Saturday (Aug 27)
It rained off and on most of the night, very hard at times. I slept very well. My spot has a pretty pronounced downhill slant. When my van is un-level I have found that the best way to sleep whichever way gets my head uphill and my feet downhill. In this case that put my head at the back of the van, which happens to be the darkest and most cocoon-like orientation. Not so great for watching the storm, but pretty great for sleeping.
Sunny and calm this morning. I wouldn’t mind some of those storm clouds still hanging around, since my parking angle catches the full morning sun.
I drop into the Visitors Center hoping for a relief map and to try to talk geology a bit. Sadly the woman manning the desk was a condescending twerp, but I did get some information on my basic question: Are the layers that comprise this rim the same as at Canyonlands? The answer is I think yes – the reddish and resistant Kayenta Formation capping the massive and very red and softer Wingate sandstone (primary aquifer of the Moab area) on top of the also reddish sand dune-y (around here) Chinle Formation. Besides, it seemed exactly the same walking through it!
I came straight to the campground last night, which is at the far north end of the park. This morning on my way out I want to do the Rim Drive. It’s a spectacular drive, the biggest excitement other than the endless view was a group of climbers on top of a lonely butte. Enlarge the picture to the right, there’s tiny people on top of that huge rock!
The down side of the Rim Drive is that it takes me backwards (south), so that when I come off the rim I’m back in stupid Grand Junction, driving around the same stupid shopping center as last night, where I end up at another stupid chain restaurant. These places look interesting on Yelp, but EVERY GJ restaurant I tried turned out to be a brain-dead chain franchise – whatdya expect from Trump-land :-| This place served breakfast sandwiches, but not coffee(!!). Likewise the (chain) Mexican place next door did not serve coffee. Simply pathetic. My breakfast sandwich was pretty good though and I scored a nice red sharpie for drawing routes on my AAA maps.
Next town north is Fruita, where I finally get my caffiene fix in the form of an Americano at the coffee place downtown. Downtown Fruita has a square, a friendly looking bar with outdoor seating, Aspen Coffee Shop (my place), and a thriving bicycle store. As a useful place for civilized activity Fruita gets way higher marks on my personal scorecard than Grand Junction.
The plan after Fruita is to head due north into the emptiness of the northwest corner of Colorado. Over the next few days make my first visit the Flaming Gorge area then on to Bear Lake. Events kinda blew up that plan, as I will relate below.
Anyway, 139 looks pretty simple on the map, but it was very long and for some reason very tiring. There is a treasure trove of ancient petroglyphs in the low hills, and so there are 6-8 BLM parking areas along the road. I am programmed to go on high alert for a sleeping spot when I see the BLM logo, but these were simple parking areas. My rule for the BLM is that if the spot has a bathroom, BLM won’t sweat you sleeping there, but if not, no sleepie!
Also, it appears to be oil country. Lots of derricks and huge white diesel pickup trucks. Eventually I do make it to Rangely and the quaint little municipal campground that Allstays promised.
WHUFU page for: Rangely Camper Park
After a surprisingly exhausting drive up Colo 139, this place is really nice ... until dark, when the security lights made site 25 uninhabitable. Nice shower!
tonight:
After a surprisingly exhausting drive up Colo 139, this place is really nice ... until dark, when the security lights made site 25 uninhabitable. Nice shower!
This place seems pretty great, at the edge of a County park. It’s a late August Saturday night, so there are at least two pretty good sized picnics going on at the group area, which is pretty close to my campsite. I took a very pretty sunset walk, up to the little ornamental pond, around the corner between the settling ponds and the White River – not much of a river this time of year. The settling ponds are kinda gross to think about, but they make for some great sunsets.
Back at the ole campsite I find that it is not too awesome at the moment. It’s now dark and the picnics are breaking up, so high powered headlights from an endless stream of diesel pickups are raking my quiet picnic table. Oh, if only I had decided to just sit tight and wait for everyone to leave, how much different the next few days would have been. But no, I decide to pick up and move over into the trees where it is darker.
