After Gunnison

Well, I finally have wireless, phone and electricity and time, so, I’ll continue the stories of our travels. 
On August the 18th, we headed out to Stagecoach State Park outside of Steamboat Springs overnighting at Leadville. On Sunday,  19th  we arrived at the park on the Stagecoach Reservoir.
Of course being a State Park, we had electric, but no water or sewer.  and of course, no phone or internet.
Bob took some down time the first day.
On Monday morning,  we headed out to check things out and to move the rig to have a view of the reservoir.
I commented that we didn’t have phone, but we did, we just had to climb up a hill to get reception.
The weather was not the best, but we did get out in the kayaks at least one day.  Most of the time was spent exploring the area. I wasn’t as impressed with the town of Steamboat Springs as I had when Mom and I took Dee and a friend there the summer of 1984.

  This was taken from the other side of the reservoir from the campground by the dam. The reservoir was lower because the Town of Steamboat had bought water in order to keep the tourist attraction of white water rafting open.
On Wednesday, it rained, so we decided to go to the Strawberry Park Hot Springs.  You can either hike there or take a 4 wheel drive road.  We had planned on hiking, but due to the rain, decided to drive.


  These Springs were both natural, but contained.  The bottom was rock and sand.
The later it got, the more it rained, but we were wet anyway.
  

That’s Bob behind the water.

  I was there too.




On Thursday, we drove the Scenic Drive from Yampa to Meeker.  We didn’t drive the entire road, but supposedly took a shortcut back.  Ended up being 8 hours of driving.  The scenery was beautiful.   
    



  The skies were still cloudy, and there was smoke that was from the fires in Idaho.

Since we drove so much on Thursday, We were just going to stay put on Friday and Saturday and if pretty, go out in the Kayaks.  Plans have a way of changing and Bob’s Mom, Marie had some medical problems, so Friday Morning we packed up and drove to Salt Lake, really to Provo and left the rig at the KOA there.  Took a flight out of Salt Lake to Seattle on Saturday morning.  We were there a week, taking Marie to the doctor a couple of times and making sure she was stable.  Of course, she bounced right back and is doing great.

We flew back to Salt Lake and to the rig Provo on Saturday, Sept. 1,  washed clothes and headed out on Sunday morning.   We made it to Capitol Reef and dry camped in the National Park.  Of course no phone or internet, but only $5. with my Senior Pass. On the way down we had a call from Emeritus, Maries’ care center that she had fallen and broke her nose.  So we had to drive back up 10 miles to Torrey for phone service.  Capitol Reef was beautiful and we a couple of good hikes and some scenic  drives.


   








Had to move on two days early in order to get to a park that we had phone and internet.  Marie fell 3 times in one day.  This is one place we will go back to.

On Tuesday, we drove to Moab to visit the Canyonlands National Park, the Islands in the Sky part anyway. Wednesday we headed out for a short day.   You either took short hikes or really long ones, so we were only able to get in 3 or 4 hikes of  1.5 or 2 miles each.

    




We also took a long scenic drive down Shafer Road.
It tuned out to be a really long day, but we did make it down to the Colorado River
and to Potash just north of Moab.
We decided not to take the White Rim Road around the canyon since it was only 113 miles long, all 4 wheel drive. 

Thursday, Sept. 6th, we moved the rig the 50 miles down to Monticello to visit the Needles portion of the Canyonlands.  I think the trip  to Seattle and everything finally caught up with us, especially Bob, he caught a stomach bug, so we had enforced rest for 2 days.  The park in Monticello was much cheaper than Moab, but we still had phone and wi-fi.  Of course, we’ve checked on Marie everyday and she’s doing great now.  If we get out of phone range again, I’m expect something will happen, so we’re making an effort to stay in contact.
On Saturday, we finally felt better so headed out to the Needles.  The first stop was at Newspaper Rock.  See for yourself why it has that name.


We didn’t take any off road trips on this one because most of the roads were closed due to rain and water damage.  We took several more short hikes.  Probably only 6 miles or so.

 
  


I’m sending this from Page, AZ.  We came in here yesterday, Sunday the 9th and will head out tomorrow, straight to Bryce National Park to visit Kathy and Nan who are camp hosting there this summer.  After that it’s St. George, UT and pickleball for a month before Happy Trails.