Back to Arches

Technically looking at Arches
National Park across the Colorado
from our campsite

Thursday morning.  This week is going fast.   Got up and had our cereal and coffee and headed out.  We wanted to be at the park a little earlier, in part to beat the crowd, in part to beat the heat.  I wanted to see three things we hadn't seen yesterday ... Landscape Arch, probably the "longest" arch ... and whatever other arches we could see back that direction, and then come back to the Windows area, which Vicki had really wanted to see but we couldn't find parking yesterday when we went through it, and then to see some petroglyphs one of the rangers had told us was off a side trail right past Wolfe Ranch, where the trailhead to Delicate Arch is ... maybe a half mile at the most.

The walk between
sandstone fins at the
trailhead.

Earlier in the morning was definitely better than the middle of the day heat, and we beat the crowds to Devil's Garden where the trailhead to Landscape Arch was.   One other thing I had wanted to do was to walk between some of the giant sandstone "fins" that stick up out of the ground (each free-standing arch was once one of these "fins") ... which you get to do right at the trailhead.

Not too far in was a large sand blowout between two fins that were in the process of separating from one standing fin into two.  The sand was maybe 20 feet deep way inside at the far end, tapering off to our ground level at the end of the fins.

It wasn't early morning light, but it was early enough for some shadows and warmish tones to the sun for photography, and I tried to walk the fine line between taking shots at various angles and zoom ranges and keeping up with Vicki (or not holding her back too much).   She can get frustrated with my constant shutter snapping ... but of course, the first rule of photography is ... be there.  I was "there" ... probably won't be "there" there again any time soon.   Still, I'm conscious of her feelings on the subject, and I try to balance it as best I can.

Landscape Arch

We got back to Landscape Arch ... probably my favorite one.  I kept getting the names mixed up between it and Delicate Arch ... because if any of the arches look delicate, it's Landscape Arch.

Long, narrow (after a chunk fell out several years ago, only 6 feet thick at it's thinnest part) and graceful, this lighter colored arch is kind of tucked back against a long rock wall.

We stopped and took some photos, took some photos of other couples for them, and having ours taken in front of it.

Navajo Arch

There were also three other arches up a trail where you had to climb/hike up some slickrock.  You could see Navajo arch, which is kind of looks like a double arch from our angle at from the Landscape Arch viewing area.  Vicki was worried about coming back down with her balance, so I just went up as far as I could go without losing sight of her.  I'd hoped to perhaps see Double-O Arch, but only got a bit better view of Navajo Arch.   Didn't really want to spend too much time here anyway.  We wanted to get to the Windows section before it filled up again.

We hiked the mile back to the trailhead, hopped in the car, and headed past Wolfe Ranch and back up to the Windows section.   And found a parking spot front and center in the upper lot.

Turret Arch

It was crowded, but there was plenty of room to walk.  We headed first to the North and South Windows, two large arches on the south end of the area ... the largest.   A busload of Japanese dominated the base of the North Window.  There was really no way to get a decent shot of either of them.  Bad sun angle, and too many people, so we just walked around under them and looked at them -- and across at Turret Arch.  Interesting.  From this angle, it looked like a circular fortress of stone with a large window and a turret.  We'll want to go check that out, which we did.   It was much less crowded, and I got some shots of a small window of an arch up high near the turret.  We could see the other arches in the area to our north and east the whole time we were there, so we got a pretty good gander at them.   So we were about done here.  Went back to the car and headed toward Wolfe Ranch to see the petroglyphs.

Wolfe Ranch, second cabin.

Wolfe Ranch is an interesting story.   Yes, someone actually decided to homestead in this stark, dry, barren place.    In 1888, John Wesley Wolfe, suffering from a civil war leg injury, moved there with his son looking for a drier climate which he believed would help his leg. It's a couple of cabins and a corral.   He built a small dam to create tiny reservoir themselves and a few cattle.  The dam is apparently still working ... it was surprising to see fresh water running.  There is a bridge over part of it that is a part of the trail to the petroglyphs and eventually to Delicate Arch, and looking down from it you could see various fish, minnows, bluegill ... and a couple of small ducks.

Wolfe Ranch water source.

The first cabin was a one room cabin.   Apparently John Wolfe's daughter and family moved there in 1906, and she was appalled at the way her father and brother had been living.  They built a second cabin, which is still not very big, but bigger than the almost root-cellar sized first cabin.   They ended up moving into Moab and selling the ranch in 1910 and eventually moved back to Ohio.

Petroglyphs near Wolfe Ranch.

We hiked up the short, maybe 1/4 mile trail to a wall of jumbled rocks where there were some petroglyphs of animals and humans which were probably put there within the last 400 years.  Still.  Pretty cool.  I snapped some pictures of them, and we headed back to the car and ate lunch.

I wanted to take some shots over the salt wash valley once we got farther back up toward the Windows Section, and I stopped the car and got out.  I'd mostly been using the K-r, unless I just didn't want to switch lenses for a shot.  And so I grabbed the K-r with the wide angle telephoto on it.  Took a few shots, then the camera went "click"  instead of "click-click".  I pressed the shutter again.  Click-click.   And then any button I pushed also caused the mirror to flip up and down.  It wasn't taking any pictures.  It would show me the pictures it had.  But even in view mode, any button caused the mirror to flip. Turned it off.  It flipped.  Turned it on. It flipped. Took the battery out.  Put it back in.  It flipped.   Sometimes it would do it several times in a row.

