Climbers on Mexican Hat Rock 5-9-08

On our walk to Mexican Hat Rock we saw a few cars bouncing along the dirt roads to get to the Rock. Only one drove as close to the base as they could get. We were about two thirds of the way there when we thought we could see something under the "hat" way up there! I used the telephoto on my camera and sure enough two people were up there. As we got closer a couple that had binoculars told us that the people up there were getting ready to climb the rock. Sure enough...why anyone feels the need to climb a perfectly good, very high rock is beyond me! Larry noticed a pony tail on the person doing the climbing and sure enough it was a crazy woman; climbing a rock in WHITE capri pants....I mean really WHITE when climbing rocks?! It took her about a half hour, but she did it. Then her partner climbed up after her and it took him about 5 minutes. Crazy people!

Guard dog at Mexican Hat Rock 5-8-08

Now we are back in Fallon it is just the same old daily stuff. Going to Wal-mart, cooking beans in the crockpot, and hauling in more stuff from the trailer...Larry fixed the trajectory of the sprinklers and then spent hours spraying weed killer on all the weeds springing up. BORING. But I still have some pictures to share with you all.

On our return hike from Mexican Hat Rock I looked up at the ridge and noticed the guardian of the valley, a lovely dog. He might be hard to see in the first picture, but you'll certainly see him in the close-ups. Isn't he cute!?

Back in Fallon 5-7-08

We were going to get on the road early, but Larry helped our neighbor track down a little problem with his “air” brakes. We didn’t get going until 8:20 or so.

West on 50, Northern Nevada has many mountain ranges. We climbed 12 summits today. The last three were around 4,600 feet and the rest were in the 6 to 7,000 foot level. Most of the snow was gone, just large patches and it was windy today. The clouds kept getting blacker and we hit several downpours along the way. The rain-fresh smells were wonderful, and the sage was especially strong.

We traveled 267 miles today and landed in Fallon around 1:40. We stopped at the Fairgrounds so Larry could dump the tanks and then headed for the house. We got the trailer parked, Larry cut the lawn and then we unloaded most of the essentials, we’ll finish tomorrow.

We were going to hit the road again in about 2 weeks, but our lawn was neglected so badly by the tenant and ultimately the Property Manager that we are going to stay here for a bit and see if we can get it revived with fertilizer and seed so we’ll have to be here to water it and baby it along.

I expected the surfaces of the furniture to be gray with dust with being gone a month, but this house is nice and tight and without us in it the house stayed really clean!

Back in Nevada 5-6-07

Today we were on the road by 8:26. We continued west on 24 from Hanksville, we made a few stops in Capitol Reef National Park to enjoy the scenery. We had to rock climb down a slope to see this waterfall….ooowee, I am out of shape…gotta start building up the quads.

Where 24 met I70 we crossed 70 and continued north to pick up 50. We had to go south on 15 for a small bit and then back to 50 west. Not a lot of traffic on any highway we were on today except for I15 and that wasn’t even bad.

Thunder clouds built up in the afternoon and we had a cloud burst on us in Utah before we crossed over into Nevada. We crossed the state line at 3:10 Mountain time and had to switch to Pacific time. This picture is heading west just crossing into Nevada.

We decided to land in Ely, Nevada for the night. We got in at 3:45 Pacific time and we traveled 339 miles today. We are staying in the RV Park at the Prospector Hotel and Gambling Hall. We had a nice dinner in their little Café.

Utah is a gorgeous state. We climbed at least 5 summits today and the highest was 8,385 feet, the rest were in the 6 and 7,000 feet levels. Even at these high elevations and the patches of snow on the ground it was still warm, in the 70’s. A couple of those summits were in Nevada; Nevada’s eastern mountains are pretty too, lots of Juniper trees.

I’m sorry this sounds like a boring book report, I am trying to get it composed during commercials of the Dancing with the Stars show that we love and I keep losing my flow and train of thought. Again today we just traveled through a lot of beautiful country and tomorrow we get to travel the Loneliest Highway in America, ALL day long, US Highway 50 back to Fallon.

Utah's Stunning Landscape 5-5-08

This morning we hit the road at 8:25. It was warmer here than we expected. We headed north on 163 and then just before Bluff it turned into 191 and then we headed west on 95 just below Blanding.

Another day of head swiveling gawking at the awe inspiring scenery! Every turn in the road revealed something new or gave you a changing perspective of the towering formations. The red parts of the countryside was so red it almost hurt the eyes...its contrast with the green of the brush and the blue of the sky, stunning.

We took a short hike to see some Anasazi ruins just after we picked up 95. They were an amazing society and very smart building their communities within these large caves.

We stopped at the bridge that crossed Lake Powell, which is actually the Colorado River. I'll post more pictures of today's beauty later.

I took almost 300 pictures today. I am experimenting and lowered the resolution of this entries photos...it really speeds up the posting process!

We landed in Hanksville, Utah for tonight. We got in here at 2:22. It is just a gas station, and a restaurant/RV Park...at least that's all we've seen. We traveled around 175 miles today and made a couple of stops to hike around and sight-see.

Just the Highlights! 5-4-08

Today we decided not to travel; it was supposed to be cloudy with a chance of rain where we were heading and with it being a scenic drive we decided to wait until tomorrow so we could hopefully see the scenery.

We decided to hike out to the Mexican Hat Rock. Two crazy people climbed the rock while we were roaming around the bottom. We were gone over 3 hours and I took 156 pictures. Thank God for digital cameras and computers is all I can say. We Google Earthed our route when we got back and with sidetrips we kept taking to see blooming cactus and or to climb a hill so we could get a better view we walked over 5 miles. I am glad I wore my long sleeved denim shirt...no sun burn, I remembered my hat...no heat stroke and we remembered to grab our water...no heat exhaustion! A Stunningly, Gorgeous day. We are glad we decided to stay another night here and take a walk....this area, wow...every time you look someplace different there is more beauty to take in!

