we had to drive. At Alcantara we sampled their Pinot Grigio, Sauvignon Blanc, Syrah, Confluence IV Meritage, NV Grand Rouge Meritage, Nebbiola, and Cabernet Sauvignon. All but the last two were based on Arizona grown grapes and most were quite nice. We purchased the Grand Rouge and the Zinfandel. We also tasted at Burning Tree Vineyards, but Alcantara was our favorite. We purchased a bottle of their red wine blend, The Impressionist, made from grapes grown in California. Burning Tree had many wines that were made from purchased grapes and while good, we were looking for local tastes. We also tried to imbibe as many local beers as we could find when eating out. We sampled from Oak Creek Brewery and since we enjoyed it so much we decided to visit that brewery on Mother’s day for lunch.

On Sunday we arose early and headed to the Sonoma area to Red Rock State Park for some hiking. When we arrived we noticed that they scheduled a 10AM nature hike, so we hiked on our own for 90 minutes before joining the guided hike. I would like to say that the hikes were uneventful, but that was not the case. As Gary and I made our way across the creek and up the House of Apache Fire Trail, Gary was in the lead, but at one point the trail narrowed and he allowed me to take the lead (silly silly girl). As Gary was watching the skies for new and interesting birds, I was trudging along the trail as one of the first humans in that part of the park on that day. Where the trail turned a corner and I was looking at the dry creek bed ahead of me I heard a “TSHUUSHH” sound, looked down at my left leg and noticed, not too calmly , the coiled head of a Western Black-tailed rattlesnake just 6 inches from my left calf. I uddered a startled “AHHH” and ran down to the creek bed. Thankfully my husband’s reaction was spot on and he jumped back without knowing why. Now the park has a rule that all humans must stay on the trail as there are rattlesnakes in the park. No one must have alerted the poor 3 foot long Western Black-tail that park hours had commenced 45 minutes prior as he was hanging out in the sun on the trail and not in the wooded desert. So we broke the rules and had Gary meet me by way of the wooded desert and skipped the trail where said Rattler was working to calm himself down. I took a few photos from a safe distance once my own heartbeat returned to normal. As you can imagine, there was no more sky watching for us, only trail watching as I had no idea how many other snakes I would encounter before making our way back to the visitor center. We reported said black-tail to the ranger at the visitor station only to discover that only 1 snake had been seen in the past month in the part – and wouldn’t you know I would find it. The nature tour was interesting and uneventful and we were grateful, but hungry by the time noon rolled around.

So we headed off to Sonoma and the Oak Creek Brewery and Grill for a peaceful mother’s day lunch. Since we could not decide which brew sounded best, we purchased the sampler of 7 of their finest – shown here – and shared a cheese plate and a burger. A finer lunch could not be found on that day.

As the work week rolled around, Gary took off to do some fishing while I tended to the needs of earning a living to pay for this trip. All was going well until Tuesday when the internet and cell reception seemed to drop off considerably. We cut our stay in the Verde Valley short and headed to Flagstaff on Wednesday (a short 100 mile jaunt). I wish I could say something about Flagstaff, but the wind was blowing so much that I could taste the dust so we just stayed for one night. I took a few calls on Thursday and we headed out for Lake Powell near Page AZ. The road between Flagstaff and Page AZ, route 89, happened to be closed. The story is that the road collapsed into the canyon and they do not know how long it will take to blast out a new path in the mountainside that will be stable enough for the heavy traffic that flows between these two points. The detour was arduous and added 90 miles to our 90 mile trip. We were quite glad to get off the smaller road detour as there were several steep grades and turns to traverse. We are staying in the Lake Powell National Recreation Area (so glad we purchased the National Parks pass – good for a year of admission at any federally managed property). The campground is a bit pricy, but I have to say that the views from the Rig are absolutely gorgeous so I texted my office view to my colleague Aidan (so that he can live vicariously through our trip this summer) and we have settled in here for the weekend.

Hope all of you are doing well and want you to know that you are missed!

A slide show of pictures will be posted next week.  Take care and be careful on the road,

Gary and Traci

Hello Friends and Family!

It is May 9th and Gary and I are a full week plus into this 5 month adventure to the Pacific Northwest. As many of you know, we were only supposed to depart Orlando on Sunday, May 5th. But as many of you also know, my husband LOVES to pack the car and get a head start. So when the car was 80% packed on Saturday, April 27th I knew it was a lost cause and we would be leaving before we planned to. Thankfully, my BFF, Shane (who graduated on May 4th with a 4.0!!!!! So proud of her) figured out what the skinny was when we told her the car was packed already and gave us her blessing to depart before her graduation party on May 4th (I heard it was a great time and am sorry to have missed the celebration).

The first four days were a bit trying as we drove 5 months of supplies from Orlando to Tucson, AZ in a Honda CRV while I was still working full time. Those of you who know me well know that I get a bit stressed out about getting my work done! Working in a passenger seat of a car is not exactly ideal and I need to make certain that no one at work thinks I am slacking on my responsibilities. Think about it….you are travelling for 5 months in a motorhome – think what your boss would say. So we are heading across country and I am stressed about work. I know, I know – work / life balance!! This is a concept that I still struggle with and one of the primary reasons that Gary and I take off in the motorhome every year. And, let me just say that West Texas and I do not have a love affair – though it is beautiful country. I have driven across this part of interstate 10 four times in the last 8 months. Each time I get more bored and more frustrated with crazy truck drivers.

So we arrived in Arizona on Saturday and set up the motorhome for a few days in Tucson. We had left the motorhome in Tucson after our January trip to Mexico (big savings on gas by not driving the rig back to Florida when we were headed back this way so soon after). We wanted to take a few days in civilization to make certain that all the systems were in working order before we headed off to the wilderness. On Tuesday, May 7th we headed north to the Verde Valley. We plan to stay here for 10 days or so before heading to Utah. The Verde Valley is just south of Flagstaff and the views are absolutely beautiful at this time of the year. The only pictures I have taken so far are of here in the campground. Take a look at the views from our rig below.

Miss you all and wish you peace and blessings!
On the road again… Gary and Traci

View from the Rig