Looking across Salt Wash Valley into extreme eastern Utah.  The last
photo my K-r made as a fully functional camera.

Damn.  I love this camera, and I've only had it since about April 1.

Fortunately, I had my *ist DL fixed, and it was available for duty -- takes the same lenses being a Pentax Digital SLR.   And I had to remind myself, until last April, this was my awesome camera.

We headed out of the park ... and it was only about 1:30 pm.  It's hot back in the campsite.   Let's go check out Dead Horse Point State Park.

We struck out for it, heading north, following the signs.   I was a little confused as to whether or not the GPS had the right spot, and I second guessed it, turning back for town to see if we'd missed a turn.   We got behind a large bus-type RV, and Vicki said later she heard a little "tick!" of a rock hitting the windshield.   We got out a map and double checked how to get there, turned around, and headed back.  That's when I noticed the little ding in the windshield.   We'll want to get that fixed.

Headed back up 191 to 313, and toward Dead Horse point... and, as it turned out... Canyonlands.

Arches!

We were headed out of the campsite by 9 after a breakfast of a protein bar each.   It's 7.2 miles down the canyon to 191 from out campsite.   Then a mile or so north on 191 to the Arches National Park entrance.

On the way is the US Department of Energy Umtra Project.... which appeared to consist of a bunch of dirt being moved around.  I'd have to ask about it later.

Sam had told us that as a Senior Citizen, Vicki could get a lifetime pass to all the national parks for $10.   That's crazy, we thought.  Must be $10 over and above a 1 year all parks pass... which would mean about $90.   As we pulled up to the booth, a sign seemed to confirm what Sam had told us, but we still couldn't believe it.   And when we got to the window, Vicki asked the ranger about it, and she said "just need to see your id".

Vicki showed her ID.

"Ok, $10".

We got a pass.  That was it.  Rest of her life.  And if I'm with her, I get in, too.  Awesome.

I always like to check the ranger stations and visitor centers at parks before I dive in full bore.   There was a water station right outside for filling up bottles, camel backs, and other water containers for the trip.  Everywhere we were warned "bring water".   We didn't take that lightly.   Have to fill up our collapsible 5 gallon container here.

We went inside, got the basic layout of the park and kind of where to expect what.   It tured out that directly across the river from our campsite was technically Arches National Park.  Huh.  We hopped into the car and headed up the switchbacks on the east side of the Moab fault and up onto the park's plateau.  

Moab Fault

The first outlook overlooks the Moab fault, where the park side slid down, leaving an exposed cliff sticking up higher on the left.   191 basically runs right down the fault line.  It pointed out the rock layers and where the ones on that side matched up with the layers on the side where we were standing.   Kinda cool.  

La Salle Mountains

We went up past Park Avenue ... a long row of monoliths kind of resembling a Manhattan city block.   Somehow neither of us felt the need to hike down it.   You could see already that the campground host was right ... there were RV's and busses and cars everywhere.   We blew past it and went to the La Salle overlook, which looks across the Petrified Dunes to the La Salle mountain "range" to the south.  It's a small group of large mountains that kind of stands alone in a spot in Eastern Utah.   Typically, you can see it fairly clearly from Arches.   But ... with the smoke, they were blue shadows.   You could get a decent view of about 1/3 of the park from here -- you can see Balanced Rock and the Window District, and if you know what you're looking for, the Firey Furnace.   Plus Park Avenue, Sheep Rock, the Three Gossips, The [pipe] Organ, and the Tower of Bable.   We were disappointed, but not surprised, at the murkiness of the long views.  Hopefully it will clear up a bit this week for when we go to Canyonlands.

Old Fashioned Santa

We cruised by many of these features on the road on our way to look at the Windows.   Saw one formation on the way I thought looked, from a certain angle on the road and the way the sun hit it, like Yogi Bear, and then a monolith with a stricking resemblance to an old fashioned Santa Claus (if you go there, I think I calculated it's about 7.2 miles past the parking lot).   But the Windows District was overcrowded and there was literally no place to park.  So we pressed on toward the Firey Furnace. 

Going down the road from The Windows toward Firey Furnace and Wolfe Ranch, there was a long valley called the salt wash ... with what looked like poured piles of blue-green gravel piled up on an otherwise thinly vegetated red gravel valley.  Like many things in the desert southwest, it looked stark, pretty, and uninviting all at the same time.   Enter at your own risk. 

Me in front of part of the
Firey Furnace.

We passed the entrance to Wolfe Ranch/Delicate Arch and drove up to the Firey Furnace ... a veritible "field" of giant red-rock fins sticking up from the earth that stretched ... oh ... I don't know ... a long way.   We stopped there, and while there took a photo for a couple and tried to have them take ours (it later turned out she hadn't tripped the shutter), and we moved on past Skyline Arch to the Devil's Garden area ... which was pretty much full as well.   We ate a lunch of PBJ's and apples, and headed back toward Delicate Arch - the most famous arch in the park and unofficial Utah state symbol.  You've probably seen it before.

Blue Collared Lizard

Vicki didn't want to take the 3 mile hike to get to the actual arch, and with the park this crowded and temperatures in the upper 80's, I wasn't that hip on the idea, either.   So we took the short hike to the upper overlook, where you look at the arch from across a canyon.

