Karl hits the big Six-0

Here it is days after the event and I am just getting around to blogging it for the family.  The RV park has a very slow internet and it is a long drawn out process blogging with photos, which is what I mostly do.  Excuses and whining over....

We slept in a little on the birthday and stayed closer to home, driving to the other side of Grand Junction to spend the day discovering Colorado National Monument.

Some of the geological formations had virtual earth caches attached, so that made us more purposeful in the way we looked at the place.

The spring flowers are still showing off.  I know the camera in my phone does not do them justice, but I simply can't quit trying to capture their color and appeal in the semi-arid landscap.

We left the National Park in the mid afternoon.  However, the area just outside the park is a recreational area with lots of trails and primitive roads.  We headed down McInnis Canyon road a little ways because we saw a number of caches were planted out there.  We did only one rock scramble, but it afforded us a fantastic view.

We did only one more hike/climb of any length.  It had been described as having "mucho cactus".  Now that was an understatement!  Colorado cactus is a lot sneakier than AZ cactus.  In Arizona, the cactus stands up and is counted... Colorado cactus is short and prickly and hides among rocks and hummocky mounds of other growth...sneaky.  The geocache found on this hike was incredible, size wise.  We have never seen such a huge cache.  It is one for the record books.

Ground broken and leaving...

Since Monday was the Memorial Day holiday, Huff Excavating moved onto the project site first thing Tuesday morning. By the time they got everything set up and elevations shot, they pulled 19 loads of dirt out of the building site.  On Wednesday, they had everything set and ready from the day before and doubled their earth-moving capabilities with a second excavator and additional truck and drivers.  The estimated removal was well over a hundred truckloads- possibly 130.

Contentment

A clear blue sky, cottonwood seed fluffs drift aimlessly past my window. The sound of a plane making passes heralds someone is getting their fields sprayed.  A whiff of cool air stirs the shamrock in front of the dining room window.  Birds chatter as they flit from tall trees taking care of morning business. Indeed, we are no longer city bound in the middle of a desert.

Utah x2

We spent Friday night and all day Sabbath in Utah....and I mean all day...we crossed into Colorado well after midnight.  But what a full and wonderful day.  Lots of sun and blue skies, but that made things a bit warmer than last week.  Sun screen was the order of the day and we ran into mosquitoes or similar flying pest that leave an itch behind for a souvenir, something we did not have last weekend.
Summer is on the way. Big reason we wanted to get our Utah time in as early as possible.

Our number one goal for the day, Delicate Arch

The most recognized arch in Utah (the one on the license plate) has not been reached on our previous two trips to the park due to time or heat, so it was our priority for this trip.  The one hour hike was not particularly difficult, but adding in the fact that it was our second longer hike of the day and the sun was straight up, we were pretty beat by the time we reached the top.  Worth It!

Needing a break from the sun in a treeless landscape is not impossible. Cool rock below pulls away body  heat and shade above cools the air.  A little reptilian, but it works.

Love this little arch - Sand Dune Arch.  Easy 5 minute hike in and you can get up close and personal.

We left Arches National Park around 3:00pm and headed south.  We stopped and went through the Looking Glass on our way to the Needle Overlook of Canyon Lands National Park.

It looks steep going up, but once through the Looking Glass it really looks like going down a rabbit's hole!  Nope didn't see the Mad Hatter, but felt a little like Alice when I looked over the edge.

Needles Overlook.  The needles and canyons below look miniature from a thousand feet above.

Of course, we had to check out a few geocaches on the way back to Moab, even though it was getting dark.  We grabbed some fries and shakes to go with what sandwiches and veggies we had left in the cooler once we got back into town.  After getting a couple more caches along the highway, it was really late by the time we hit the Interstate and headed east.  We pretty much collapsed when we got home, but really felt good about our 33 hour vacation!

Sunshine

After 5 days of overcast and several drippy days, the sun was out this morning and though skies had lots of big fluffy clouds, we had beautiful blue skies all day!  Now this is the Colorado I'm used to!

our eastern skyline

Last night Karl emailed the files for the building plans to a printing shop in Cedaredge (13 miles from us on the highway that goes to the top of Grand Mesa).  This afternoon we loaded up in the pickup and went to pick up the finished plans (82 pages make a very fat roll of plans).  Behind the printing place we picked up a cache at the edge of the parking lot, then drove around town a little.  They have a cute little play ground park that has a singing stream complete with footbridge.  A dead tree beside it has been utilized by a carver and is now a "totem" with a musical theme. 

Music themed totem in Cedaredge park

This is a neat little town.  The SDA church here shares our pastor in Delta and is a bit larger.  We liked coming up to visit periodically when we lived here before and will probably do so again.  (Besides, they have a whole bunch of geocaches hidden in town and we plan to have fun finding them!)

Karl re-hiding found geocache as we leave town

The destination of our longest hike of the day. Karl resting under the bottom "O" of the Double O Arch

Park Avenue from the designated overlook

Landscape Arch - great view that takes a fairly simple 2 mile round trip hike

Fabulous formations, some seen from the road or short, simi-level hiking paths, and others after hours of walking in sand, scrambling up rocks, or ascending some fairly perpendicular rock faces.

