Sacramento Here I Come---My Final Post

Well we pack up in the morning and head home.  Yes I am ready to come home but will miss my friends out on the road.  Had a great time in Moab and then in Lake Powell.  Hope I have not bored you but that you may have found something interesting in my posts.  This was fun.  Cherie, get your work out clothes out of storage and Hope, let's get ready to ride.......I need exercise!!  Mary Meyers

Capitol Reef, Escalante, National Parks via the back roads

Anyone can drive on the highway and go see a National Park but can you get in the back door via a back country scenic route?  That is what we did today.  What a beautiful drive, we ended up in Boulder and had lunch and then headed back for yet another fish fry.  I have pictures but the pictures just can't capture the 3D image that your eyes see.  This country is spectacular and it is a huge area.  We spotted a slot canyon after lunch so walked back into it,  Awesome Awesome.  Our group is camped down by the water as two of them have boats docked where they are camped.  Wonderful camping, you can have a fire, you can fish right from your camp, you meet and make new friends as different people head to Lake Powell to camp, has been a truly delightful 5 days here at Lake Powell.  Enjoy the pics.  PS:  Does anyone see a flying saucer??

Too Windy to Fish on Lake Powell

Wish I had seen the weather report before I bought my one day fishing license for Sunday.  Awful windy on the lake and apparently fish don't like wind any better than we do.  So we brought the boat back in, sang old country western songs on the way in, cleaned everything up and took off  on a off road trip with the jeeps., aka plan B.    It is a lot less windy inside the jeeps than out.  Went and explored an old uranium mine and then had to really offroad to get us out of there.  But we made a loop and did not have to retrace our steps.  We have extened out stay by one day here at Powell.  Tomorrow we are doing a backcountry scenic byway should be very interesting. 

Lake Powell, Utah

Been out of touch for a few days so will catch you up on the activities.  Thursday we drove down to Bull Frog, Ut on Lake Powell where our friend, Micklick, has his boat in storage.  Got all set up for camping, he is primitive camping and we are dry camping on a concrete slab (civilized).  Friday morning we have to go and get his boat out of storage and cleaned up, bought one day fishing license for Sunday, launched the boat and then had lunch.  About 2 pm we go out for just a little boat ride and head North on the water, brand new territory for us. We get back had dinner and back to our coach at 9 pm---tired.  Saturday is our big day on the Lake as we head South towards the famous Rainbow Bridge.  On the way down to Rainbow which is approx 50 water miles from where we are camped,, we go thru several canyons which basically all dead end, some are wide and some turn into regular ole slot canyons.  We even had to back out of one as it was too narrow to turn around.  In these canyons ,on the walls, is a light show called Dancing Lights.  Just so cool to see the light hit the moving water and then dancing on the sides of the canyon, never got old to look at.  We saw Hole in The Rock, which is were the Mormans and their wagons came across this part of the country, very difficult decent for the horses and people and then crossed a smaller Colorado River (this is before Glen Canyon Dam was built and made the Lake) and you can see where they exited thru rock passage.  Was easy sitting there on the Lake to visualize their route.....glad I am born when I was!!  Because it is such a long trek to Rainbow Bridge, we stopped at Dangling Rope and fueled up and got Ice Cream don't you know.  Then off to Rainbow and it is 2/3's of a mile walk up to the bridge.  The Natural Bridge is now sacred ground to several Indian tribes so you are not allowed to walk under the bridge or even get close enough to touch it.  There were 2 rangers on duty and got great info from them on the history of Raninbow Bridge.  Did you know that it was actually a woman that found out about this great bridge from the Indians?  She and her husband had a trading post set up approx 60 miles from the bridge and an Indian told her about the "great bridge" so they put a party of men together and set out to discover it.  Took them 3.5 days to get there and well the rest is history.  Zane Gray visited this area frequently and Pres. Theo Roosevelt rode his horse to the bridge and actually slept on top of it, which I was told is the width of a two lane hwy up there but sill.  Again this was all done before it became "sacred". There is also one dinosaur foot print in the rock and let me tell you, that was one big foot (actually kind of glad he  or she is extinct now, ha ha). 