On the way we saw a blue collared lizard on a rock right off the trail posing for pictures, and I and several other tourists obliged before heading off on the maybe half mile hike to the overlook.

Delicate Arch

Well, there it was, and it doesn't look as impressive from a half mile away, I'm sure, especially with 40 or so people milling around it.   But I did get a few decent long distance shots of it and it was sort of neat to see it in context ... which is right alongside several other formations about the same height on that ridge. 

We had driven by Skyline Arch and wanted to head back and take a look at it.  It was a short hike back to the arch with, of course, various opportunities for photographs.   When we made the final turn to where we were looking almost straight up at it, we recalled where they'd said a chunk of rock had recently fallen from one side of it.  It was right in front of us, in pieces.  Some of them very, very large pieces.  Vicki's always been fascinated with large boulders.  And you could easily see the relatively recently exposed face from where it fell.

Behind us, another couple was arguing about why the woman hadn't dumped the photos from the previous day out of memory, and why she was taking them in raw format ... in short, they were out of camera memory -- and it was either delete pictures or stop taking them, and it was causing strife between them.  I thought I had an old 1GB card I never use anymore in my camera bag.  Without saying anything, I dug through my bag, found it, and trotted over and offered it to them, no strings attached.  "I never use it anymore anyway.  This'll get you through the day."   They thanked me.  I hoped they had a better rest of the day.

By this point, it was pushing mid afternoon, getting kind of warm, and the park was crowded.    Let's head back to the Visitor's Center, fill up our water, putz around and look at the displays and merchandise in the air conditioning, and maybe head back to the campsite.  Cook some dinner.

We had the Buffalo Chicken rice meal with Three Bean Salad.

I love that little camp stove.  Handy.

Travel Day 2

A lot  of the aspens were turning.  We saw more and more as we headed west.   One guy at a gas station in Dillon said he thought they were turning early.  But I'd read another guy a couple of weeks ago who said people said things like this every year and it really doesn't change peak time.   It's always about the last week of September.  And that would be next week.

Still, they looked good, and it made me worry some.  Should we swap which week we spend in Colorado with which one we spend in Utah?   Ultimataely, no, I thought.  I really do need to go to some new places and see things I've always wanted to see.  Part of the reason for this extended journey.  There were still large swaths of green aspens among the yellow ones.

Moab, here we come.

The further west we got in Colorado, though, we noticed that the mountains were not the same.  They were more crumbly, less dramatic, and more and more desert vegetation started taking over.  They were less and less the Front Range and Sawactch Range type Rockies I fell in love with.  And we pressed on.

We travelled through a pretty neat canyon, Glennwood Canyon, where they practically had to stack the east and west bound lanes of I-70 on each other, and the westbound lanes literally hung off the side of the mountains.

At one point we got of the highway just to take a gander at it and make sure the trailer was riding ok.   Things like this make a drive interesting.

Some of the mountains were more and more white ... like limestone.  At one point I noted a large mountain that I thought had snow covered slopes up high, but it was more like ... gypsum sand or something.  It was easy to imagine Western Colorado was made out of gypsum.   Things were getting dusty.   Sagey.  Deserty.

By the time we got to Grand Junction, it was easy to imagine we were already in Utah.  Oh well.  Limon looks a lot like Western Kansas, I suppose.   We filled up at Grand Junction.  I figured we were getting pretty "west", and I was just waiting for a "Last Gas for 500 miles" sign somewhere.

As we got into Utah, there was more and more "butte" type landscape.   I'm sure it would have looked more impressive, but for the haze from the smoke, which was now so thick it affected views of a mile or less.

One of the things I started to notice were signs for exits with the caveat on a blue sign below, "No Services" exit after exit.  Which weren't really that close in the first place.  I started to feel pretty good about filling up in Grand Junction.

Vicki fell asleep.  She hadn't slept well the night before, and could not seem to get warm all day.   I was wondering if she wasn't getting sick ... some virus or something. 

I stopped the car at a Utah Visitors' Center near I-70 and 191.   I asked the lady there about the smoke.  She said the entire North West was basically on fire.   There were fires in Washington, Idaho, and Montana, even a couple in Utah, she said.   I told her what we were planning, basically, on our trip, and she suggested we stop at a place called Hovenweep on our way to Mesa Verde.  Handed us some literature, and we struck out for Moab.

We could see bits of the red sandstone and landscape of Arches National Park to the left as we drove down 191 and red cliffs rose and fell on either side of the road.

I had read that there was camping up 128 in Moab, and some BLM sites off of 191, and other commercial camping in Moab.  I had thought, from looking at a map, that 128 was basically in Moab, and figured those were commercial sites as well.   But we got to 128 and it was definitely not in town.  As a matter of fact, it went up a deep sandstone canyon on the Colorado River and was some of the most striking scenery we'd seen yet in Utah.

The book the lady at the Visitors' Center had given us indicated that these campgrounds were not commercial at all up this road ... they were BLM.  No services, though, other than vault toilets.  No running water.  Nothing.  But from our experience in Missouri ... it would be nicer than being jammed together in a commercial site.