I drive the 30 yards over there. The parking pads here are thick asphalt and sort of awkward to get situated on, so I end up parking, getting out and assessing, then getting back in and starting the van to angle it a little better. Did this a couple of times, then – OH HORROR, the engine is making that little noise deep in its bowels that it did at Pigeon Point a few months ago. I know how this ends, in a dead battery, and dead batteries are expensive.
I am a little drunk and have smoked a little of that super stoney Colorado pot store weed. I basically panic and start doing stupid things. Under the assumption that the noise is a rogue fan, he said that if I removed the right fuse I could shut it down til morning. So I started removing fuses. I thought I was keeping careful track of what was removed from which slot – turns out I wasn’t. Then I drove to the local gas station – a Cum’n Go (really, they do call them that) – but the only expertise there was a bored teenager running the register. I called AAA, but it turns out the only two things they will sign up to do are jump your battery or tow you. To make a long sweaty stressfull story short, eventually after leaving the engine idling for 20 minutes at the Cum’n Go the noise stopped when I turned it off.
Now it’s about 11pm and I am back at my campsite in a blessedly silent van. I take a nice long, hot campground shower to calm myself and try to fall asleep, We’ll see how much shit is still broken tomorrow.
Sunday
Quiet here on Sunday morning after the big Saturday night. My ill-fated campsite is next to the bathrooms and the dump station. A couple of fifth wheelers pulled by the obligatory noisy two-ton truck pull up to discharge their weekend loads. I am busy with my marked-up fuse diagrams trying to restore all fuses to their rightful spots. FAIL – I ended up with five homeless fuses, one of which is a 40 amp. That can’t be good. Oh well, on with the show.
Breakfast at a nice mellow place in town. Their wifi was broken, but I didn’t really need it too much. Loud biker woman reciting Breitbart talking points – Hillary in jail, ban burkhas, blah, blah, blah. Nobody else of the biker foursome was talking, so I think this is her standard act and they all just wanted her to shut up. I know I certainly did.
It is a pretty boring drive through far northwest Colorado, but I had my own excitement, taking inventory of all the many van functions, to see what I have messed up. Blessedly, all major functions – starting, stopping, headlights – re fine. The fuse toll seems to be as follows: Cruise control doesn’t work, nor do door lights and interior lights, and about five dash warning lights are on permanently – including the Emergency Brake Light. Pretty stupid. My new plan is going to have to be finding a Sprinter Repair to get me fixed up.
Stopped at the Utah Welcome Center in Jensen, the first town in Utah on this road. Also, a nice place with phone reception and internet and air conditioning to start researching Sprinter Repair. Even though it’s Sunday, I start calling around.
In addition to a handful of useful National Forest guides, this stop impressed upon me the fact that Dinosaur National Monument is very close and has a nice campground. New plan! Instead of heading north another hour and a half to the Flaming Gorge area, I drive 15 minutes up the hill to:
WHUFU page for: Green River Campground
Very hot here, tried to choose a site for morning shade. There is a nice trail up the river. Sunset against the mountains across the river is beautiful.
tonight:
Very hot here, tried to choose a site for morning shade. There is a nice trail up the river. Sunset against the mountains across the river is beautiful.
Fucking hot down here by the Green River. But as I was so looking forward to three weeks ago in the swampy weather of the midwest, I am finally in a Dry Heat! :) It’s pretty early in the day, so I have my pick of sites and score one under a huge ole cottonwood tree.
After a sweaty little campground exploration hike, I kill some time trying to get a handle on the path of the sun. More specifically, given the position of the setting sun, how can I determine where the sun will rise – i.e. where will my giant cottonwood’s shadow be? I set out a lame little stoners experiment that doesn’t help very much. Basically I think, in the morning the sun will rise as far north of due east as it is north of due west when it sets – right? I think where I get messed up is that what I really care about is where it is at 9-ish in the morning when things are really heating up but I still want to sleep. So I need to have marked where the sun is 3-ish hours before sunset. I am a smart, mathematical guy, but I keep messing this up.