Fish Fry Wednesday, Moab

Have been laying low the past couple of days, still recouping from the rally.  Tonight we were invited up for a fish fry at OK RV, boy was that good.  Then I found out it was last years fish, he needed to clean out the freezer for the new fish he thinks he is going to catch when we go to Lake Powell.  Don't matter there is nothing like beer battered deep fried fish, plus homemade potato chips, deep fried of course, and coleslaw, then cheesecake for dessert..........lordy I am going to need to diet when I get home.  We pull out tomorrow morning for Lake Powell, not sure if I will have Internet service there.  The pictures I chose today are:
1) Not all passengers are people
2) Birds view of Moab, see the Colorado River and La Sal Mountains in the back

3) Oops, not good to have this kind of flat

The Party is Over, Moab

The rally ended Saturday night, was a great rally.  Sunday we went out for Brunch and then out to friend's for dinner (can I say pig out!!).  Today the weather turned nasty, major wind, lightning , thunder, rain and hail, wow I am so glad this did not occur during the rally.  I cleaned the motorhome this morning, then we went into Moab and toured a museum that we have not been to and it was free today, that was a nice surprise and had a Wendy's Frosty, yum yum., came home and took a nap!!  Most of our friends have moved on to new destinations but still have a few up at OK (that is OK RV Park) that stay or month or longer here in Moab.  After running around crazy for a week, have to learn to slow down and enjoy our time in Moab.

Happy Mothers Day, Moab Utah

The rally is officially over and all of our friends are moving on.  Wonder where we will meet up again down the road??  This is the first rally that we have hosted.  The duties of the hosts is to make sure all the trails have leaders and you have a variety of easy, medium and hard trails on each day and to organize the food functions.  We offered 39 trails  to be run in 5 days and had an appetizer meal after registration and hamburger night on Thursday with live music and Saturday night catered barbecue for our end of rally appreciation dinner.  Even tho everything ran smoothly, we are tired, lots of things to think about.  So tomorrow we will do another jeep trip with friends that stay in Moab for a longer time period and then I do have paperwork to do for the rally and I must clean up the coach somewhat.  Dust everywhere!!  Our next stop will be a few days at Lake Powell with yet another friend who keeps a boat on Lake Powell and then our adventure will bring us home.  Happy Mothers Day Everyone!!

I am a day late on this entry, sorry but we didn't have the camera with us when we did this trail yesterday so Glenn & I drove back out and took the pictures for the blog.  Legend has it that you must drive over the gooney bird's feet for good luck and should the gooney bird crap on you-----well you are in big "dodo".  I made up the last half of the legend, ha ha  So anyway what kind of status do you have when they name trails after you.  We went out on the MM trail, is that for Mary Meyers??, see picture, it is not a joke.  It is a great trail, had some hard obstacles for Glenn, great view for lunch up on top of  a ledge overlooking the valley and beautiful sunshine.  Today when we took the picture you can see the wind is blowing again, my hair is flying sideways....have I mentioned before I do not like wind!!!  Oh, by the way the name of the trail is Metal Masher (MM)............oh well.

Party down in Moab

Today we had a day off, well the people attending the rally may have had the day off, Glenn & I had work to do.  Happy hour started at 4pm, hamburgers started at 5pm and after dinner we started the raffles.  The first raffle was to cut Bumperjack's hair.  Since 9/11/01 Dick Block aka Bumperjack would not cut his hair until Bin Laden was captured.  Well during the Moab rally, they got him so Dick stood up to his end of the bargain and we raffled tickets for the chance to cut his hair.  Three people came up and took their turn cutting.  We raised over $500.00 collecting tickets to cut Bumperjacks hair and it all went into the Land Use Fund, which fights to keep off roads open for travel.    Then we raffled off an assortment of gifts.  The owners of Portal RV park, where we are staying , brought in their family band and entertained us til 8 pm..... great times here in Moab.

Tip Toe Behind the Rocks, Moab

Whew what a day.  Woke up at 7:30 and left the house and 8:30, I drove the 3.5 trail for 8 hours!! Got home at 5:00 Glenn and I took showers (not together, ha ha) stopped and got a card and went to dinner at 6:00 pm to celebrate our friends 39 wedding anniversary.  Now how more can you pack in a day I ask!!!!   Glenn walked a lot of the trail not sure if he was afraid of my driving or what.  These vacations are killing us.  Tomorrow is a day off and I need it.  No pictures as we forgot the camera, bummer as the scenery was just beautiful.  Oh well. 