Karl checking to see if I'm okay.  Ya, ya, I'm coming, already.  I can't take photos while I'm walking.

Ooops, there he goes.  Good thing those nifty little stacks of stones marks the trail so I won't get too confused.

yep, those funky little rocks prove I'm still on the trail.

Karl checking GPS on our most difficult climb of the day.  "The Bowl" is only a few hundred feet away, but we won't be finding it from this face. That means hiking back out and trying it from another side.

Toe wedge... you've got to be kidding.  Didn't I already say I wasn't going any farther?Ah-ha. So this is the side where we were supposed to start.  Who would have thought the camp ground side and not the trail.  Go figure.  

This is what we came to see.  Info says not to go into bowl (as if!) apparently even really good climbers require ropes, etc. to get out of this hole.

That's where we were!

A cool, cloudy, breezy day spent at Arches National Park - perfect for hiking and rock climbing, not super for photos, but who cares?

kj enjoying the rewards of long hike and rock scrambling

It takes a little over 2 1/2 hours from our place in Delta to Arches.  There is so much to see and do, we only  scratched the surface.  The last time we visited it was already too late in the spring and I pooped out in the sun and heat, so we didn't do a lot of hiking.  Yesterday was perfect, in that respect, we even got a little chilling a time or two!  The wild flowers were looking good, but were a little hard to photograph in the breeze....well, this" photographer" (I use that term very loosely) will take any excuse for the way my photos turn out.  Thank goodness for digital where a simple delete destroys the evidence of most of what I shoot.

Here are the best of the lot, some still a little blurry from the breeze.

cactus alive and well in these more northern areas

my day's favorite

Changing location

May 4 found us finally loading the last bits and doing last minute maintenance on truck and RV.  We didn't pull out of our drive until after sunset, but better late than never.

Pulling out of our private RV park in our back yard

The past few months we have been doing a daily geocache but since we had been busy all day, hadn't gotten away to locate one yet.  We saw an easy find listed on the map just off the 101 on 19th, so pulled off and found it behind a Culver's.  Since we were there, we decided to have the frozen custard flavor of the day (chocolate caramel twist or some such) to top off the Chinese take-out we had eaten before leaving the house.  Spooning in the cold treat, we drove a few blocks on Deer Valley Rd. which we exited right onto I-17. Easy off, easy on...something quite valuable when you are dragging all that mass behind you!

We made it into Flagstaff without incident.  Karl always likes to get a weight on the rig when we are loaded for a new venture, so we headed for the Little America truck stop scales - 29,875#!  We filled with diesel, drove to the back lot and parked with the "big boys" for the night.  A good night's sleep between purring big rigs made us ready for Monday morning. Driving across the scales showed we have either learned how to do this better or we've left something out for we were 600 lbs. lighter than all previous moves.

A few months ago we bought a geocaching travel bug we named "Route 66" and placed on a key chain with the U.S. highway Route 66 symbol.  Wanting to launch it from a Route 66 commemorative cache, we headed for a short string of them located where we could get close with our rig. By the time we had dropped off our "bug" and logged into 3 more caches, I was more than ready for breakfast, so we headed for a trusty Cracker Barrel (they always have pull-through parking for tour buses and RV's).

The brakes had been behaving poorly the evening before, so Karl decided to check it before we left the parking lot.  Oh, my.  He isolated an electrical short on the trailer brakes with no easy fix.  Well, the 5th wheel RV doubles as a moving van when we head for a new location, so with a bit of shuffling and a little unloading, our corner of the by now deserted Cracker Barrel back lot was turned into a mechanic's shop.

trouble shooting under dash

...and under he goes

Four hours later we were up and running again.  As the last light of Monday disappeared, we pulled into Bluff, UT.  Time to get out and stretch.  Old Fort Bluff was just a shadow. They must roll up the streets of this little town before dark, because no one was stirring, not even a mouse.  Well... lights were on in the houses, but there was no one out and about.  Oh, well.  We parked on the street in front of the old fort site which is across from the little post office and the fire barn. A sign said there was a library, but not sure just where that might have been.  We walked the deserted side streets, found a cache next to the street on the back side of the old fort, breathed in the crisp night air and crawled back into the truck cab ready to head out again.

We repeated the process again when we drove through Blanding, UT.  Then we really got serious about finding somewhere to park for the night.  We had about decided that Moab was our best bet when we came around the corner leading to Hole in the Rock and saw the Rest Area sign which reminded us of this really nice facility.  Sure enough, as we slowed down to turn in we saw a motor home and three big rigs bedded down for the night.  We pulled along side and thankfully fell into our bed.

good morning world

..and another photo

In the morning, Karl thought he recalled there being a cache in this rest area.  Sure enough, after looking it up, we found the coordinates and made an easy "find" getting a little walk and some sweet morning air at the same time.  He wanted pictures to post on the TB website, so that took a little while, but finally we got on the road and rolled into Moab 20 minutes later for a welcomed breakfast.

We made our way to our final destination in easy stages, stopping for 3 more caches along I-70 before leaving the interstate at Grand Junction, CO.  Rolling into Delta mid afternoon, we had plenty of time to set up our site at the RV park before night fall. Home Sweet Home!

logging in at CO state line cache

one of the great sculptures at welcome center