Then...now you gotta love the Universe....after we got back to the RV Park, just seconds after we cleared the frontage road we were walking on, we heard this god-awful noise; a Semi truck was going too fast, lost the road on the curve and screeched onto the little road where we had just been standing. He didn't tip or jack knife....he sat a few seconds, backed up and then continued on his way....another WOW for us…we weren’t still standing there!

Lucky Us....for sooo many reasons....for being able to be here, for not getting squished, for being healthy enough to hike out and see all that beauty and for having each other....Wow. Just a stupendous, LIFE IS GOOD day!

This is just a brief synopsis, I have more to tell and lots of pictures to share, but I have run out of time today to get it all put together. Tomorrow will be another travel day and more pictures, so it may be that I post the stories and pictures over the next couple weeks as I get the time.

Traveling to Mexican Hat, Utah 5-3-08

We had a long day today. We left Tijeras at 9:20, fueled up and hit the road. We took 40 west and in Albuquerque picked up 25 north. Going through cities makes me anxious and I’m not the one doing the driving. About 15 miles north of Alb. we picked up highway 550 north. It was a nice four lane highway with gorgeous scenery, but no good places to ever pull out to gawk at the views.

East of Bloomfield, NM we crossed the Continental Divide, it's elevation was 7,380 feet.

In Bloomfield we stopped and fueled up and Larry was ticked that $3.999 was good. He believes we shouldn’t be paying over $1.00 a gallon for diesel and the fact that when we hit the road four years ago it was under $2.00 and when it hit $2.00 he was cranky, so you can imagine how much I’ve heard about the fuel prices over the last four years! He’s right though. May of last year it went over $3.00 and in less than a year we were paying over $4.00. Just this year it went up fifty seven cents! We are amazed at how many people don’t realize the direct connection between the rising fuel costs and the rise in groceries and other things.

Any way, back to today, we picked up 64 west and checked out Farmington. There are a lot of oil fields here and that surprised us, so Farmington was very industrial with lots of businesses connected to oil, energy and hardware. It was bigger than expected and their Main Street was kind of cute.

We stopped at the Safeway there to pick up a few things. A homeless looking man asked Larry for some money…I carried on into the store and got started with the shopping. Larry came to the door and told me he was staying with the truck…so I knew something about the guy out there made Larry uncomfortable. I finished my shopping and as I head around the side where we parked the rig a Police Unit was stopped in the driveway. I wasn’t sure if I should continue on to the truck, but Larry saw me and didn’t indicate I shouldn’t keep going. The cop had a guy handcuffed and laying face down on the sidewalk….interesting.

After Larry refused the man any money the guy walked around our trailer and Larry kept an eye on him. The guy checked out a parked car and walked over behind our trailer again and picked up a big rock. Larry called 911 and while he was on the phone the guy leans nonchalantly against the car and then tries to break the window with the rock. I put the groceries away, Larry talked to the cop and then we headed on west! Farmington did not give us a warm fuzzy feeling!

There was an RV Park in Shiprock, but after scoping it out, there wasn’t anyone in the office, we decided to keep on trucking…not a warm fuzzy place either. The Shiprock formation looked more like a castle to us than a ship, I didn't get a very good photo of it, it was on Larry's side of the truck.

Most of the day we were at high altitudes, six to seven thousand plus feet. We crossed into Arizona and then picked up 160 west until we came to 191 north into Utah and then we picked up 163 south to Mexican Hat.

Mexican Hat is a teeny town next to the Mexican Hat Rock. The RV Park is small and behind a store/restaurant combo, but WOW, what scenery! It is just a short walk down the hill to the San Juan River. It is a big, swift river that flows into Lake Powell, which is the Colorado River damned up.

I took about two hundred pictures! Some were blurry of course taking them out the window of the moving truck, but most were good. Utah has the most stunning scenery, but then I love rocks! I also love flowers and there are a lot of wildflowers blooming everywhere.

We got into the RV Park at 5:30 and we had traveled 333 miles today. Our necks were sore with all the swiveling we did to catch sight of all the great scenery! LOL! Most of the first pictures are in New Mexico, but don't hold me to it! The lizards were here in Mexican Rock, Utah...they don't want to be thought of as New Mexican Lizards!

These last pictures are all here at Mexican Rock, one is of the RV Park from down below and the red/orange wall of rock is what I can see here from my window. The San Juan River flows at the base of those red rocks. It’s a good thing rocky scenery isn’t noisy or we wouldn’t get any sleep tonight!

Heading North 5-2-08

We left around 9:30. We headed North on highway 54. At Corona we headed North West on highway 42. At Willard we picked up 41 North to Interstate 40 West to our destination at Tijeras, which is east of Albuquerque. It was sunny and very windy. It is about 20 degrees cooler up here than down at Alamogordo. We traveled 189 miles. We had to take a 6 mile detour because of road destruction which Larry figured cost us about $3.00. We stayed at this park 2 years ago almost to the day. Most all of the countryside we covered was pretty boring and a lot of nothing. I didn't even take any pictures. Now I'm tired so this entry is pretty boring. We'll be on the road again tomorrow. G'Night.

Waiting out the Wind 5-1-08

We decided to hang here another day, maybe two because of the winds. The winds are very strong here and stronger yet where we were heading so we decided to wait for better weather. We aren't in any hurry and who needs the unnecessary stress?!

This sunset picture was from a couple days ago.