Crazy Sock Day, Moab

The trail is called 7 Mile Rim.  The requirements for this trail is that the ladies had to drive and you were suppose to wear crazy socks as you can see by the picture.  This is not an easy trail , there are some hard spots to get over or down.  But it is give the women an opportunity to get more comfortable with driving on the trails.  And most of the husbands/partners came along so we women were not alone out there.  But Glenn stayed home so I invited Faith to go with me so we had a real "girls" day.  I have a funny story to tell.  In our club when we need a potty break it is called a 10-100, men go to the left and woman go to the right because of course women are always right, ha ha.  Well we stopped yesterday, I thought to look at an overlook not realizing it was a 10-100 stop.  I am talking with Sherm and we are heading to the left side, where the overlook is,  when all of a sudden I hear"Mary what are you doing over here!!!"  I had walked right into the men's 10-100 spot, boy did we laugh and I got ragged all day on the CB about this incident.  So I made my lunch, drove the jeep on the trail, aired up the tires after the run, went to the grocery store, did a load of laundry and cooked dinner.............what a woman, ha ha   Glenn is still speechless on this.  On the 2nd picture, I wish I had had Micklick drive Glenn's jeep up on the arch and then he could have stepped out of the picture and Glenn could have thought I drove it up there.  Pretty cool picture isn't it, not much room up there.  Great time here in Moab, one of my most favorite places to be.

Moab, Utah

Whew, glad today is over.  Today was our registration for the rally, 200+ people showed up to sign in for a week of jeeping.  This is the first rally that Glenn & I have hosted and I have never hosted anything this large so was quite an experience.  The whole operation ran very smooth..........well I had appetizers for 200 people  delivered at 4:30 and the last 10 people didn't get any food.........including Glenn & me so maybe one little glitch in the system.  But everyone is happy so job well done.  Tomorrow Faith and I are taking the jeep out on a trail and Glenn is staying home, he is tired.  It is a ladies to drive run so this will be the first time I have jeeped without Glenn in the passenger seat.........hope I don't break anything.  The weather is getting warmer but the wind continues to blow, I am so ready for warm weather.  Attaching a picture of my "girls" that worked to get everyone registered and a picture of what we do at our rallys....seat, eat and drink.  Good times. 

Green Day, Moab, Ut

Sorry I have been absent for awhile but I didn't want to bore you.  We have just been here in Moab, everyday friends start arriving with their jeeps, we jeep, eat and have happy hour, life is good.

Here are a few pictures of our jeep trips.  I am afraid you can look at these and say......."Why!!"  Guess it has something to do with pushing your limits or something like that.  I get a lot of walking in that is for sure

Happy Easter, Moab

Not much going on for me to write about.  We are parked here in Moab, thankfully we are still on our spot because the bloody wind blew so hard, the motorhome rocked, the sky turned brown from dust, thought we were going to blow away!!  So needless to say my allergies are back.  So today I spent several hours cleaning the motorhome, shut and locked all the windows and turned on the air....no more fresh air for us.  So the Jeep Safari is still on, so much for Glenn to see and buy.  Next week we will start preparing for our rally.  So not much to report on, Happy hour everyday @ 4 pm sharp and visiting with our friends.

Anyway,
                              Happy Easter

                                                                      to all, especially to my favorite grand daughter, Jordyn.

Rear Window vs Kitchen Window

Remember the movie with Jimmy Stewart as he watched activity outside his window.  Well I am sitting in my kitchen and a motorhome pulls into the spot next to us.  They take out two bicycles, the Mom & daug head off to the shower and Dad & son tinker around with the bikes.  Mom & Daug come back from the shower and they load the bikes up and leave!!  OMG I think they have just used the facility for free, what a bad example to set for their children.....I think I have witnessed a crime!!  In the morning I get up and look out my kitchen window and what is this but the same motorhome that showed up that afternoon to just shower or so I thought.  So mystery solved, their motorhome was their only means of transportation so apparently they needed to clean up and then they were off on a family adventure.  Way too much imagination.