We went by a couple of campgrounds that appeared pretty full.  The sites on the river side of the drives had some short, scruffy willows, maybe 8-15 feet high to provide some shade.   We cruised on up to Big Bend, the largest campground with the most RV sites (the popup is considered an RV for these purposes).   We found a site, #13 ... we thought looked great.  It was empty.   We started to go back to look for a nicer site closer to town (we're about 7 miles up the road here) but then decided we wouldn't find anything nicer and turned back.  There was still nobody there so we set up camp.  The awning.  The solar panels.  The electricity.  Made the beds, stashed stuff away on my makeshift shelf.  And then went to put our reservation slip on the post.

There was already one there.   We could swear there wasn't one there the first time we hit it.   But the shade of the slip was very close to the shade of the pole.

We would have to tear down and move.  There's no way to move the thing set up.

I went and told the Camp Host what happened, and he said the campground was full.  He said he could let us set up overnight in the parking lot by the group site, which was empty, and then ask around in the morning for a site (the campgrounds there are first-come first-serve).   So we set up ... not the nicest place.  But it was a place.   And really, we ultimately just needed a place to sleep.

We went to Moab to check it out and ate at a place called La Hacienda.  Good enough Mexican food.  Then came back to camp, where we ran into some people from Connecticut who were interested in our popup and how it worked.   They were in site #10 and said they would be leaving in the morning.   They also said they'd camped all over the country and never made a reservation anywhere.

Meantime, the Camp Host had told us that we happened to be there at peak season.  I figured it was well after school started in the fall, and things wouldn't be crowded.   He said ... nah, nobody's there in the summer.  Way to hot.  September and October ... that's when the campgrounds are full and the two parks are crowded.

A guy and his girlfriend in #9 who had built his own little metal camper moved out around 7:00am.  We didn't wait for our friends in #10 to get up.  We swiped it.   No trees, but it was a site, and was ours for as long as we needed it.   We reserved it through Saturday morning, and took off for Arches National Park.

The Trip Map

Plan? We don't need no stinking plan!

The first thing that happened, before I left, is I could not find the car keys that I'd had moments before I went to leave.  And Vicki had the other set in Kansas City.  No going anywhere without those.  I looked all around the front seat and in the ignition four or five times, and in the house about that many times as well.   Finally, I remembered that I'd thrown some stuff in the back seat, and I went to look to see if I'd thrown the keys there along with it.

Sure enough.  There they were.

Then the GPS  had me get off of 70 before I had expected to, and then I missed a turn, but it guided me to Crown Center anyway, after I re-routed myself around a large bicycle tour.  I picked Vicki up, and then I remembered... it's hard to figure out how to get on I-35 south from here.  No worries.  My British Lady GPS will guide me.

Except she didn't so well.  The intersections are very angled and the distances between them close enough that they were close to the margin of error, and I couldn't figure out where I was supposed to turn.  "In 400 feet, turn left on ... recalculating ...."  So after several false starts, we eventually found an on-ramp (after waiting for an extraordinarily long and slow-moving train) ... which ended up not being the closest on ramp but it got the job done.

We cruised to the Groves house, went out for lunch to some pub place with good burgers, and hung out at their place.  We don't see them often enough, and the fire last year didn't help matters.

I had never done anything like this on this kind of scale before.  We had no reservations, anywhere, and really little idea where we would be camping and when.  I had a vague idea that we'd spend the first night up Montezuma Rd outside of Dillon, CO.... but timing would be key.  We'd need to be there at least a couple hours before sunset to find a spot and then to set up before dark.  Staying with the Groves in KC really helped that out.  We were out by 9:00 though next time I try that I'd want to leave there no later than 7:00 am.  We ended up cutting it a little close for my comfort.

It was hazy across Kansas.  We figured it was a front coming through.  There was one ... but the haze didn't let up and in fact seemed to get thicker and thicker as we drove west.  We hit Denver about 4:00pm, and traffic on 70 wasn't that bad considering it was Denver.  We came to a full stop once, in mid city, but we were out of the metro area before 5:00 and headed up toward Idaho Springs and Loveland Pass, the site of the first mountain we climbed (2002), the one Mark and I climbed in 2003, and the one from which I started my Grays and Torry's attepmt in 2010.  I'm fond of this area.  On the Continental Divide, way up high, and relatively quiet.

We popped over Loveland Pass and got off at the Keystone area where was looking for the camping areas off of Montezuma road I had seen before.  I only really saw one (with several camp sites) along the Snake River.  There were a few people in them... but I thought hey, Peru Creek is just up the road a couple of miles ... we'll see if there are any more between here and there and then come back to this one if there aren't.

Peru Creek near our
campsite

We got to Peru Creek, and Vicki was game to try to drive back there.    I remembered from 2010 that road was fairly rough ... and it still was, but somehow seemed better.  Maybe because it actually was, or maybe because the Taurus is a bit more stout than the Escort with a back rack loaded down with too much stuff.

And she spied a spot ... probably less than a mile down the road, about 10-12 feet down from the road with a relatively steep but navigable drive down to it.  We could also pull in, detach, and maneuver the popup where we wanted it and have plenty of room to turn the car around sans-a-trailer to get out.  I was a little skeptical at first, but I, in my typical border-line damn the torpedoes manner. went for it.

Score.

Peru Creek 50 yards away, crashing down the mountain with clear mountain stream water.  Lots of trees.  No neighbors.  10,120 feet up in the mountains.  It's gonna get cold tonight.

