We’ll be here about four or five days. There is lots to see in the area!
APRIL 15, 2014. We arrived at the KOA Campground near Bryce Canyon National Park this evening. It’s a nice campground…trees and grass, breathtaking red rock backdrop, a little store and laundry facilities…nice folks, happy kids. I’d give it a B+ anyway. We decided to stay six nights, as so frequently moving from one spot to the next is becoming too “choppy.” It’s a dilemma , when you think about it. On the one hand, we’re retired and as I stated early on in this blog: “What’s the rush?” On the other hand, if we don’t keep up a certain pace, we’ll never make it across America. And that, of course, is the plan.
It was a short drive today, but our reality is that it takes an entire day to move RV locations, whether we drive 40 miles or 400 miles. It’s uncanny. No matter how short a drive, the RV has to be “buttoned up” before blast-off and at the destination location it has to be unbuttoned: TV satellite dish up, sewer hose down, electric cable installed, Jeep unhooked, slides put out, chairs and bbq out of the basement bins…the list goes on and on. Then there’s the inevitable “hiccup” of one type or another that occurs along the way. . Either the GPS is acting up and we make a wrong turn, there is road construction that causes a delay, we linger a little longer than planned at a neat little lunch spot we’ve found…something always occurs.
Read about our gas tank door issue. Something always turns a short travel-day drive from a short one into a longer one!
INEVITABLE DRIVING DAY DELAYS: Today’s travel-day-hiccup was a problem with the exterior cover to our gas tank area. Here’s what happened: We were careening down the road, making pretty good time, when Florence noticed from her passenger side rear view mirror that the cover to our gas tank was flapping in the breeze. Oh, great! We pulled over to the side of the road to assess the situation and found that we’d lost a metal screw that holds the cover to the frame. Big problem, because the “screw hole” was stripped. We were literally in the middle of nowhere and had to do some temporary repair. I’d still be standing there by the side of the road but Florence made a quick fix. I don’t know how the girl does it! She found an old discarded piece of rubber by the side of the road…a watch band I think. She cut it, placed a little piece behind the screw hole and was able to get the screw to “hold” at least temporarily. Then, we put some good looking duct tape over the bin area and off we went. See the picture below. We looked a little like the TV show Clampitts, but at least we saved the flap. Judging from our experience so far about replacement parts and painting, we’d probably have been out $2,500 if we’d lost the flap! Our budget doesn’t allow for things like that!
THE CAMPGROUND HERE AT BRYCE: The KOA is located in a little town called Cannonville. It’s gateway to Bryce, The Grand Staircase – Escalante National Monument, Kodachrome Basin State Park, Escalante Petrified Forest State Park and other top notch recreation areas. You can see this on the map in my last post. There’s too much to see in just a few days, but we got some great sightseeing suggestions and maps from the Campground manager. When she saw our Jeep, she gave us a special map with what she described as absolutely unbelievable drives which only can be made in a 4 wheel drive vehicle. That’s us!
One of the thousands of “hoodoos” at Bryce Canyon. A hoodoo is also called a tent rock, or a fairy chimney. It has a totem-pole shaped body. I never took Geology in College, but seeing this almost makes me want to audit a course at some University one day in the future.
POETRY IN STONE. Here’s what we’re looking forward to seeing in the next few days. “Bryce Canyon’s serene vistas are deceptive; the landscape is never static. Stand at the rim in early morning and experience the chilly dawn, crystalline blue sky and rocks ablaze with the ruddy light of sunrise. After breakfast, walk the rim and your shifting perspective dramatically recomposes the scene below. The Sun arcing across the sky casts a kaleidoscope of slowly altered hues and shifting shadows over the land. You peel off layers of clothing as the air rapidly warms…as much as 40 degrees from dawn to late afternoon. Thin air can leave you short of breath. The high elevation that causes these effects also creates the climate that weathers the cliffs and bulbous columns called hoodoos. After sunset, as the chill returns, listen through the advancing twilight for the faint clatter or murmur of the stones tumbling in the distance. At Bryce Canyon the forces of weathering and erosion never rest, not even for a day. This dynamic, mesmerizing place is like no other.” (From a National Park Service brochure.)
IT’S FREEZING OUTSIDE, LITERALLY. Wow! When I entered the passage in the foregoing paragraph…one I’d swiped from a NPS brochure, I didn’t pay too much attention to the part describing the temperature swings in this part of the world. When we arrived early this evening, it was warm…I’d guess mid-70’s. It’s now about midnight and the temperature will for sure drop to freezing tonight. Reminds me of our experience months ago in Sedona. (See my posts dated December, 2013.) For a guy like me who wears shorts 365 days a year, this weather is tough! Better get some sleep. We’ve got lots of jeep’n to do in the morning!
Our Campsite at Bryce Canyon KOA.
The road leading to the KOA Campground at Bryce. That’s right…there’s snow on the peaks.
Picnic area near our campsite. See the deer?
See her now? She’s moulting…getting ready for Spring and Summer.