Did a pre run today on a very scenic trail, but forgot the camera.  We needed to "brush" out the trail but had 13 people out cutting and it didn't take any time to clean a long section of the trail, then we were off to explore.  Went out for Mexican food with Jerry & Sherry so really a good day.

Moab

Well we changed scenery today, moved North to Moab.  Not often do you go to a place and start running into people you know, like today at the market we ran into Jean & Sherm.  Kind of reminds me of the way I grew up, small town atmosphere here in Moab.   Moab is one of my/our favorite places to go and I am always surprised at how many people don't even know where Moab is.  This little mecca has the Colorado River for water sports, slick rock for jeeping and bicycling, all kinds of hiking trails, great bars (in Utah??) and restaurants in town and shopping, plus Arches, Canyonlands, Dead Horse Point National Parks and the LaSal Mountain Range.  This week is the Jeep Safari which is equivalent to Sturgis for motorcycles, and this is the 45th year that they have had Jeep Safari here in Moab.  People come from all over to jeep (or off road, that covers the Land Cruisers, Hummers, rock crawlers and everything else) around Moab.   There is no place like Moab to off road.   I am sure we are going to see some interesting sites this week.

Piute Pass, Blanding, Ut

Sorry I didn't blog yesterday but at the end of the day after Happy Hour and dinner I realized that one of my favorite earrings was missing.  I was sad.  The girls played Mexican Train again and I didn't win again and then we all headed down the the Trading Post where I had tried on some turquoise earrings.  This will be the start of my problem.  The exact earring that I had taken off to try on jewelry was the missing earring.  So this morning before our jeep run we went back to the Trading Post and they did not have my earring.  Just as we were leaving for the jeep run, the other Mary says, "I saw a loose gold earring and tossed it in their basket of earrings" so back in I went and Wha La, there was my earring....Now I am happy and feeling lucky!!

We did Piute Pass today, a very long trail but very scenic and had some obstacles for the guys to go over and around.  Glenn got out to spot the jeep in front of us so I thought I would drive the jeep up to him and then the next thing I know he is spotting me over the rock, even had to use lockers!!  When we got done my friend Rheta said to me, Girl you have balls!!  I will take that as a compliment.

Angel's Arch, Blanding, Ut

Back on the trail looking for DB (short for dinosaur bones) and PW (ditto for petrified wood).  Our instructions were to head East 200 yards from the main trail and it is in a flat rock next to a tree.  Excuse me but do you have any idea how many rocks around trees were out there-----100's!!  Ten of us headed out in all directions looking and as you can see in one of the pictures, it is not easy combing the countryside looking for DB's and bingo..... we did find a DB, unfortunately not the one were actually looking for but a DB is a DB and we found a huge PW log.   Finally we felt our mission was a success.  Then we took off for Arch Canyon.  This is a beautiful box canyon with many ancient Indian ruins and of course the Angel's Arch.  Ole Eagle Eye (aka Glenn)  was excellent at finding the ruins, they blend so well into the rock walls you really have to search for them.  We have now added two more jeeps to our group so we are up to 6 jeeps roaming around Blanding.  The weather was beautiful today, warm temps and very little wind, Amen to that. 

Mexican Train Day, Blanding, Ut

Today was a day off, hard to believe you need a day off when you are on vacation isn't it?  Did two loads of laundry, took a nap (my allergies are killing me) and played Mexican Train with 3 other gals.  I have never played the game, is a domino game and was fun to learn.  I didn't win but I didn't lose so I am pretty happy.  Remember the dinosaur bone we went looking for the other day?  We are not going to give up on it, in fact we are heading out again tomorrow in search of this bone.  There is also petrified wood and Indian ruins in this area......I will keep you posted on our progress!!  MM

No Dinosaur Bone Today

Four of us set out on an adventure.  Jo was in charge of following tracks that had been installed on her GPS and we were off looking for a dinosaur bone.  Well sad to report, the bone stays elusive to us.  But the whole loop was beautiful country so no worries...there is a dinosaur museum right here in Blanding so guess I will go in there and see my dinosaur bone.  Tomorrow is an off day, laundry, groceries and then we will decide if we are staying in Blanding for a few more days or moving to CanyonLands.  If we move I will not have email service so I may be absent....again.  Sunny and warm here but the wind does like to blow in this neck of the woods and consequently allergies are pretty high.  We did go into the pottery factory here in Blanding.  Was not expecting to see all the pottery being painted by stencil with air guns, oh well at least it is not made in China.......yet!!