We set up -- Vicki taking care of the clothes and bed, me setting up the shelf outside and sheltering the equipment, getting the electricity and propane hooked up and the heater hooked up inside.  And I gathered some firewood.  Got the stove out to cook dinner.   And darkness fell.

Vicki warming by the fire on
our first night out

The sky was dark black dotted with bright blue-white diamonds, and after 9:00pm you could see the Milky Way easily.   We had one of our rice and texturized vegetable protein quick meals, and sat around the fire until about 10 or 10:30 and turned in.  It was already close to 30 degrees.  I'd turned the heat on low around 9:00.  We turned in, and I hepped it up to full blast.  All night long.

I'd brought an indoor-outdoor thermometer to keep track of temperature and temperature differences.  The outside temperature dropped to 25 º, while we stayed a cool but tolerable 57 º.  Better blankets would have helped.

57 º is a lot colder in a vinyl tent when it's 25 º  outside than it is, say, in your house.  Not only is the air near the walls colder and pouring down, you are also exchanging radiative heat with surfaces much colder than the interior walls of your house.  Still, like I said, it was tolerable.  Looks like this thing at full blast can keep the temperature inside ~32 º warmer on a still night than the ambient outside temperature.   That'll do, pig.  That'll do.

But how much propane did we use?

Got up in the morning, and I scooped the coffee pot full of mountain stream water and filled my silicon nylon bag-bucket with stream water for washing dishes and such.   We made coffee on the old-school Coleman gasoline stove, and had Grapenuts with this milk you don't have to refrigerate before opening (handy on a trip like this -- you go, Vicki!), and started breaking camp down.

It's hard to complain about
the scenery near Dillon, CO

But Vicki could NOT get warm.  I think a night of being slightly chilled all night and probably inadequate clothing for people acclimated to a hot Midwest Summer took its toll.  So I re-built the fire for her, which she utilized off and on the whole time we broke down and packed up, hooked the trailer back up, and easily made it out of the campsite with minimal scraping of the trailer hitch.

We pulled over at the Montezuma Road campsite.  Someone was in there with a neat old little "Scamp" camper which I purposely did a close fly-by ... but what I really wanted was to stick my tennis-elbow stricken elbow in the river.   It was acting up.  Sore.  The water would be cold and reduce the swelling.  It did, quickly, and we headed west, to Dillon.

One of these would be neat.  But
it's not what we have.

The tarp cover for the camper did not stretch out to the back far enough while cold to catch the velcro in back, so while we gassed up in Dillon I let the sun beat down on its black surface to warm it up.  By the time we left, I was able to stretch it and attach it completely.  Off to new territory for me.  I haven't been west of Dillon in Colorado since ... 1972?

A check on the gas mileage showed that we were getting 23 mpg rather than the normal 27 mpg (highway) the Taurus usually gets.  Not bad at all, especially considering the gas mileage of the RV rentals we'd considered.

Big Vacation

Last February 1 was our 20th Anniversary.   The plan was, some time this year, to go to Alaska.  But ... the house fire and the subsequent re-building kind of wiped that dream out (maybe 25th?).

So this year I thought we'd try a version of something we've talked about ... taking two weeks off and doing a "loop".  I have three in mind.  A NorthWest loop, a SouthWest loop, and a NorthEast loop.

But I really miss my mountains, so I thought hey, how about this?  We'll go through Colorado into Utah and see Arches and Canyonlands ... then swing down to Mesa Verde and then come back up and spend a few days in the mountains before heading home, right in prime Aspen time.

Now ... typically, I camp in tents, but Vicki's not going to do that for two weeks -- and frankly, I've discovered after 4 or so nights on a blue pad on the ground, my bones start hurting.  I've solved this by using an air mattress... but we've had trouble with those, too.

Ryan and Kristie bought a big popup a couple of years ago ... complete with kitchen, bathroom, and shower ... but to date they haven't used the bathroom and shower (lots of setting up and cleaning and sanitation involved) ... so, hey, do we really need them?   Well, maybe.  I checked into renting an RV.

On a 2,500 mile trip, gas mileage would be an issue, plus I didn't want parking to be an issue, so I looked into these smaller RV's you can rent from Cruise America or some place like that.  But it turned out the closest place I could pick one up would be ... Chicago.  Wrong direction, too.

It was also going to be $1,200 to $1,500 + gas at an optimistic 14 MPG for that. And 10 MPG or less for anything else. So we're looking at a trip that would come easily to $2-$3K just for transportation.  Which wasn't shocking, it was just more than I had in mind this year.

This is the one we got, only ours
is a 2012.  Slightly different decal.

I started hunting around for teardrop trailers to no avail, but I ran across something I didn't know existed... a tiny 455 lb popup from Coachman... a Coachman Viking Express.   Basically a glorified vinyl tent on wheels.  the box it folds up into is 4'x7'.  And my little Ford Escort can pull it.  Two beds, bigger than twin but smaller than full fold out of it, with a 4x7 area in the middle and a folding table that fits nicely against the back wall.

The other, nicer, more complete popups they had started at 1,600 lbs, bare naked with nothing in it.  But the Taurus' towing limit is 1,500 lbs.

And they wanted to get rid of the Viking for cost.  I bought it for $2K.