Hotels to Bridges, Blanding, Ut

Another beautiful day in paradise.  We stopped at Hotel Rock, it was not easy feat getting there, up and over rocks, what were the Anasazi Indians thinking when  they put their home here?? They lived in this region from 1 AD thru 1300 AD!!   I find it amazing the amount of ancient ruins still standing.   From there we went to Natural Bridges Park where we saw some fabulous bridges.  Do you know the difference between a bridge and an arch?  Bridges are always formed by water where an arch is formed by wind and erosion.  They really do look alike but you must have had water present to make the bridge.  Tomorrow looks to be an interesting jeep day, hopefully we will find the dinosaur bone....I will keep you posted.

To the Moon, Mary

Well that is Moon House.  We are still in Blanding and had a "guided" tour by one of our jeep members, Jean & Sherm who have been traveling the backroads for 30+ years.  We were privileged to visit several Indian ruins, Moon House, River House, saw ancient petroglyphs and followed the Mormon trail thru this area witnessing some of the obstacles these immigrants faced----all in the comfort of our jeep!!  What a history lesson we got.  Enjoy the pictures but seeing them in person gives you a feeling of awe.

Blanding Ut, April 10, 2011 Let It Smow

OMG, it snowed here yesterday in fact it was snowing sideways because the wind was blowing so hard, burrrrrr.  Since we had nothing else to do, we all , there were 8 jeeps, headed up to Monticello, Ut and joined in a protest against BLM closing areas to motorized vehicles.  Approx 200 plus people showed up on motorcycles, quads, jeeps and we had police escort down Hwy 191 to to BLM office.  When  we got to the BLM office there were about 8 people there with their signs protesting us...they want the area closed to motorized vehicles and only accessible by foot or horse.  It was a peaceful demonstration and this is not just happening in Utah, it is happening all over the country.

More Pictures

Here are a few more pictures of our trip.

Pictures

This is our view from the camp at Monument Valley

Friday, April 8th-Blanding, Ut

Did you think we got lost?  Or dropped off the earth??  Well we could have been, no internet service or very little cell service.  We left Chino Valley, meet jeep friends at Cameron Trading Post.  From there we headed to Monument Valley, should I say Magnificent Monument Valley.  Just beautiful.  We camped right in front of the West Mitten, for years I called it the left and right Mittens but guess they are the East and West, oh well. The sunset was beautiful.   Then we headed to Mexican Hat, Utah where we did some off roading.   What spectacular views in this area.  Sad to say the Grand Canyon gets all the glory but I am telling you there are just as beautiful canyons all throughout this area.  We are now settled in Blanding for the next 7 days, will do some more off roading, playing cards/games, laundry and taking in the local flavor.  The weather has been so so.  Some good days, some fair days and some bad windy days......

Bakersfield or Bust

Traveling down beautiful Hwy 99, just joking my teeth are chattering from all the bumps.  California has the worst roads and probably the most vehicles using them.  Where does our road tax money go? 

This is the fastest I have ever packed the motorhome.  Had a girl's day with Hope & Jackie....all day Thursday, went to dinner with Sue to celebrate her birthday, got home at 9pm watched American Idol, did two loads of laundry and thought "When in the world am I going to pack the motorhome for departure on Friday"???  We pulled out of our driveway at 10am on Friday, right on schedule but I have no idea what I threw into the motorhome...........hope I didn't forget anything important!!  So would love to get to Techapai tonight and then heading to Chino Valley to visit Deb.  MM

On The Road

We are going to Oregon to have our oil changed.....who's afraid of high fuel costs.....apparently not us!!

Monday, Feb 28, 2011

My first blog, let's see how this works.  MM