Ryan suggested I have a diamond plate tray made for the front of it to hold a propane tank and an RV battery.  Great idea.  I did that, bought an 11 lb propane tank and a big honkin' marine battery along with a 13 Watt solar charger.  And I got a Mr. Heater Little Buddy propane catalytic heater for it.  We also have a 12V fan.

We can trick this thing out a bit.

I bought an LED light bar with 4 directable pucks and glued a couple of magnets to the back so it could hang on the frame and light the place up.  And a spare tire.

Packing Logistics

We made plans for two weeks.   But the annual fall Midwest Hemophilia Family Fun Fair was that first weekend, and Vicki and I had planned to go.   Vicki went, and I stayed home to make sure the packing was done.  Also got a chance to go to a home Mizzou football game (vs AZ State) Saturday... and had everything ready to go Sunday morning.

I left for Kansas City to pick Vicki up along the way, and we spent the afternoon and evening with the Groves in Olathe before striking out westward in the morning.

Vacation, All I Ever Wanted ...

Before the fire (not to be confused with "After the Fire" -- Don't Turn Around, Oh Oh) we were planning on a trip to Alaska for our 20th Anniversary this year.   Well, we blew that wad on hardwood floors and new HVAC ductwork instead.  C'est la vie.

Yeah, we celebrated it during the "fire" drought in posting (which was preceeded by the "Phil's too busy to post because he's busier at work and busier after work than he used to be" drought, and partially caused by the "Phil never finished posting about his 2010 vacation and felt he should before posting new stuff" drought).   We went to Eureka Springs for a long weekend in February, during the off season, and had a little time alone together.  Stayed in the Basin Street Hotel.  Ate at Rogues Manor -- a nice restaurant with well above average food and great service -- and putzed around a little.  Which is what you do in Eureka Springs.  You putz.  Go in and out of shops and restaurants.  Have a drink at the Balcony Bar.

Well not in February.  Too cold.

Basin Street Hotel wasn't exactly booked up for the weekend.  We had our room upgraded to a really nice one with a sitting area and a little bar area and what had to be a California King .... (maybe a Texas King!) bed.   Our (5th?) floor bay window overlooked the street.  The funky thing about the room was ... well, there was a plain table by the window on the far end of the room from the door.  It was tilted.  As were the dressers against that outside wall ... and this is all because the beams holding up the floors have all sagged dramatically.  I'll bet one end of the room was 18" lower than the other end.  Bizarre.   But as my buddy Ryan points out, that's one of the charms of Eureka Springs.  Everything's a bit run down.  But it's functional. And quaint.

Like many places in Eureka Springs, it's allegedly "haunted".  Vicki loves those ghost shows on TV.  So we went on a little ghost hunt of our own.

We couldn't help but spoof the gimmickery you see on those shows. You can see how "serious" we were. We had fun.

You, too -- can still have a relationship partially based on mutual silliness after 20 years! ;-)

At any rate, I told you that story to tell you this one.   Last summer, due to constantly shifting training schedules, I never got out to my beloved mountains.  This year, I vowed that would not happen.  And we're not going to Alaska.

So.

This summer the same kinds of schedule conflicts came up at work once again, but I blocked off some time this fall to go to Colorado ... or something.   Now that I'm in the planning stages, it's apparent how much I have bitten off.  It's going to cost more than I had wanted to spend, but we want to spend a couple of weeks and do a loop through the front range on I-70, down through Arches National Park, Canyonlands National Park, Down to Mesa Verde and back up through Durango/Ouray and who knows from there.

But I don't want to be tied down to motel reservations.  I thought maybe I could rent a small popup, but that looks out of the question.   Saw one for sale, but it takes up pretty much the whole vacation budget and we have no place to store it (or I'd seriously consider buying it ... my little Escort could pull it's tiny 455 lb self.)

So now I'm looking into RV rentals, but I want a compact.  I don't want to be driving some ginormous thing. I only have about 5 weeks to plan this, though.

Budget-wise it's tempting to just go park along a river somewhere or go to RMNP for a week.   The aspens should be turning.   Anyway... that's where we are right now.

A Letter to Papa

Vicki is truly retired now, with no part-time job even.  So she is available for more babysitting.  

But before, when Trenton would come over for babysitting, Papa was usually there.  But now he knows Papa has to "take off work" to be there and play.

It's apparently Papa's realm to play with toy trains, tinker toys, and lincoln logs ... Vicki does tickles and reading and movies much better.   She gets frustrated building things.  So apparently the other day, he said "Nana, we need to write Papa a letter and tell him to take off work."

Awwww.

To be independently wealthy.

Warm Fuzzies

She's probably just being nice, but it still made me feel good.


I did a little cover of Orla Gartland's "Devil On My Shoulder".  A moving song by a young Irish teenager.  Ultimately, it's a song about addiction or crutches.  She's at that age where striking out on her own is on her mind and all of the fear and uncertainty that comes with it.  But it could easily be about trying to kick away from an old lover, or perhaps even from drug abuse, or any other bad habit you might have.

Anyway, shared it with her (as so many others have) on Facebook.  Hey  Mikey.  She likes it. :-)

Fire

Trenton outside River Eagle Hobbies
in Boonville

We had Trenton for several days in early/mid November while Mommy and Daddy went to Chicago for a hemophilia event.   We even drove Trenton and daddy up to the train station in LaPlata, MO to see him off.  We saw three REAL trains in about 20 minutes, and daddy got on one and took off.

The train station manager let Trenton come back behind the ticket counter and gave him a train coloring book and some crayons and he was quite impressed with the whole thing.  Then we went by the train store in Boonville on the way back and bought a car for our N-scale train.

That Saturday (Nov 12) he and I were on the deck in the morning, and he wanted to build a fire in the chimnea.    It was a bit chilly, so we did.   And we let it burn ... it was down to just some black logs and a few flames, when Vicki decided we needed to take him to see her mother, drop by the grocery store, get him lunch and down for a nap.  This was about 11:50 am.  And I said "well, we'd better get going pretty quick, then".

Yes.  Our house was probably on
fire when this picture was taken.

I went into the kitchen and got a large plastic cup and filled it with water to pour over the fire to put it out.   Started grabbing coats and things, and I peeked out and thought out loud that I thought I needed to do it again.  Even Vicki thought it would be fine, but I still went back and filled the cup again and poured it over the logs.  Got lots of steam and some smoke for a few seconds and then it subsided  and I felt sure it was out.   And we left.

Visited Vicki's mom for maybe a half hour, 45 minutes.  Went to the grocery store, and drove home.

Fireman helping our neighbor Adele
(this is from the paper)

There are a lot of older people in our neighborhood, and it's not unusual to see emergency vehicles -- ambulances, fire trucks carrying EMT stuff ... in the neighborhood.  And there was one blocking our way and I wondered which neighbor was headed to the hospital or worse this time.

And then I saw another fire truck.  And another.  And one with a ladder sticking way out .... 

over our house.

A little smoke in our driveway.

My heart sank.  "That's our house", I said, not really wanting to believe it.    No.  Really?  Yes.  It is.   There was a little smoke drifting around out front.  But the fire was basically out.   Other than some sagging between rafters  in the roof over the garage, the house looked pretty normal from the front.

A very nice woman in a fire suit whose job it obviously was to inform and calm homeowners and neighbors came to talk to us.   She said they were still investigating the cause.  Wanted to know if I left the grill going.   I told her no, but I could tell her exactly what happened.

This one is from the City's website.
The first time I saw a picture of
actual fire at the house.

At the time I figured the wind, and it was very windy that day, blew the fire back up into viable flames and glowing cinders, flying in the wind, and that it caught leaves next to the house on fire.   We have wood siding.  And there were sofit vents up there for it to lick into the attic.

We weren't allowed to go in for at least an hour.  We couldn't leave Trenton in the car -- it was too far down the road, but we needed to talk to the firemen, so I got him out and carried him over there.  They gave him stickers. And he fell asleep on my shoulder.

Our first view inside

Got him back to the car, and his Grammy Pam showed up to get him after a while.

Neighbors were milling about... hugging us, telling us how sorry they were, happy nobody was hurt.

The fire lady said that it was pretty bad, but it looked worse than it was.  Gave me some Red Cross literature.  Had me call my insurance company.   We were both in a daze, and I just did it.  I don't really remember much about it.

The firemen protected
our belongings way
beyond what I would
have expected.

And finally, they let us in the house.   There was wet, blown insulation everywhere.  A giant hole in the kitchen roof.  Vicki said "Oh look, we have a skylight!"   There were a few firemen still putting out smoldering embers.  Lots of debris from stuff stored in the attic was scattered about the kitchen, and piled out on the deck.  The ceiling in the garage had come in, and wet insulation hung down with drywall and stuff that had been above it in the attic.

Out on the deck was the chimnea, with the three logs still in it, not burning, pretty much the way I'd left them.  There was a vertical hole in the kitchen wall.  You could see where the fire had burned up the side of the house and the sofit and most of the roof over the kitchen was gone with the burnt remains of charred rafters hanging out, unsupported on one side.

Part of our extensive stash of
Christmas decorations.

The firemen said the call came in at 12:30, about a half hour after we had left the house.   They said they could see the smoke from the fire house, a mile or so away.  It was already a big fire.  And they had it out by 12:45, 12:50.    We got back about 1:40, 1:45-ish.

All of this happened in 45 minutes?

It had to have been starting as we pulled out of the driveway.

The news reported that I had poured
"2 cups" of water on the fire.
Two of these is closer to a half
gallon.

Out on the deck there were two propane tanks, one "empty", the other hooked up to the gas grill.  The hose on it was melted. Thank God neither one of them blew. The grill itself had cracked from the heat.   Some of the decking over by the wall where the fire was was burned.  The concrete-fiber grill mat the chimnea sat on was still right there.  The chimnea did not catch the deck on fire.  It was the leaves.  But still.  That big, that fast.

Well, there was a tiki torch there near the house and it likely fell over into the fire at some point.  And then when it burned through the plastic bin all our barbecue stuff was in, there was probably another 3 quarts of torch oil.  That helped.   And the wind.  The wind was a big factor.

Kitchen a day or two later.

I figure now that the second time I put water on it, the steam popped a coal off of one of the logs and it flew into the leaves by the house.  I didn't see it because of the steam.  With the wind and the dried leaves from the wild grape vine, it was the perfect fire storm.

The firemen said they'd be back around 9:00pm to double-check that everything was really OUT out.   But right about sunset the guy doing the tarp on the roof noticed some smoldering in the attic over the kitchen.  It was in some of that blown insulation (which I've always wondered about) that seems to be nothing but ground newspaper.  It apparently holds a coal very well.  They called the fire department back, and they went in and tore into the kitchen sofit area and got the rest of it.   The guys were very professional, but nice and sympathetic at the same time.  Seriously our hats are off to those guys.

It is amazing how little in the house itself was damaged directly by the fire.  The fire crew had also taken care to take pictures off of walls, cookbooks off of the top of the cabinet, furniture out of that kitchen area, and covered everything with huge blue tarps to keep the water, insulation, and drywall off of the furniture and just about everything else.  They did a fantastic job -- way more than either of us ever expected from any fire department.  They'd moved my guitars from the wall downstairs and the living room into the bedroom ... the only room upstairs where there was virtually no visible damage from the fire or the water.

That's where the fire started.

At first, before we went in, I thought "oh, just a couple of days, and we can live in it while it's being fixed."

I wondered at first if it could be fixed by Christmas.

Most of the actual fire damage was in the attic, and the worst of it is that we store all of our Christmas decorations up there, and they were a near total loss.  If you know us, you know we put a lot of effort into decorating for Christmas.  Most of that stuff can be replaced.   Some of it, old stuff from Vicki's childhood and family... cannot.  (a footnote ... a few items actually survived.  I dug through melted plastic and ashes for it, and surprised us).

What a mess.

The insurance company said to get someone to board it up and keep the damage from getting worse.  John Neal knew a guy who did that kind of work, and he came and boarded the kitchen window that had broken out, and put a giant tarp over the damaged roof and the big hole.

We grabbed some clothes and toiletries.  Vicki's jewelry.  The guns from the safe.  And headed across town to Brian and Kristin's house.   

Damn.  The carpet's going to need replacing.  We're going to have to clear out the house if they're taking the roof off.  That's going to be a lot of work.  It'll be like moving!  Then we'll have to store all of it.  And where are we going to live for that period of time?

Ironically, this survived in the attic.
I found it in the debris on the
deck.  We had to keep it.

Over the next several days it became clear from the estimates we got ... this was going to be a big job.  60 to 90 days.   The rafters would have to come off of most if not all of the roof.  And in winter, long precipitation-free periods aren't common around here.

Vicki was retiring the following Friday.  She wondered how that was going to work with the stuff we thought we were going to have to do, but I guessed (correctly) that there wasn't much we could do in the next week anyway.  I met with the adjuster from American Family.  Nice guy.   And I was stunned at what our insurance actually covered.   I guess my agent steered me right.

They get Service Master and ServPro to bid on mitigation and cleanup.  They also move your stuff out, clean it, and store it, and bring it back and put it basically back where it was ("like it never even happened", the ServPro commercial goes).   A general contracting company or construction company comes in and fixes it up in the time being.

Ceiling in garage coming in on our
camping equipment.

The adjuster gave me the names of three companies.  Two of them in "their program" -- which basically means they meet certain standards and use the same estimating software and work together.  A third used to be in their program and probably would be in it again, too.

One company intrigued me.  A local (central Missouri) company called Aerodry ("in" the program) that would do it end to end from mitigation to cleanup, moving, and storage to construction.   If they bid against the other two companies and got the mitigation/cleanup end, I could work with one single company through the whole thing.

Roof being put on.  It's actually
done now.

One of the other two companies didn't even bid.  And Aerodry got the job, which made me very happy.

Due to weather, it took them a long time to get started on the roof.   In the mean time, I had  a lot of trouble sleeping, worrying what about this, what about that, what if .... I wasn't sleeping at all. I got a perscription for Ambien  for a few weeks.  That helped.

They've been very good to work with.  They also use a lot of local small businesses, and everyone I've met seems like good people.  Things are moving along.  I expect about another 5 weeks.  Longer than we expected.  But still.  I've heard of much worse.

Sky through the new rafters.

We are still staying with Brian and Kristin and Trenton.  We brought over enough stuff to get us by.  The insurance company would've put us up in an apartment or extended stay hotel.... but two things.  They pay Brian and Kristin rent for us -- which is cool for them.  And this is a much quieter place to live, and we get to see them every day, and help out with the house and with Trenton.   I'm sure we'll all be ready for us to move out.  But I think we're going to make it.

I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

A Place to Put His Stuff

"Papa, please stay."

Trenton grabbed my right pinky with his little hand as we went to leave their house the night of his birthday party.  We had just told him it was time for us to go home.

We stayed another 10 minutes.

(this post sat as a draft for months, and I never finished it.  But I want to remember this.  So I'm going to go ahead and post the fragment.)

note to self:  This had something to do with the John Deere wagon we got him.

Take the Time

I'm still learning to use my BOSS BR-600 recording "studio".   Here's a Freddy Jones Band cover. That's me on guitar, me on lead vocals, and me on backing vocals. :-)



Update: learned the auto-punch-in/out feature. Went back and edited out some of the really bad off-key warbles, and changed the harmonies on the "a matter of your pride" to lower harmonies which is more like the original, and fixed my big guitar flub-up near the end. Not sure I like the lower harmonies as well as the higher ones I used before. And I can hear a couple of editing errors in there as well. But ... progress.

Ok, now I re-did the whole thing because I liked the higher harmonies better, the repeated "matter of your pride", and this time it's consistent guitar all the way through, baby. Added a couple more harmonies and took the thicker ones out.